Missing your daily fix of CBC radio? Wonder when the time will come when you’ll next hear World Report, or the folks who bring you The World at Six will make their triumphant return, so that you’ll know what’s really going on in the world?
And what about The House? How are we supposed to figure out what the shenanigans of those Ottawa-based hooligans on Parliament Hill really mean if Anthony Germain and company aren’t available to help us tread through the shoals of the affairs of the Canadian political miasma?
And just how much stinkin’ BBC News can a woman (or man) listen to and watch before going completely bonkers? We want Peter Mansbridge back on the air, and we want The National to begin broadcasting NOW !!!
No NHL hockey in Canada for a year. A piece of cake. But, if you’re anything like the author of VanRamblings, a week without the CBC is the equivalent of what we believe a week in hell would be like. And that just ain’t no fun.
CBC Unplugged has come to our rescue, and not a moment too soon. In a story on The Tyee, British Columbia’s feisty online presence reports …

Locked-out CBC employees are working together to put out their own radio programmes, under the collective name of CBC Unplugged. They will broadcast on conventional radio stations and across the Internet through a new technique called podcasting, in which people download audio files from the web and listen to them on their iPods or other digital audio players.

The initial CBC Unplugged podcast is available here, and the second full hour broadcast is available here (Windows Media Player required).
A bit of sanity has returned to the universe. And not a moment too soon.

The Spring 2005 radio ratings are finally in — courtesy of Ted Wendland’s terrific Vancouver-based, and radio-related website, PugetSoundRadio.com. This particular book covers May and June 2005, and it ain’t lookin’ good.
A brief analysis of the ratings would seem to find the much ballyhooed JACK-FM in freefall, down almost 40% from their halcyon days in the autumn of 2003. The good folks at CBC 690 show their best book ever (radio listeners must be getting serious), while Corus’ moribund MOJO Radio 730 should be put out of its (and our) misery, and declared officially dead (given their miserable 0.3 rating). I mean, who’s listening anyway?
When it comes to Contemporary Hit Radio, Z-95.3 drops more than a full point, with competitor The Beat picking up most of the slack. Otherwise it’s pretty much stand pat for most other stations in the Vancouver area.
CKNW seems to be holding on to its aged audience, but just wait for the summer (due in October) and fall radio ratings books, and you’ll probably see NW drop right down — with Phillip Till in the morning show, and Winnipeg-based Charles Adler pulling the Mighty 98 down from its previous lofty heights, to a bare 8+ rating, its deserved place in the ratings.
The Province newspaper’s Joe Leary offers his overall insight on the latest radio ratings here, and covers the battle of Vancouver’s sports stations here. Meanwhile, the folks at PugetSoundRadio.com offer erudition here.
These are sad days, indeed, for voice-tracked, corporate commercial radio.

Despairing for the state of radio, and a fan of Monty Python?
VanRamblings has just discovered this delightful little song by ex-Rutle, Eric Idle, the most musical of the Monty Python crew.
Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), VanRamblings is just thrilled that Eric has a message for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (the U.S. equivalent of the CRTC), as well as Bush and Cheney.

“Here’s a little number I wrote while out duck hunting with a judge,” Idle announces, then croons in soft-shoe English music-hall mode: “Fuck you very much the FCC / Fuck you very much for fining me.”

After razzing U.S. corporate radio giant, Clear Channel, Idle flips off Condoleezza Rice the ‘intellectual tart’ and ‘Dickhead Mr. Cheney,’ rhymes ‘Bush’ with ‘tush’, and thanks all concerned for locking up ‘uppity rich bitch’ Martha Stewart instead of Enron and saving ‘the great white male’.
By VanRamblings’ calculations it would cost a radio station a mere $70,000.00 each time the song was played.
For background on the genesis of the song go to Wikipedia, which also provides the song lyrics.

Generally not considered to hold that much importance in the industry, the summer radio ratings book, on occasion, may be used to act as a predictor for the fall and spring ratings books, or simply find itself ignored.
Although some have suggested that Rogers’ JACK-FM is in the doldrums and due for a re-think, VanRamblings thinks it’s a little early to bury the 80s powerhouse. The fall ratings book will tell the tale. Stay tuned.
Otherwise, one would think that the management at Z95 (which has finally managed to build a decent website) has to be pleased with the station’s steady climb in the ratings, while the folks over at Corus Radio have probably taken note that The Fox also appears to be on the ascendant.
For your edification — with thanks to, and courtesy of, PugetSound Radio‘s Transistor Sister — VanRamblings has been made privy to the following confidential e-mail from Corus Radio’s west coast head honcho.

Memo: To All MOJO AM730 Staff
From: Lou Del Monte
RE: MOJO RATINGS PARTY
Due to our disappointing last place finish in the latest Book I have once again been forced to cancel the celebratory MOJO ratings party scheduled to take place tomorrow afternoon at Hooters on Robson.
Instead, you’re all invited to my office for a 2pm meeting where Tom Placebo will once again explain how we — the biggest collection of managerial dufuses it has ever been my pleasure to preside over — will somehow manage in the foreseeable future to turn this trainwreck of a radio station around.
While Tom is addressing us I’ll be taking notes which I will instruct Assistant Program Director Crosby McWilly to incorporate into our new game plan … whatever the hell that might be.
After I’ve finished dotting all the T’s and crossing my eyes, I hope you’ll all join me for a light lunch under my desk.
See you there!

That’s it for this ratings book. See ya in December for the fall ratings.