CBC programming

I can say for the first time in a long time (years?), I actually planned a night around television. I even ate dinner in front of the tv. And it was Canadian programming even!! Got to be worth an online babble?

The Next Great Prime Minister

Very interesting concept and great potential, but TNG PM was too rushed and unorganized. It felt like a high school video production. CBC could have done a better job with this. In fact, I think this could have been a great 3 part series with 2 rounds of eliminations and the final show / round having the final 4 contestants quizzed by the former prime ministers. The early shows would have worked out the kinks giving a final show where CBC and the "contestants" more skilled and relaxed. A much better reality show than Idol (which, for the record, I've never seen for more than 1.3 minutes).

Perhaps also an interesting way to bring some politics issues to the masses, some of whom likely never come anywhere near a typical news broadcast. I haven't heard much about Canadian news audiences, but the US network news numbers have been making lots of news this past year (with Katie C. being a women and Dan R. on cable), but my take is that more people are watching The Daily Show on Comedy Central now than network news (or if not, soon). So maybe if we want to educate the public and have a electorate that doesn't elect cowboy morons who follow right wing crusaders and invade other countries to spread their religious and democratic values... Anyway, just my thought...


Test the Nation: IQ

Test the Nation was also interesting, though I was expecting more Canadiana trivia rather than purely an IQ test, and at 2-hours, was a tad on the long side (admittedly contemplated switching to CSI on CTV for the 2nd hour). For the record, I only got 42 out of 60 (IQ=111, above average, but barely, which doesn't jive with my ego). HOWEVER, I do have an excuse, for which I can only somewhat blame the CBC for. You see, I don't have cable and the antenna reception really sucks (CBC partially to blame since I don't get good non-cable reception and CBC plans to cut over-the-air distribution). So everything is fuzzy with wavy lines and there are double or ghost images of everything. For the text questions it wasn't a problem, but when it came to matching up puzzle pieces and finding the patterns and such, I sucked (for patterns, there were black dots that it turns out were just doubles / shadows of the white dots and it took me till the 3rd question to figure this out, which proves my IQ is actually lower than my test result suggests). How bad you ask? Well, I got 40/50 up till the visual questions, then 2/10 for the final 10 visual questions. So that's my excuse and I think it's a good one. If you don't thing so, then just accept that this is my blog and I don't want to hear your opinion :)

Also interesting, in ~6 months (after my birthday), the same score would have given me an IQ of 113. So does that mean I'm getting smarter with age? Or that I'm getting dumber / less capable with age and they therefore give me a handicap?

I didn't know this (maybe they said?), but they've done the same (or similar?) IQ test for other countries, so we'll have to wait and see how Canada ranks.


Funding of the CBC

The Next Great PM show had a question about whether the CBC should continue to get government funding. With shows like the Next Great PM & the IQ Test (that perhaps other stations aren't willing / interested in producing?), I would say Yes. For the National, I'd say Yes. For coverage of Canadian topics that are important to the country (be it sometime smaller groups) but don't bring in advertising dollars, I'd say Yes. To Little Mosque on the Prairie, I'd say Yes. To the hours of syndicated shows such as the Simpsons, Arrested Development, etc., I'd say No. If the CBC gets funding to further the Canadian identity, American sitcoms shouldn't be part of the programming. Not that I don't like the Simpsons, but aren't there plenty of non-government funded channels that can broadcast US syndicates? Anyway, I'd probably be qualified as pro-CBC, but... check out Friends of Canadian Broadcasting if you're interested in more (biased?) talk, or as always, wikipedia for a description of the CBC and the CRTC.