The Future of Publicbroadcasting.ca

Publicbroadcasting.ca has been quiet for awhile now as I have been busy with other projects, but it's going to come back soon - hopefully in a big, big way.

About 7 weeks ago (2 months as of May 20) I launched NxEW.ca because I knew there was an underserved audience out there for Canadian music. It has taken off as a community - which now includes 75+ writers from 25 Canadian cities, 10 provinces and 1 territory. The writers include journalists and journalism students, bloggers and podcasters (who have their own blogs and podcasts), photographers, videographers, promoters, managers and, of course, musicians.

It has worked so well that I'm getting ready to re-launch publicbroadcasting.ca as the site for 'everything else' - the hope is to cover Canadian arts, culture and politics again with contributors from all over Canada. So if you're a Canadian and would like to write about progressive politics, current events, film, television, art, literature, or anything else within the broad umbrella of 'arts and culture' give me a shout at beach.justin@gmail.com.

I hope to have it up and going within the next few weeks.

If Things Seem Slower

You may have noticed that I haven't been writing as much on publicbroadcasting.ca lately. The reality is that I've been insanely busy lately. Part of it is the new NxEW blog (which now has nearly 60 people signed up to write about Canadian music. So, I'm certainly not abandoning publicbroadcasting.ca - it may just be a little slower for awhile. In the mean time, as I said, 60 people have signed up to write for NxEW, but the invitation to write for publicbroadcasting.ca - on music or anything else (arts, progressive politics, literature, film, theatre etc. etc.,) is wide open and has been for over 3 years now.

If you are interested in writing for publicbroadcasting.ca or nxew.ca just give me a shout!

New Poll on Publicbroadcasting.ca content

I've created sections on publicbroadcasting.ca that aggregate information on a dozen topics and 23 cities. In case you don't know, each of these takes information from blogs, podcasts and news sources, pools them all together and updates regularly so that the most recent information shows up. All of them can be subscribed to for free via email or feed reader.

While the publicbroadcasting.ca blog does a fair amount of traffic, most of these do very little traffic and have few subscribers. Since it takes some time and effort to keep these going I'm wondering why people are not using them (so I know whether I should go to the trouble of keeping them up.)

New Feeds Added

A whole ton of new feeds added today:

Band Blogs

• Megan Hamilton

CanBlogs

• -30- From the Front Lines of Canada's Media

Calgary

• If Necessary Blogging But Not Necessarily Blogging

CanCasts

• Electric Boogaloo

Music Blogs

• Electric Boogaloo


• Toronto Music Blog Collective

Ottawa

• Elgin Street
  Irregulars

Performing Arts

• Backstage Pass: National Ballet of Canada

Saskatoon

• Save Our Prairie

Sudbury

• Sudbury Against War and Occupation

Toronto

• Big City Lib Strikes Back


• Dear Toronto


• Electric Boogaloo


• Green 13


• Humble Empire


• Toronto Music Blog Collective

Vancouver

• Frances Bula: State of Vancouver


• Vancity Buzz: Vancouver Blog

Visual Art and Design

• northpublik: design above the 44th parallel

Video

• Dear Toronto


• Ember Cat


• Humble Empire


• MayleePooFace (Maylee Todd)


• Pancake Mix


• Retro Ontario


• Secret City Records


• This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Windsor

• Alan Halberstadt

New Feeds Added

More new stuff added to the following feeds: Way more to come (my list of things to check always exceeds the time I have).

Music Blogs

• Dan Mangan


• Library Voices

Regina

• Regina in Pictures

Windsor

• Broken City Lab


• Windsor Visuals


• WindsorEats.com FoodBlog

Guelph

• Royal City Rag

For the 1500th Time:

This is the 1500th post on publicbroadcasting.ca - which is alot of hand cramps. I tend to use these milestones to talk about what has been and what is coming on the site except I'm not sure what's coming. I'm always thinking about ways to make the site better, but I don't have any big changes under development.

I'm also not sure about new writers. I had always intended that the site should have alot of writers contributing alot of perspectives, but it never really panned out. I have been accused, on a few occasions, of being too Torontocentric. I'm totally guilty, but then I'm in Toronto. I can't write with any authority about stuff going on in Edmonton or Halifax, or Hamilton or Vancouver. I've tried to get people to contribute from other places but for the most part it hasn't panned out. Dwight Williams has been doing some posts from Ottawa, but most contributors contribute rarely.

There are a few realities holding things back. One is that I have no budget. Publicbroadcasting.ca generates no revenue, nor is it likely to. If I had the money to hire writers I'm sure there would be more contributions. Personally though I write out of enthusiasm, not for money, and I'd hoped that there were other enthusiasctic people out there who might contribute. Most people though, who are that enthusiasctic already have their own blogs, so maybe, instead of trying to get new writers I should just keep adding to the aggregators.

The other reality is that there is just too much going on in this country to cover it all. It still amazes me that the press in this country (CBC, Star, Globe and Mail, CTV ...) devote so much time to international artists when none of them are even scratching the surface of what is going on all around them. Even CBC Radio 3, Chartattack and Exclaim, which focus exclusively on music, miss stuff all the time. What all of this means is that I can't imagine the number of volunteers or the size of the budget it would take to really do justice to arts and culture in this country (not to mention the forays into politics.)

At any rate, this is 1500, I'm sure 1501 will be along shortly and before you know it it will be 2000. I don't know what's next, but if you have any suggestions I'm always open to them.

the Acorn, Andrew Vincent, Andy Swan added to Downloads

I mentioned last week that I've gotten permission to add a bunch of artists from Ottawa's Kelp Records and Toronto's Fuzzy Logic Recordings to the podsafe downloads on this site. In total this will mean 23 new artists will be added to the list.

In case you don't know podsafe means that you can use them in podcasts or, if you don't have a podcast, download them, listen to them, share them with your friends. No one is going to get upset, or sue you. Because there are so many I'm adding just a few at a time and I'll update all the menus when it's all done. For today though the Acorn, Andrew Vincent & the Pirates and Andy Swan have been added. (I'm going in alphabetical order).

New Feeds Added

Another batch of new additions to publicbroadcasting.ca's aggregators this morning.

Band Blogs

Andy Swan

Glenn Nuotio

Jill Zmud

Whale Tooth

Music Blogs

Juicebox.com

CanBlogs

Things That Go Pop!

Calgary from a Hip Hop Perspective

The folks in Dragon Fli Empire have launched a new blog promising "Calgary from a hip hop perspective". That's a promise I believe and something Canada could use. I've added it to the Music Blogs and Calgary.

Dragon Fli Empire ft. Cadence Weapon - Outside Inn

New Additions

Added to Cancasts and News and Politics:

At the Barricades the Podcast of Lake Ontario Waterkeepers

Added to Film and Television

Cinemars: The blog of filmmaker Mars Hordyski.

New Stuff Added

So first there was an election and then there was a move and over that time I've sort of neglected some updates. Listed below are the new blogs, podcasts and other feeds that I've added to various categories.

I've also tweaked the feeds (see the bottom of each page to find out how to subscribe to that feed - feed reader, desktop or email) and made them easier to read at a glance.

So, the new feeds (and the sections they are in):

Music Blogs

Danny Michel

Emm Gryner

For the 'records'

Lonely Vagabond

Tokyo Police Club

Performing Arts

One Big Umbrella

Play Anon

CanBlogs

Department of Culture

Herkind.com

Julianna Yau's blog

Naomi Klein

Steve Pratt

News and Politics

the Agenda with Steve Pakin

Allan Gregg in Conversation

the Canadian

Department of Culture

Naomi Klein

Rabble

the Tyee

Views from the Lake - Eh?

Literature

What is Stephen Harper Reading?

CanCasts

the Agenda with Steve Pakin

Allan Gregg in Conversation

Band Blogs

Catlow

Kyrie Kristmanson

Nif Dee

Internet Video

Boredomcorner

Halifax

Jon McKiel's Myspace Blog

Peterborough

Peterborough Politics

Edmonton

Wheat Pool

Winnipeg

BREAD AND WINE CULTURE IN H.M.S. PEG

Moved

If I've been unusually quiet the last week or so, rest assured there's a good reason. I've just bought my first home and moved to the Juntion in Toronto. Now that the move is done I'll start slowly getting back into the groove (though there will be more downtime as house demands - like when the electrician comes). Lots of things I want to talk about, but bear with me as I get used to the new schedule.

If Things Seem Different, They Are

As you may have noticed this blog has gone from being primarily (about 95%) about arts and culture to a mix of arts and culture and politics. Personally I like that mix. I've always been fairly political. The reality is that when Stephen Harper began his War on the Arts, he made arts and culture a political issue and it inevitably followed that an arts and culture blog would take notice. The problem with Stephen Harper though is far more than arts and culture issues. He is, as far as I can tell bad for Canada on almost every issue.

Canada is at a crossroads. Down one path is Stephen Harper's Canada, the 51st state. Harper's plan is to ape almost everything the Bush Administration in the US has done in terms of taxes, the environment, deregulation and the military: Despite the fact that the Bush Administration has been so tremendously unsuccessful on every front that they have brought the US to the edge of ruin.

Down the other path is a more progressive agenda for a strong, independent Canada which focus' on environmental and economic sustainability, jobs that pay a living wage, improved health care, a stronger education system, and end to extreme poverty and a strong, thriving, diverse arts and culture sector among other things.

Down either of these paths are challenges and unknowns. During the first half of the 20th Century Canadians faced their challenges: two world wars and the great depression. It seems though that in those the goals were clearer, the end game more known. Now this generation must choose it's challenges, and the goals are much less clear.

Stephen Harper (along with George Bush and John McCain) would like that challenge to be the War on Terror. It is ambiguous because it is a war on a tactic. It is not clear what the end game is. So far this has lead them to Afghanistan and Iraq and may soon spread to Iran and beyond. It is potentially a war that could go on forever and trail through the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Personally I do not see this path as worth following. I think the way to win the 'War on Terror' is through policing, strong international cooperation, third world development assistance, peacekeeping and diplomacy - not simply attacking countries whose ideologies do not agree with our own and who are perceived as a threat.

Taking the Harper path, choosing this challenge over the other is, if nothing else, to abandon any hope of improving the environment, curbing extreme poverty or strengthening Canada internally. It would also mean abandoning Canada's international reputation as peacekeeper and honest broker.

So, choosing wholeheartedly the other path I will work to bring down Stephen Harper, his government and the ideology that fuels them. I am working with any number of people to do this but I do not know what any of their plans are after the election is over. As for me I will continue to pound away at the Conservatives. The goal, for me, is not simply to bring down the Tories but to push them to 3rd party status, not even the official opposition. I believe that the Liberals, the NDP, the Greens and even the Bloc (for as long as Quebec chooses to keep them around) bring something to the debate: Some insight into how to make a Canada that we want to live in and that we want to leave to our children and grandchildren. The Conservatives bring nothing to that debate - only a desire to lead Canada down a path that, as demonstrated by the U.S., leads off a cliff (although it does profit the very wealthy, in the short term anyway).

In conclusion I am not abandoning Arts and Culture, that will still be a primary focus of this site, I am only broadening the focus to include other areas of importance to arts and culture and the society that can, has and will support them.

As an update:

The Facebook Group: Canadians United Against Stephen Harper currently has 7,884 Members, which is up 3,262 since last friday.

The event Vote Against Stephen Harper on October 14 now has 12,837 'confirmed guests' up 6,281 since last friday with almost 23,000 invitations outstanding.

The Page Mean People Suck - which will be a permanent anti-Harper distributor of information has 197 'supporters'

and the new group Canadians Against War in Iran currently has 73 members.

There are also information pages on this site about Stephen Harper Generally and the Tory record on the environment, the economy and issues of trust soon I will add more pages and then they will all be tied together.

New and Improved(?)

Ok, just finished a major overhaul of the site. Those of you who have been following this project know that I tend to do that in the summer. Anyway, there are alot of new sections so if you feel I've left something out (or if you see any errors) let me know. I'm sure I have but I didn't want to work on this until Xmas.

So, here's what's new:

The Can. Blogs, Can. Podcasts and Can. News & Politics are pretty much the same. I've deleted a few defunct feeds and added a few new ones though.

Internet Video is new and is a combination of various Canadian YouTube feeds.

The Music Blogs is a combination of music news feeds, popular music blogs and podcasts (including CBC Radio 2 and 3) and other music related stuff.

The Band Blogs is vastly changed. There is no more Band Blogs II and the number of musical performers included has grown to over 300.

The Arts blogs are gone, broken down into component parts and those parts have been expanded under the heading Arts, Culture and Media. They now include separate feeds for Film and Televison, Literature, Visual Art and Design, Performing Arts and Radio.

Instead of 3 city feeds (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) there are now 30 including Calgary, Charlottetown, Edmonton, Guelph, Halifax, Hamilton, Iqaluit, Kelowna, Kitchener - Waterloo, London, Mississauga, Moncton, Montreal, North Bay, Oshawa, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, St. Catharines/Niagara, St. John, NB, St. John's, NF, Sudbury, Sydney, NS, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Whitehorse, Windsor, Winnipeg and Yellowknife.

Beyond that there's the usual assortment of link pages, free MP3s and other assorted goodies. Feel free to explore and let me know what you think! Also let me know how it looks and works on the various different operating systems, web browsers, monitor sizes etc.

Update on Updates

If I seem a little on the quiet side on the blog it is because I'm working on those updates I mentioned. The site is going from having individual sections for 3 cities (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) to 30 cities - there are also a bunch of new areas coming like the radio and video feeds. (These are already pretty much done but there won't be links to them until the whole thing is up - the site navigation is also changing.

If anyone out there has any requests for the Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Literature or Music Blogs section please let me know ASAP. Note: The music blogs is different from the band blogs. The band blogs section is changing also and will soon bring you the latest memos directly from nearly 300 Canadian acts.

Stay tuned...

Home Again

I am just back from vacation and it is going to take a little while to get back to everyone who needs getting back to. I'm also going to be a little less prolific in my blogging for the next little bit. Publicbroadcasting.ca is about to turn 3 years old and, as I seem to do every summer, I'm making some changes. Most of what is here currently is staying put and anything that is going away is actually going to be improved upon. The arts sections are going to be divided up a little better etc. The navigation is also going to get easier and I'm going to add a bunch more cities to the site. Currently Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal all have their own pages but they will shortly be joined by Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Halifax, Guelph, Winnipeg, Regina, Charlottetown, Sudbury, Saskatoon, Hamilton, Thunder Bay, Sydney, Mississauga, Victoria, North Bay, St. Johns, Iqaluit, London, Windsor, St. John, Kitchener/Waterloo, Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Oshawa, Moncton and Kelowna. So if you live in any of these places and want to suggest some good local content please pass it along.

Otherwise, Stay Tuned...

publicbroadcasting.ca Turns 1,000 (posts that is)

This is the 1000th blog post on this site. This particular blog started sometime after the site was launched but publicbroadcasting.ca itself will be 3 years old in mid August. So, this seemed like a good time to pause and reflect on why the site exists.

Not so long ago large media companies were the kings of North America. They drove popular culture in one direction or another. That is not true anymore. In television, for example, a program with a half million viewers (roughly 1 person in 60) is considered successful. A program with a million viewers (roughly 1 in 30) is considered a hit, and a program that draws 1 in 10 Canadians is considered a pop culture phenomenon. No other media (film, radio, literature, music, etc) pulls in anything close to the numbers that television does.

To say this has caused consternation amoung media outlets would be an understatement. It has caused convulsions and rabid fits amoung media outlets. For years they have made programs dumber and cheaper, have sacrificed credibility and have largely abandoned the public service functions that used to be an understood part of their broadcasting licenses. All of this in an effort to become a little more profitable, a little more popular. All of this has failed and the audience continues to trickle away. Now they are trying to enforce their position using vehicles such as traffic shaping and Bill C-61. They are, in other words, trying to achieve through force what they haven't been able to achieve otherwise.

It has never been more true that mass media is largely about money. Quality, originality and creativity frequently go by the wayside in favor of greater profits. Your chances of success, even your chance of getting noticed at all in this environment largely depend on the profitability of what you propose and/or the amount of advertising money you have to throw around rather than the quality of your work or your ideas.

American media frequently has large amounts of ad money to spend and it is far cheaper for Canadian media companies to import American products than to produce their own. This means that more and more Canadian artists and producers are shut out of the game altogether. Publicbroadcasting.ca came into being as a response to this.

This site is here to draw attention to (exclusively) Canadian artists and content producers and to Canada centric news and information. It is here to represent a variety of voices; voices that are driven by passion and ideas rather than a simple monetary equation. Everyone, no doubt, needs to make a living but if the sole reason you are in arts and media is to make money the odds of your producing anything of lasting quality are slim to none.

Publicbroadcasting.ca accepts no donations, and no advertising. The opinions expressed here are honest and topics covered here are based on quality not profitability.

I have always hoped to have more voices represented here. I truly appreciate those people who contribute, even occasionally, to the site. Sadly few people ever volunteer to write for the site and the majority of those who do never contribute at all. Whether this is out of some kind of stage fright or because it doesn't pay I have no idea but that is the reality.

After 1000 posts and almost 3 years I believe that this site is better today than it ever was. I also believe, given that it has operated with few hands and no budget, it has accomplished quite alot. By the end of this summer more changes will come to the site but as always these changes will make the site deeper, broader, more inclusive and useful. Because it is not driven by advertising nothing is ever done to the site for the sole purpose of making it more popular or accessible to people who are content with Brittany Spears, celebrity gossip and the latest pointless televised talent show.

I hope those of you who read the site have enjoyed it as much as I have. I hope that more of you will decide to contribute your thoughts and ideas and above all I hope that you continue to enjoy it going forward.

I'm Back and the Suggestion Box is Open

Back from vacation now and have many things to talk about but it will take me a bit to get caught up with everything. While I was away, as per usual when I have more time to sit and think, I thought of some things that could work better for publicbroadcasting.ca. In a few weeks I'll be back at the cottage, this time for a two week run. During that time I'll work on some of the changes I have in mind but if any of you have any thoughts on things that work, things that don't, or things that would make nice additions please let me know.

Otherwise, stay tuned...

New Podcasts and Band Blogs

Due to some technical difficulties yesterday I was unable to post to the blog, but today I'm back up (I think) and have added some new stuff. Edmonton's Jam Union Podcast and Snowsuit Sounds have been added to the Cancasts (which for those of you who don't know acts kind of like a TV guide channel for Canadian podcasts).

The Jam Union Podcast will bring you (according to Facebook:

"An interactive show featuring the very best of music, arts and current events in the city of champions."

The Snowsuit Sounds podcast, also according to it's Facebook Group is:

"Snowsuit Sounds is a video podcast dedicated to showcasing the up and coming talent of the blooming Canadian music scene. The podcast is created by Darrin Andringa and Colin Medley, who love music and love working hard to bring you exclusive unique videos."

Personally I believe that they are being extremely humble when they say "blooming Canadian Music scene". I believe that the Canadian music scene is currently the best in the world bar none. A partial list of some of the many current Canadian acts can be found in the Band Blogs and Band Blogs Too (bearing in mind that some bands are omitted because they don't use their Myspace blogs or have another one.) Still more are listed in the Music Links and, of course, there are free, podsafe downloads from some of them over here.

In addition to the new podcasts there are some additions to the Band Blogs Too today. They are:
Dinosaur Bones
Grand Analog
Hot Springs
Jon and Roy
PDF Format (the band)
Ruby Coast
Run With the Kittens
Shotgun Jimmy
the Sunparlour Players and
Woodpigeon

Montreal, Vancouver and How-To sections added

I've been busy working on the site today. There are new aggregators for Vancouver and Montreal (I'm looking at other cities and more will follow at some point). There is also a new How To section, fairly small for now but it will grow and will be dedicated to tutorials on how to...all kinds of stuff. Stay tuned!