CBC has ended its CBCRadio3.com online magazine venture after 100 issues. But it has plans, big plans, for what comes next.

Some excerpts from the Globe and Mail story:

Jane Chalmers, vice-president of CBC Radio, was quoted as saying:

"Their work is outstanding and they've been doing a great job. But if you walk down the street in Vancouver or Toronto, unfortunately, most people don't know what it is. We want to increase the brand recognition and give these new musicians more exposure on conventional radio, as well as on the Web."

She said the Corp. is looking to integrate some of Radio Three's programming to Radio One and Two.

While they've reposted a bunch o' jobs, they are looking for people with broadcast skills, not web ones, so the old hands might be obsolete ones.

Here is what former Radio Three director Robert Ouimet had to say:

"Radio Three is intended to speak to a, quote, younger audience," he says, noting that in the five years he was at Radio Three, the CBC spent only $100,000 promoting it. "Younger audiences do not listen to CBC One or Two. They never have. I'm sure the new unit is going to make great items for traditional CBC audiences, but they're not going to be attracting a new audience.

"And now you have this whole community of freelancers [at Radio Three] who were making really interesting art and stories and editorial positions on everything from Kyoto to new music and they will be gone. They'll be picked up by new-media companies and ad agencies and the whole vision will be lost.

For Craig Saila's rant on this topic at Living Can Kill You, please click here. An excerpt to whet your appetite:

Off the air, into space

More troubling to me, however, is the rumoured cancellation of Brave New Waves. Countless mornings, I’d wake bleary-eyed, having listened four-hours of ground-breaking music during the show’s late-late night time slot. With its exit, twenty-one years of counter-programming the commercial radio pap would be over, and an incredible showcase this world’s best new, emerging, and experimental musicians would vanish.

CBC is promising the slot will remain as part of Radio 3, but I doubt the new show could come close to Brave New Waves. In fact, if the CBC-Sirius satellite radio bid wins, the pressure for a less-experimental sound may increase. CBC Radio 3 is one of four key CanCon channels being pitched with this pay service.

A final hope

As demonstrated by the satellite idea, CBC Radio 3 doesn’t need to be squeezed between classical movements and jazz jams. But CBC is also a public service. Limiting Radio 3 to dead time slots or a pay-service defeats the entire purpose of what it claims to be.

Maybe, just maybe, all these changes will lead to the Radio 3 I first expected: an online radio network.

Put it online; podcast it; let Radio 3 flood the Net with the real, and free, sounds of Canada.