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By Vivien Schweitzer
20 Mar 2007

Classical music has been reduced on Canada's national radio broadcaster, CBC Radio Two, as of yesterday evening, reports The Globe and Mail.

A new jazz show called Tonic, from 6-8 p.m., has replaced Danielle Charbonneau's eclectic classical program, Music for a While. From 8-10 p.m. the classical concert show In Performance has been replaced by a new live-performance show called Canada Live, which highlights music from different regions of the country and features everything from classical to roots music.

Jennifer McGuire, CBC Radio's executive director of programming, told the Globe that Radio Two will remain primarily classical throughout most of the day, but the restructuring means that classical has been elbowed out in the evenings to make way for other genres.

Listeners reportedly criticized previous changes CBC Radio made in late 2005, when representatives of the Canadian League of Composers met with CBC executives to discuss their concerns.

According to the Globe, the CBC hopes to avert controversy this time around. "Everybody is always concerned about change at CBC Radio because they [listeners] are heavily invested in it, and that's a good thing," McGuire told the paper. But "we have talked to all the organizations. We talked to composers. We talked to them when we started the study [to overhaul CBC Radio] and when we were thinking about what it meant in terms of programming changes ... That conversation continues to be ongoing."

The station is hoping to attract a younger audience of listeners between 35 and 49; the majority of current listeners are reportedly over 50.

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