So I’m sitting in my favourite recliner yesterday evening come 11 pm, with a half eaten bag of pretzels on my chest, waiting for the local A news of Ottawa to come on, and what did I see appear on my TV? A comedy show! The A news had been cancelled. No announcements, no fanfare.

CTV, the station’s owner, had cancelled a whole bunch of news shows across the country for its A channels. As a private company, they have to cut back as ad revenue continues to decline, as opposed to the publicly funded CBC which just keeps on truckin’ without layoffs. CBC is out there with more employees than all the private broadcasters combined, competing with private companies with taxpayers’ money. How are Global and CTV supposed to compete with buckets and buckets of taxpayer’s money?

With no news at 6 nor at 11, and good old trusty Max Keeping of CTV’s CJOH is nowhere to be found on the Bell ExpressVu dial, people in Ottawa have lost ALL of their local news in one foul swoop. The only local news is now on in the idiotic morning show from 6 to 10. For some reason, morning shows have to be light and fluffy, with airhead hosts (Kurt Stoodley and Karen Solomon–at least she’s gone) and silly, feel good segments.

Do we need any more reasons to finally privatise the CBC?