The $72,000 was for a private party to drum up interest in Strombo's new show.

I agree that there are a lot of diversions in that article, too bad it was only reported in the Sun (what happens in Toronto tends to stay out of the liberal media) but underneath there's the basic fact that lots of public dollars went to a private party. This was an invitation only affair. The 'purpose' was mentioned in the article by the news organization you have "no time for".

I guess bias against media outlets can go both ways.

Very true.

DO you ever watch any channel OTHER than the CBC??? American channels are chock full of left wing biased comedy shows...Jon Stewart, Colbert Report..god even Saturday Night Live is biased to the left....fact is that there is no Conservative humour on the air because Conservatives are not funny. If they were, there'd be a right wing Rick Mercer or John Stewart....Fox has tried but they are simply cringingly non-funny. COncervatives can't even watch the crap because it rings hollow. There's no truth in it. Liberals have the market cornered on humour because they have the truth on their side. Period. And the right wing buffoons make themselves easy and pathetic targets.

So anything that a publicly-funded organization pays for has to be open to the rabble?

Hardly the case, nor should it be.

Your post shows all the good will and sense of humor for which the left are allegedly famous. :rolleyes:

Hey, I really like GS. He's intelligent and well-spoken, but hip enough that the younger generation pays attention to the news. He's one of Canada's few "news personalities" (the other that immediately comes to mind is Peter Mansbridge) and like Mansbridge, but unlike their american counterparts, they are fair, balanced, and keep the news interesting by talking about interesting things, instead of trying to turn the news into entertainment. His TV show has gone downhill recently (seems like he is making strained attempts to be more like Jon Stewart) but the Strombo Show (which is explicitly about pop culture and not really news) is consistently excellent radio. Womanizing? I've never seen or heard any examples.

How exactly does telling it like it is have any reflection on 'good will' or 'sense of humor'? If right-wing satire drew in any kind of respectable audience it'd be sharing primetime with left-wing satire. There's no two ways about it, networks go with where the money is.

I'm not even sure where the partisanism argument is coming from in the first place with regards to CBC. As mediocre as Air Farce or 22 Minutes have been they've never had qualms about mocking either end of the political spectrum. Hell, Red Green is one of the best comedy series CBC ever produced and it had no political slant to it at all.

Yes! Exactly!

If criticising the 'right' is part of the definition of what makes something 'liberal' and vice versa... then how are we to label the CBC as they criticise the entire political spectrum?

Ok, I admit that post sounded just a little bit....mmm...cranky.
But the fact is that Right Wing comedy doesn't sell.
The old saying "It's funny because it's true" is accurate. You need the truth on your side if you are attempting to be humourous - when talking politics - and trying to attract a big audience. The public can smell if something isn't clicking and they tune out instincively. So I bet Rick Mercer could easily get a gig on the Comedy Network or even CTV with his numbers.
In any case, I apologize becauce I have been helping to get way off the topic here....which is a really great potential project that will make a fantastic and integrated streetscape on South Park St. and make the area look even more urban and sophisticated than it does now. Cheers.

I would like to partially object, though I mostly agree with this extremely important point your making.

I have found many conservative proposals to be quite true -- in particular, many of their economic platforms. This truth is not something I label as 'conservative,' just as I do not label the advocacy of rights for women, blacks, and gays as 'liberal,' despite these movements being voiced by liberals.

Clearly, these truths are rational, having proposals supported by science and math -- not mythology. All parties are capable of supporting rational proposals, just as all parties are capable of ignoring evidence to govern rationally in favour of pandering for votes to remain in power.

(Fortunately for Canada, the CBC exists to criticise all these jackasses in Ottawa)

Returning to your point, the liberals of today are certainly more rational than today's conservatives, of whom have moved so far to the 'right' you'd think they were attempting a governmental renaissance of the middle ages.

Wow - this kind of black and white thinking is how McGuinty got elected three times in Ontario. Well, he doesn't keep his promises - actually, he does the exact opposite - and he's turned the province into an over-regulated, over-taxed police state, industry has left the province, and billions have been wasted through schemes and lack of oversight of agencies (mainly health)....but at least he's a Liberal! I must believe what he says!:rolleyes:

Listen, in the past I have voted everything from Green to Tory (never NDP, but I would over Liberal these days). I didn't slide out of the womb with a blue spoon in my mouth. But these kind of quotes are scary. Never, ever, ever assume what one party says is ALWAYS THE TRUTH. Unless you're a 19-year old student in first year.

Liberals don't like getting re-elected? Liberals don't care about their careers? Liberals don't like money? They like it as much as the Tories, and as much as the NDP. And whatever side of the spectrum you're on, power is power - lots of people want it, and not always to do good and be a modern-day Jesus.

As for the wonderfully 'hip', aging Strombo, the party that cost $72,000 was never aired, nor was any of the public allowed in. It was a PRIVATE party for Strombo and his friends. No public (whose tax dollars pay for CBC) was allowed to see it, or even go near it.

So if that's the kind of thing Canada can't do without and needs to be in any CBC budget, well, you pay for that side of it - I don't want to have anything to do with it. What next, Peter Mansbridge takes the sexy weather girl on a ski vacation to the Alps, on our dime?

As for 22 Minutes, when the old guard left, the comedy got pretty lazy. I don't mind Rick Mercer, because his comedy at least has intelligence behind it. On 22 Minutes, they'll run a skit and immediately pull out a non-funny punchline after no lead up, then repeat the punchline ad nauseum, because you need to know how funny this is.

Essentially, Mercer can have a hilarious skit slamming the Tories that even Tories can enjoy, because the comedy is solid. 22 Minutes turns off even non-Tories because the comedy just isn't there.

Yes, it took tremendous intelligence to make a career out of crap like "Talking to Americans".

Mercer has never been funny. Not once. He is a smarmy, nasty piece of work. If you think he is funny, you must find cobras hilarious.

I don't think you've ever watched Rick Mercer.

What I think hilarious is that you find snarky smary humour to in fact be nasty and wrong.

Personally, I find irony rather funny.

I have my doubts that Keith has ever cracked a smile in his life, honesty.

It somehow comes as no surprise that the left-wingers commenting here are all fans of Rick Mercer.

Rick Mercer bases his act on ridicule of the right.

Rick Mercer is one of the types who have obtained a sinecure thanks to his constant employment by the CBC.

Yet they maintain CBC is not biased.

That is the real comedy in all of this.

Since when? How would you even know that when you consciously go out of your way to ignore his material? Either you're admitting you're complaining about something that has no basis in the reality of the material or you're admitting you extensively watch something you hate purely for the sake of hating it based on an assumption that isn't true in the first place. :koko:

I don't even find him particularly funny either but I don't have to make stuff up just for the sake of justifying it. Damn.

On a somewhat related topic, there is an article in the Openfile online media source stating that the CBC-TV site on Bell Road can be sold to any developer - http://halifax.openfile.ca/blog/cura...be-sold-anyone . However, a story in the allnovascotia.com indicates that it can only be used for public institutions because of city bylaws (CBC Real Estate Could be a Tough Sell, by Devin Stevens, April 10th edition).

Since CBC must cut costs, and if they have a tough time selling the Bell Road site then maybe they should just move the CBC-Radio facilities on Sackville Street directly into the Bell Road location. It sounds like they won't need as much space as previously planned. Such a move might speed up the YMCA/CBC development.

They are going to be in for challenges one way or the other I think. Given the current CBC budget, they will be hard pressed to find money to even renovate. It would seem that in terms of selling though the only potential suitor would be CDHA (via the province).

It will be interesting to see what happens to CBC TV over the next few years. The strength in CBC lies in its radio side, rather than the TV. CBC Radio does a much better job of both fulfilling its mandate as a public broadcaster and in being something very different from what is offered on private radio. Not every show on CBC radio of going to appeal equally, but there is much more of a sense of "national conversation" in the radio programming compared to the TV programming.

I have not watched his show for years, as I grew tired of that form of "comedy".

Snarky self-righteous "jokes" that are in fact nothing but smarmy attacks masquerading as humour. Comedy based on constant ridicule of the left or right is cheap humour that is really quite boring, and often the only people who find it funny are those telling the joke.