thoughts on CBC's Q and Radio in general.

Well, Tom Powers has been announced as the new voice of CBC's q. He's an excellent radio person so I'm not surprised, but if they are true to their press release (“We are refocusing and reinvesting in Q to ensure it continues to evolve and deliver what our audience wants from CBC Radio’s flagship music, arts and cultural program” Susan Marjetti) then here's what this audience member wants:  

Make the show sound as interesting as the cultural world they cover in film and literature and food. Literature gets both Lawrence Hill and Margaret Atwood, film gets an obscure documentary film maker and Quentin Tarrantino, food gets people like Michael Pollan and Anthony Bourdain, but the music side of the show too often focusses on what's fashionable (in a usually narrowly defined Indie 88 kind of way) instead of what deserves to reach audiences east and west because it's substantial or ambitious. It's not that they shouldn't discuss the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey, but it's nice that they discuss Joseph Boyden and the books that end up on Canada Reads more often. 

Musically, I'd like CBC to celebrate great musicians and composers to the degree it celebrates great authors, and to let Canadians across the country actually discover the sounds of the country we live in. So many of us are making interesting music that doesn't always want to fit cleanly into a box. So much of the great music I go out and hear my colleagues make isn't on the radio. So Q, there's the challenge.