"Follow the Bouncing Junos"

Yesterday didn't start off well, and then I heard Roger Rick and Marilyn say that CTV was showing the Junos here at 10 pm, the Maritimes at 11 pm, and only Alberta would see it live. That shot me awake.

I checked CTV's website. They chirpily announced that we were all so privileged to be able to get in the Saskatchewan mood by first watching Corner Gas at 7 (love the show, but I'd rather be settling down to watch the red carpet at 7), then thrill to a special two-hour Amazing Race (bo-ring), and then all 2 million Race viewers would slide right into Juno watching at 10. Right, and I'm the fairy godmother. Who starts watching an Awards show at 10 pm, never mind 11? Were they going to truncate it further down to 1 hour -- remember, they truncated it to 2 hours and started it at 7 to accommodate another hot American show no-one cares about anymore -- so that Lloyd Robertson would be seen at his usual hour or people could go to bed at midnight, having work or school the next morning?

"The Junos' dedication to bringing music right to Canadians' doorsteps is what lured CTV to the awards in 2002... [just so long as it doesn't interfere with their American programming] ...according to president of programming Susanne Boyce. "It's a nation-building show that contributes, I hope, to lifting the country [only as long as everyone's half-asleep so that they don't notice it's taped]."" (Reader's Digest, p. 195, April 2007)

Well, it certainly lifted the music industry to heights of indignation this time. I guess a few years ago, the industry wanted to watch Desperate Housewives, which is why not much was heard about the truncation of the Junos. But starting it at an hour when most are thinking of bed, work or school next day, and certainly not interested in watching a taped 2-hour show, was a bit much even for them. Luckily for us in this instance, the industry has clout, and now we in Ontario get to watch it live, starting at the now-normal hour of 7, the hour other Awards shows start their red-carpet specials, a whole hour before other countries start their Awards shows. Parts of the rest of the country are SOL though. They get to watch it taped, maybe at 9, maybe earlier. Aren't they lucky.

"Follow the bouncing Junos," Diana Swain said on CBC News at Six. I love it! She said it with just the right hint of smugness, cause you know, sans doubt, that we'd get to watch a proper, full monty Junos on CBC, with the red carpet at 7, the show at 8, ending on a fantastic jamming note, perhaps in time for bed, but not so early we have a whole night left to kill, like we now do with CTV. Yup. The Junos have got to find a new home. On CBC.

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