Veteran foreign correspondent and fill-in anchor on the flagship newscast "The National" Brian Stewart is leaving the beleaguered Canadian pubcaster on July 31, although he will continue to write a column for the net's web site:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gBSo-PpCKJwr8j3cBftVy-X0T8VQ The CBC has been facing a lot of cost-cutting, a hostile Conservative government that considers it a bunch of pinko Commies, losing the Olympics to commerical CTV (and sister cable channel TSN) after carrying them for decades and fallout from a recent format change on its Radio 2 network that replaced most of the net's classical music programming with Canuck-centric AAA (called by the highbrows "dumbing down" and "pandering to youth"--never mind that AAA is probably the oldest-skewing rock music format next to oldies) and the balancing act that a publicly-funded net that also takes advertising on television has to face between public service and attracting viewers, made difficult by the fact that it pretty much can't air U.S. series in prime time by government fiat. Last year, to prove to the Tories that it was offering programming that the public wanted to watch, the CBC bought "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" after they'd been off of national Canadian TV for a few years (CTV dropped them, no doubt because of their older demos) to much screaming and wailing from the press and pressure groups. The shows, predictably, are among the CBC's highest-rated shows ("Jeopardy!" even airs in early prime time, presumably because Alex Trebek has retained his Canadian citizenship), but to quiet things down the CBC has dropped for the fall Martha Stewart and "Simpsons" reruns, which I think they'd been carrying as long as the package has been in North American syndication (I believe that they also carried "The Simpsons" first-run until forced to give it up). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
