Why I Don't "Love" The CBC

I think a lot of Canadian artists and musicians are influenced by the CBC to make music that follows well the narrative of other music that has been featured extensively on the CBC. In other words, the CBC programming directors manipulate creativity in an attempt to construct a narrative that communicates effectively to the government the value of the CBC as a true expression of the Canadian narrative, so that they can receive a maximum of public funding.

Don't get me wrong, I like the CBC, and listen/watch often. But I mostly enjoy them for their documentaries, and I think any alternative media that can stand on its own two legs in the free market is more valuable and more likely to be a demonstration of true art, and an expression of the true Canadian narrative. 

Some cling to the classical ideal that art and commerce shouldn't mix, but this is an attitude of complacency that suppresses creativity in favour of conserving the status quo. In 2013 artists are allowed to make their own money without depending on a grant or a big corporation, and indeed they are ultimately much more celebrated if success comes to them this way. Your net profits should not be numbers completely manipulated by your government. The person deciding how much an artist is worth is probably earning 98% of the damn money!

The reward for a "successful" contribution to art and culture shouldn't be pre-calibrated by institutions that exist outside of the parameters of the free market in which we spend the rest of our lives. Art doesn't come from some fantasy dream world where the realities of our society don't apply. Artists are not welfare cases who should subsist on the dole as they craft pap in order to satisfy government culture cronies. But so many artists are institutionally brainwashed into thinking small. Why? So that their influence may be suppressed, their work whitewashed, and their potential marginalized.