Points on CBC Radio One’s The Point, Episode One

  • The show played bands like Patrick Watson, Arcade Fire and Stars.  I don’t expect Suffocation’s “Pierced From Within” at 2:00 PM in the afternoon*, but the music just doesn’t fit well with the content.  It would be nice for a show on CBC Radio One to not hold to the “music, then talk” lockstep of shows like Sounds Like Canada.  At the very least – if the show has to play music – play more obscure stuff, or a wider array of music than the popular college rock/pop way too many CBC Radio shows have played for at least ten years.
  • The closing theme song is much better than the opening theme song.  At the beginning of the show I thought The Point had been cancelled and an episode of Quirks & Quarks thrown out in its place.  At least two shows use that Neil Armstrong clip on CBC Radio now, and that’s just lazy.
  • Judging by the first episode, Aamer Haleem isn’t that bad a host.  He’s trying far too hard to be genial, but he’s better than Jian Ghomeshi.  I admit that I liked Ghomeshi when I reviewed Q for blogcritics.org, but since then I’ve found him smarmy and insufferable.  I don’t understand CBC Radio’s love for hosts from music cable channels – Haleem left VH1 to host this show, so at least it’s not combing MuchMusic this time – but there have been far worse hosts.  Then again, Haleem could get worse by next week.
  • From the cbc.ca site: You will also hear stories you won’t get elsewhere, which is why Jesse Brown is on the show extrapolating an idea from his Search Engine blog.  CBC Radio reuses segment ideas often.  I just wish the producers of these shows would admit it.
  • The Point seemed to get better by the third half-hour.  This is the inverse of Q, where the third half-hour is almost always throwaway shit.  The topics covered on The Point were either genuinely interesting – St. John’s George Street receiving a makeover so as to appeal to tourists and cut down on drunks – or pointless, like a segment on “green fatigue.”  The show seems a little too gimmicky at this point – Haleem’s “what if life had an instant replay” rant was lame and I’m not entirely sold on this rotating cast of “Point People.”  Yay for more fucking panel discussions!  If there’s one thing you don’t hear on CBC Radio, it’s that!

Overall, not a bad first episode.  Hopefully the show doesn’t go completely shit within the week.

*although that would be interesting, just to piss 97.5% of CBC Radio One listeners off

C. Archer
Le Social