Source : Globe & Mail

The response to my last column, about the planned evisceration of CBC's Radio 2, was overwhelming - bigger than any response to anything I have ever published in a newspaper (yes, beating out both porn and grammar). My inbox is so swamped I must apologize in advance to all those I would like to reply to individually; I won't be able to, but I learned a great deal about the country from the stories and the cris de coeur I received. Out of around 250 e-mails I received last week, exactly one was in favour of the planned changes to Radio 2. The rest were passionate - a mixture of fury and heartbreak. That looks like a majority to me. There is a real sense of outrage in this country that a great and useful institution is being ruined.

In this, my readers' reaction is identical to the reaction of CBC listeners who have been commenting on the coming changes on the CBC's blog. This blog, which asks for your views on the plans, can be found at http://www.insidethecbc.com/r2sept (although usually comment threads are closed after seven days). At the time of this writing, there are 227 comments, and only one of those could be interpreted to be in favour of the cancellations. That makes 226 that are fiercely - and boy, I do mean fiercely - opposed. This is an astounding landslide of opinion for an Internet debate, where usually extremists from two sides slag it out in an unwinnable war. To see such a one-sided debate online is almost unheard of.

Several points recur in the angry reaction to the overhaul. A frequent one is a sense of outrage at what, if any, consultation process was used - with the listeners to the station, who are also the owners of the station - in deciding that they preferred light pop and jazz over classical music. In fact, there was extensive research and surveying done before these decisions were made: Four years ago, the directors of Radio 2 commissioned a study of preferences of Canadians in television, radio and online media; they also interviewed 40 "key influencers" in art and culture in the country (presumably from the worlds of both popular and erudite entertainment), as well as important musical directors; they did a telephone survey of 2,000 people across the country about their musical preferences, and they did follow-up research with selected Radio 2 listeners, although I'm not sure how many they were. It's unfortunate that none of my angry correspondents were included in any of these surveys, but that's the statistical risk of all surveys.

In an interview with me, the director of English CBC Radio, Jennifer McGuire, and the director of music programming, Mark Steinmetz, were insistent that the new pop programming will not be all middle of the road, that it will be diverse and challenging. The truth of this will be seen in the fall. The point remains that there will far fewer hours of free classical music available to Canadians than there were a year ago, and that this has distressed a large number of people. Interestingly - talk about diversity! - both the age and region of my correspondents varied widely.

Now, there are two common criticisms of a government-funded classical-music station: one, that it is elitist because it appeals only to the educated or privileged, and two, that it is irrelevant in the modern world because it can appeal only to the old. My readers, and the complainants to the CBC's own website, prove both these conjectures wrong. My correspondents included a fair number of university professors and trained classical musicians, yes (as does the listenership of the CBC). But they were far outnumbered by the people who work in car dealerships or in boring offices, and who love serious music just as much as any bespectacled Torontonian.

Those who were the most passionate in their lamentations for this lifeline to challenging culture were those who lived in small towns or in the country. Over and over, they reminded me that, without public radio and in the absence of any regular music-appreciation classes in the public-school system, there was nowhere, absolutely nowhere, for them to ever hear symphonic, opera, choral or chamber music (or any discussions thereof).

Some of these stories were quite moving. One woman told me that she grew up on a farm and first heard an opera on CBC Radio at age 13. It changed her life, she said, and she has been interested in music ever since. Isn't that a perfect CBC story - exactly the kind we like to hear on Sounds Like Canada? Isn't that exactly what the CBC is for?

As for age, I heard from people in their teens, 20s and 30s who were desperate to hear more challenging music. (Contrary to common belief, Radio 2 is not attempting to lure a "younger demographic." If they were, they wouldn't be programming so much soft pop and light jazz. Radio 2 is targeting middle age.) The most common question asked of me was, "What can we do?" I suspect the answer is, at this point, not a lot; the decisions have been made and they are generally supported at the higher echelons of the CBC. But it's worth making some kind of last-ditch effort. So, first, contact audience relations at CBC online (http://www.cbc.ca/contact), or write to Audience Relations, CBC, P.O. Box 500 Station A, Toronto, M5W 1E6. There is a Facebook group already in existence (yeah, so much for old fogeys) called Save Classical Music at the CBC, which already has more than 5,000 members. (That's reason enough to join Facebook.) And you can sign several petitions protesting the changes at http://radio2forum.ca. Make the same arguments to them that you made to me: Explain to them why it is important that people in isolated communities should have more access to the greatest and most challenging music.

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