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Shame on the CBC for canceling Search Engine

Posted on | June 22, 2008 | No Comments

I was quite taken aback as I drove down the Trans Canada listening to “Search Engine”
this past Thursday to hear that the show was being canceled. As many devoted listeners,
I was immediately angered and perplexed by this. Then I thought, “Ah, this IS the CBC
after all!”. If ever there was a management group who just doesn’t get it, it’s at the
CBC.

I had been pleasantly surprised with some of the programming decisions at the CBC
over the last 12-14 months. It started with the afternoon replacement of that terrible mess
of a show, Freestyle with the excellent Q with Jian Ghomeshi. Then, with the introduction
of Search Engine and Spark to add to the already superb The Current, I thought, “Wow, the CBC
is really turning a corner here!” I should have know better. What a difference a few months makes.

In the winter, they truncated Q by half an hour, assuming those of us in Nova Scotia
would opt for another hour of mind-numbing local programming on Mainstreet instead.
It’s a good enough “drive home” show, but dear God, I think it’s at least 12 hours long now,
and checking in with everybody who is going to be on air in the next 15 minutes, or giving a
blow-by-blow account of a strawberry shortcake dinner in Berwick is not going to win new young
listeners.

It is precisely these new younger listeners that the CBC is continuing to alienate while
it simultaneously yearns so desperately for them. Are there two departments working counter
to each other at the CBC? One group comes up with forward-thinking ideas like
Radio 3, Burn, QTube, and making so much content available as podcasts,
while the old guard makes sure the corporation stays solidly irrelevant to the youth of
the country?

Crippling Jesse Brown’s ability to do his new podcast to the high standard
we’ve come to expect from Search Engine is insulting to him and to his listeners. It is laughable
that the [poor] decision makers at the CBC think they are somehow better supporting the show
and the information it provides by spreading its stories across a range of programs. Great, now all
we have to do is listen all day in hopes of hearing the information we want! I am at a loss to think
of how it is an improvement to look for a story on Chinese Internet censorship wedged between a
unicyclist in Cape Breton, and Sheila Rogers’ six millionth trip north! This move is nothing but a sad appeasement, and will only serve to dilute the effect.

I am not a social media expert, so I won’t presume to lecture on “living inside the fishbowl” and
how the converted need to find a way to get the rest of the people who should know better to change
the way they do things. There are people who do this very well, and that brings me to my request of
the CBC. Before you make any more mistakes that will cost you more of your previously captive
audience to three things:

  • Start following what Joseph Jaffe has to say. Read his books, read his blog, listen to his
    podcasts, pay for him to visit!
  • Read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. The market is becoming MORE fragmented toward niche interests, not getting hungry for a one-size fits all program.
  • Call fellow Canadian, Mitch Joel at Twist Image. He’s been interviewed by the CBC before
    so you have his number! Mitch is a listener of Search Engine, and I’m sure will miss the
    show as much as the rest of us. He gets it. Hire him.

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