August 23rd, 2005

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Radio Zero - II

The Zerb writes,

Some workers fear that, by competing with CBC, they’ll be signing their own death warrant. That’s the more pessimistic view. I believe it will show CBC that there are other ways to reach Canadians — especially those hard-to-reach young Canadians — that have eluded CBC management until now.
antonia zerbisias

Now, if the CBC workers had a little wit - and admittedly the Zerb is writing from Toronto where the locked out MotherCorp employees are just getting around to going online - they would realize that the death of the CBC could be a tremendous opportunity. At this point the dead hand of a management incapable of displeasing its political masters in the Liberal Party cannot make a serious move towards actually creating a vibrant, interesting CBC. So why not sell the assets and then, for services which are deemed essential - and there are damned few of those - contract with current employees to produce the material as arm’s length suppliers.

The point is that there is a world wide scramble to get out of old media. The CBC is the closest to dead tree media you can have without actually printing things. Time for a radical downsizing, disintermediation and freeing of the talents locked in the fatal embrace of the Frum Center.

Written by jay on August 23rd, 2005 with no comments.
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Radio Zero

Peter Tupper has an excellent article up at Tyee on the locked out CBC workers using podcasts and the net to continue to keep the CBC alive.

Labour disputes usually involve workers separated from the means of production. In the information economy, the means of production is the same as the workers, who take their names and their skills with them when they strike or are locked out. Digital technologies like mini-disc recorders, personal computers and the Internet make it possible to create and distribute media to the world for next to nothing.
the tyee

Now you know what’s coming….how come we’re paying 1.5 billion dollars a year for a service which a couple of guys with a digital recorder and an iPod can replicate. And no points for mentioning television. Once Hockey Night in Canada is back up the entire television network could be shrunk down to that essential Canadian bit and, for another $1,000,000 a year I suspect Grapes would be happy to read the news after the game.

No, seriously, why are we spending the money? Is anyone missing the CBC?…Anyone?

Written by jay on August 23rd, 2005 with 9 comments.
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