Public vs Private TV & Radio

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Recently came across an interesting post on the Hanwell Community page about the new Radio station. For the past couple of years the rural community has been hosting a radio channel during the yearly 'Hanwell Days'

Reading this post, coincidentally occurred shortly after watching the 90's movie "The Arrival"

I suppose I have always had a bit of a fascination with radio at least since my dad showed me an old AM Transmitter he built when he was a kid.  It was in a wooden box, with knobs, switches, and vacuum tubes, with good old label maker style wording.  Wish I had a picture of it today.

My dad never really believed in public radio/tv.  The fact that the Canadian government funded CBC drove him nuts.

I ,of course, being a teenager who knew everything - took the opposite opinion on this.  Public radio allowed anyone to broadcast anything (regardless if that 'thing' made money or not). Artists could focus on the quality of the art itself.  

Take for example children's television - Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and even Barney the dinosaur All produced by public television. (on CBC there was also Mr. Dressup , Romper Room, and the Friendly Giant). These were tv shows aimed not at making money but by communicating with kids about life in a family friendly way promoting critical thinking, positivism, and optimism. Compare this with say 'Transformers", a cartoon entirely devoted to  the sale of the transformer toy, and was really just a 30 min long commercial.  (Most kids my age seemed to watch Transformers, and less Sesame Street as I recall)

So public broadcasting has a place, and I think it is an important thing to support, and if we look at the world of social media today, facebook, youtube, and blogs like this, anyone - including myself can share content, ideas and artistic expression for free...even if they don't have millions of viewers. Next the internet becomes 'commercial' folks want to make money selling adverts per view/click..and what becomes of the quality of the content?

Just a few thoughts....


               GeekWisdom Radio

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