Source : Globe & Mail

Everybody loves to gripe about the CBC. It's the sophisticated thing to do. And it's fashionable to say that you really don't miss it, and that the fill-in programming now is even better than the real programming before. No more Promo Girl! What a relief.

Well, Promo Girl has got to go. So does that smug, superior jerk who does The Voice. By the way, is it a formal job requirement for all CBC journalists to believe that the United States is the original source of all the evil on Earth? (On the other hand, judging by the people who call in to Cross-Country Checkup, the vast majority of the CBC's audience shares that view).

The CBC can be both parochial and ridiculously arcane. It has current-affairs producers who've never been to Calgary. On the other hand, it has a weird desire to bring us uplifting stories about weaving co-ops in Ghana. Its Rolodex of experts lists heavily to the left. Worst of all, whenever somebody decides the programming isn't diverse enough, it makes us listen to rap poets before breakfast.

The trouble is, I miss it. Life without the CBC is a big wasteland. At the very least, it is a sharp reminder of the wall-to-wall banality that is commercial radio. Not that I have anything against inane phone-in shows, jock talk, terrible pop music or irritating commercials that are often dressed up as editorial content. Some commercial phone-in hosts are very good. But the people who phone them are even more alarming than the ones who phone the CBC. On top of that, there is an ad for a certain old-age home that, if I hear it one more time, may cause me to euthanize myself.

People love to dump on the Mother Corp. for being fat and inefficient. But the fat days are largely gone (trust me; I have friends and relatives who work there). And without the CBC, Canadian news programming would be a race to the bottom. Want foreign news through Canadian eyes? Forget it. Half the journalists on the other networks would be out of jobs, and the rest would be busy chasing runaway brides.

CBC-bashers argue that its ratings are so low it doesn't deserve all that taxpayer support. CBC Radio gets only about 10 per cent or 12 per cent of the English-language radio audience. On TV, Canadian Idol is way more popular than Peter Mansbridge. But so what? Mass always outdraws class.

The CBC is pitched to people with a flicker of interest in the world and an IQ above room temperature, which automatically excludes a good half the population. It's supposed to be specialty programming. It specializes in Canada. No private broadcaster will ever do that. As for ratings -- well, if you want to find out where the hustle for ratings leads, just check out CNN. In between natural disasters, CNN is runaway brides from end to end.

The current lockout is partly a result of what happens when people are fighting over crumbs of resources at the margins. Ottawa's contribution to the CBC's annual budget is less in absolute dollars ($937-million this year) than it was 15 years ago. That amounts to about $30 a person, which is a fraction of what the BBC receives. And, partly, it's a result of stupidity and pigheadedness on both sides. CBC president Robert Rabinovitch (whose wife once shouted "My husband is tough!" at a crowd of locked-out CBCers in Quebec) should be the biggest public advocate for the CBC. But he's been mostly missing in action.

Is Mr. Rabinovitch the best person for the job? Nobody knows, because he's a patronage appointment -- that is, an Ottawa insider and Friend of Liberals. I have nothing against him. But the CBC is far more important than, say, a railway, and it shouldn't be run like one. It deserves better.

Meantime, here's a plea from the wasteland. Bring back Mary Lou! Bring back Rex! Bring back Peter, and Michael Enright and Eleanor Wachtel and Andy Barrie and Don Newman. I gripe about the CBC as much as you do, but I'm a junkie and I need my fix.

There's really only one good thing about this lockout, and that's Susan Marjetti. That woman's a star! She's wasted in management. They should demote her back to hosting, and give Promo Girl her job.

© Globe & Mail