When I first “relaunched” (read: updated on a regular basis) URBMN back in late September, I talked about CBC’s latest attempt at afternoon show fodder, The Point.  I had hoped that the show wouldn’t “go completely shit within the week.”  It didn’t.  It went completely shit within a few weeks.

I’ve given up on The Point.  Aamer Haleem is too eager to please.  The music doesn’t go beyond the currently hyped college rock/pop of the moment.  The panel discussions are inane.  In short, The Point is the typical overearnest CBC Radio One panel show.  Things that most annoy me about The Point:

Aamer Haleem calls The Point‘s voicemail segment an “audio blog.”  It’s not an audio blog if public radio is the first place in which the segment appears, Haleem.  If The Point‘s phone line counts as an audio blog, Cross Country Checkup has been liveblogging in audio since 1965.

On top of that, the “have your say, Canada!” voicemail segment seems lifted from Richardson’s Roundup/The Roundup.  It doesn’t even have a catchy phone number like 1-800-SAD-GOAT.  I’m sorry, 1-888-91-POINT doesn’t cut it.

Is this show supposed to be current affairs?  If it is, why the hell was The Point talking about who the best Bond was when I listened to it on Friday?  The show devoted a week to “who’s the best Bond?”  That’s important to anyone?

Topics like the online selling of secondhand burial plots are what I hate most about The Point.  The story is just a public relations stunt made legitimate by CBC Radio One.  The segment comes across as glib and doesn’t tie in well to the larger issue of global financial uncertainty.  At least when The Agenda with Steve Paikin covers current affairs, it doesn’t try to sugarcoat its topics.

I prefer CBC’s specialist shows, like White Coat, Black Art and Quirks & Quarks.  While those shows are sometimes personality-driven, they’re at least about something.  The Point is about nothing.

The Point is yet another one of those shows where the format is built around the host, rather than the host fitting the format.  The Point suffers from The Hour Syndrome, wherein a younger host tries to make CBC programming more “hip.”

This tack fails most of the time, since the antithesis of being cool is trying one’s ass off to be cool.  Also, the “younger, hipper” hosts tend to push 40 and aren’t that cool in the first place.  Why does CBC Radio have such a conservative programming strategy?  Did you know CBC Radio used to have a horror program way back when?

One day CBC Radio will figure out how to market to a younger audience without aping college radio and/or trying too hard to appeal to “the kids.”  It sure as hell isn’t going to happen with The Point.

• 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}