There's a little circular filing cabinet under every writer's desk. It's where all the detritus of a day at the office ends up. The one under mine currently holds some discarded notes, a section of the newspaper, two dead Tim Horton's cups, one plastic vacuum pack from a new thumb drive, one dead ballpoint pen, two plastic water bottles, one half chewed rawhide bone (not mine) with something growing on it, one Styrofoam wrapped...

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First, I want to thank Barry Kiefl for his insightful three part post on the CBC. How we feel about our National broadcaster. How the corporation conducts its affairs. What changes might be necessary for the future. It was all there, presented with the cold clinical eye of a Media consultant. No bias. No axe to grind. Just the facts. Use them as you will. So now it's my turn. And perhaps it is the love of hockey Barry and...

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In this final installment, Barry Kiefl of Canadian Media Inc. uses Audience Attitudes and Past History to determine where the CBC goes from here. "To Infinity And Beyond!" This brings me to how CBC TV can evolve and perhaps find an important role before the public chooses to turn it off completely. A warning here: there is nothing new that can be said about CBC TV, no magic formula that I or anyone else can devise to reposition...

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How Did We Get In This Position? In Part One, Barry Kiefl of Canadian Media Inc. dealt with Canadians' perceptions of CBC Television. Today, how we got there. And Tomorrow, where we go from here. Back to Barry… Historical Background The position the CBC finds itself in today started with the so-called repositioning of CBC in the early 1990’s. Repositioning is a marketing term used to describe the process that marketers...

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The recent abrupt departure of Richard Stursberg, former Head of English Services at the CBC, has led to buckets of online virtual ink being spilled to praise or pillory his time at the top. He changed things for the better. He made them worse. Nothing is any different than it always has been. The perspective depends on what part of the "rats’ nest of ego, bickering, backstabbing, rumour and sour dislike", as Globe and Mail...

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Watching the conniptions CBS has gone through trying to re-title the Twitter blog "Shit My Dad Says" for an 8:30 Thursday timeslot has been painfully ludicrous. First it was "Stuff my Dad Says", then "Bleep My Dad Says" and now it's "$#*! My Dad Says". Have you noticed how similar $#*! and SHIT appear in print? Maybe that's by design. Maybe it's some CBS executive's way of saying, "How much longer can we be expected to continue...

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A couple of things are rolling around the inner-tubes today which get regularly discussed here and I've been peppered with requests for my take on the Globe and Mail column predicting a Stephen Harper sneak attack on the CRTC as well as predictions that some former CTV sports exec being hired by Rogers implies an impending takeover of the network. Okay, for starters, it's August. Is everybody familiar with the "dog days of...

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I had lunch with a couple of WW2 fighter pilots today at a BBQ marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. One was a redneck from the prairies. The other had come out of the backwoods of Quebec. Both sought to serve their country and wanted to learn how to fly. And they both had struggled. The redneck because he'd only stayed in school to Grade Four and the lumberjack because he couldn't speak English. But they...

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Much as I don't want to damage the Sponsor/Creative co-dependent relationship, I'm one of those people who DVR's a show and skips past all the commercials. If I'm watching live sports, I use those ad breaks to go the bathroom, make some popcorn or get another beer -- whether or not its the same brand that's bringing me the game, I haven't a clue. The advent of the VHS tape was, for me, right up...

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So it seems the desperate for cash Ontario government has come up with a new way of making money. They're getting into online gambling. I seldom gamble recreationally because I have to do too much of the real life version when it comes to my career. But a lot of people do, with off-shore sites now reaping Billions in profits. I'll leave the morality of governments getting into all that to others. At least the problem gambler...

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I'm going to lay off my personal battle with government bureaucrats for a while. Just as soon as I finish telling you this little story... My dad lives in Victoria, BC, known as Canada's home to "the newly wed and nearly dead". A good proportion of the city's inhabitants are retirees and a significant number of those get around on "scooters". These aren't the trendy Vespas made famous in "Quadraphenia" and "Roman Holiday"...

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