CTV & Rogers - I despise you both

It is a fact of life that things change. However, I am put off by the recent changes to two cultural landmarks brought about by insensitive corporate manuvering.

CTV recently scooped up the "Hockey Night in Canada" theme song for an amount that CBC was either unwilling or unable to produce. A song that has been associated with watching hockey on the national public broadcast station for 40 years will now be grafted onto NHL games on TSN and Olympic hockey coverage in 2010. Already, TSN is parading the acquisition, playing it at every opportunity, but it sounds discordant without its traditional context.

Media outlets call the purchase a coup for CTV but this assumes that hockey fans will bob along to the song, no matter who plays it. I hope that hockey fans will not simply follow the song but, rather, feel outraged that their emotions and memories can be thought to be so easily acquired.

CTV may wish to purchase the warm and fuzzy feelings of the Canadian public but they want nothing to do with their unfiltered opinions. Shortly after acquiring CHUM, CTV shut down Speaker's Corner indefinitely. Now, CTV's partner in the butchering of CHUM/Citytv, Rogers Television has announced that Speaker's Corner will not be revived, as initially promised.

Before online forums, Speaker's Corner was a way for the public to air views to a wider audience. With the advent of the internet, it would seem that Speaker's Corner had ceased to become relevant. Rogers Television has even hinted at turning Speaker's Corner into an online feature. However, the technological prerequisites for joining in on an electronic version of Speaker's Corner would take this reincarnation away from the street-level culture that the original Speaker's Corner captured so well.

Nostaligia for sale and the online opinion exchange are all signs of the times but I had hoped that some cultural touchstones, like the "Hockey Night in Canada" theme and Speaker's Corner, would remain sacred.