CKUT in Peril?
I don’t know the details on this but, according to the POD, McGill’s radio station, the wonderful CKUT, is in peril of losing funding. Bad news.
I’ve always like CKUT, but like all college radio stations the quality and range of shows on there mean that it’s a bit hit & miss to listen to. Enter the magic of podcasting. Now, I can get all the great CKUT shows I want, when I want, especially:
- aack! - this is the greatest indie music radio show ever in the history of the planet. Host Lori is goddess-like, and the music selection ranges from old country, to the loudest rawk you could want, and everything in between. It’s 2 hours of pure pleasure.
- bluegrass ramblings - self-explanatory.
- jazz euphorium - somewhere between sickly sweet krall & the aural assaults of ornette et al, comes this show, with good bits from every side of the jazz rubik’s cube.
- quebec-acadie en musique - raw folk music from la belle province, and those proud acadians who came before them.
There are other great things on CKUT, but these are among the best that I’ve been listening to recently. Podcasting makes CKUT globally relevant, and not just to this city: so listen, & support them.
Which makes me think: should we podcasters start finding ways to get some money together to build our own little non-profit studio/co-op for use among podcasters, so that if indeed McGill pulls the plug on the station, there will be a home for all those talented radio hosts & they don’t have to go work for CHOM?
I definitely agree, support is needed for these guys…aackk! should not be allowed to die by vote. CKUT has a similar image problem/challenge that CBC has, that they are not easily definable as one single thing. Stations like CHOM or Q92 for example are easily defined as one thing, whether it’s classic rock, or alt rock or whatever, whereas CBC and CKUT program country, blugrass, jazz, experimental electronic, classical, spoke word, etc..etc the list goes on. So they’re hard to package, one demographic has a hard time listening to CKUT all day long because it’s so diverse. Enter podcasting, of course, problem solved (for the listener, anyway, not necessarily for the station and its advertisers/funders.
Comment by Skinner — March 9, 2006 @ 3:35 pm
On Wednesdays I teach
my class at McGill, commuting all the way from Ottawa to do so. One of the habits I have gotten into is to drive down early in the afternoon (class starts at 6) and spend the afternoon at Laika. This gives me the opportunity to have a real meal before …
Trackback by mikel.org | Michael Boyle's weblog — March 9, 2006 @ 5:29 pm
It’s a good idea (the co-op) that is, it’s been talked about at a couple of the meet-ups I’ve been to. The problem isn’t really even finding the money, it’s finding someone with the time.
Comment by Justin Beach — March 9, 2006 @ 9:34 pm
if you can find the money, you can buy the time ;) we’re getting to critical mass in this rumbling movement going on, across a spectrum of issues, which you might bag under “citizen data” (media being just one form) … we’re at the edge of huge things happening, and money - whether its govt, foundation, private or commercial - is going to be flowing soon enough. “we” need to build the structures so that people can understand what this is and where & why to put their money, which projects are worth supporting. there are many people like yourself (with pbca) doing valuable work for free - so the question is: where are the funding sources so that some of these projects can get support? there,s work to be done on that front I think.
Comment by hugh — March 10, 2006 @ 1:21 pm