Richard Stursberg Goes, and Hilter (or Should That Be Somebody Else Whose Name Begins with "H") Is Furious

Update August 13, 2010:

Seems that The Tea Makers is no more: too scalding hot, perhaps? The site wasn't accessible yesterday and here's what's there today:

The Tea Makers

2005-2010

He loved Big Brother.

- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four

Update August 11, 2010: There has been some chit chat on The Tea Makers blog about whether this video is in bad taste. I agree, Hitler jokes are offensive.

However, it seems to me that we are slipping slowly into a political situation in Canada where the best things about the country are being chipped away by an intelligent man who has given himself the mandate of remaking our society fundamentally. The current government is not targetting any particular ethnic group, thank goodnesss, but it is important to protest what is going on. The dumbing down of the CBC is part of this.

Original post:

The "removal Friday" of Richard Stursberg from his post as head of English programming at CBC may be a cause for hope among those who believe in public broadcasting and what the CBC/Radio Canada could mean to this country. He's the guy behind the gutting of Radio Two, it seems, as well as a lot more fluff on TV.

Now, I don't watch much TV, but I do know that the changes at Radio Two have done absolutely nothing for that network's ratings in markets where it's possible to make a comparison: see my earlier posts here and here. Radio Canada seems to have recognized that (a somewhat similar change was made there before the one at CBC) and actually has begun to promote classical music broadcasting in the evening. Hubert Lacroix, being a Francophone, ought to be more sensitive to this than Stursberg was, so maybe there's hope that Lacroix will reverse what's happened on Radio Two also

Below you'll find a terrific video made by Alphonse Ouimet of The Tea Makers, which is a great comment on the situation. You won't find it on You Tube: Ouimet says that as soon as he posted it, it as taken down.

One comment: in the video, Ouimet has Hitler talk about a 2.1 million TV audience as being the greatest the CBC has ever gotten for made-in-Canada drama/comedy. Locally produced drama/comedy in French Canada gets that quite often, with a universe of possible viewers that is only about a third the size. Says something about what happens when you work at building local talent and audiences.