Photo by bitefight from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Torontoist has a soft spot in our heart for CBC Radio One. We kind of want Stuart McLean to be our grandfather, we can often be seen funking out and/or singing along to the addictive theme song of The Current, and we think that Jian Ghomeshi is just dreamy. The summer, however, brings strange and disturbing changes to everyone’s favourite public broadcaster—the summer schedule, full of lots of brand-new programming on our local CBC Radio One station, 99.1 FM.

CBC Radio is arguably the last bastion of semi-popular public broadcasting left in Canada. TVO aside, all other broadcasters (including CBC Television) rely largely on advertisements for revenue, and thus programming decisions are made based on pure numbers—ratings and how much money advertisers spend.

According to Havoc Franklin, a manager at the CBC Radio who works on in-house program development, the CBC Radio pays “a fair amount of attention to audience feedback” when it comes to the summer schedule. Don’t be fooled—ratings matter too, but CBC Radio’s decisions about the fate of their summer programs are still somewhat influenced by the input of listeners. The power is yours. So if you listen to the summer schedule, you can call or e-mail the nice folks at CBC and give your support to your favourite shows. It may not make the entire decision of which shows are kept and which are shelved, but your opinion is valued and helps impact programming decisions. The best programs in the summer are usually given positions on the regular schedule, such as the cerebral and linguistically-oriented And Sometimes Y, which premiered last summer became a regular-season CBC program earlier this year.

So which of the new shows are good?

At the front of the pack is Nick Purdon’s The Hidden City. Purdon’s show manages to unveil urban issues in an entertaining, revealing, and pretty amusing way. Purdon’s often droll attempts at documenting civic issues, such as the reconciliation of a pair of same-building neighbours from a noise conflict, reveal both the vast size and complexity of our urban environment while at the same time showing us the individual, human face of our cities. Though the show is a little Vancouver-biased, it still has an excellent view of urban issues that confront our own city.

Another delightful addition to the CBC Radio lineup is Preston Manning’s short program This I Believe, which is based on a National Public Radio program of the same name. The program typically lasts only a couple of minutes and features a Canadian reading an essay on their personal beliefs that has been written and submitted to the show. Essayists are as diverse—doctors, freelance writers, and figure skaters have all given it a go. Manning mercifully realizes that he doesn’t exactly have a voice for radio and keeps his part short, merely introducing each essay and finishing off the program by letting listeners know how they can contribute. Though sometimes a little overly sentimental, the show typically features well-written and thought-provoking pieces. Kudos to Manning and the show’s producers for quickly changing the show's format from being one featuring essays written and read by prominent Canadians to allowing anyone to contribute. This is a program that would work well in the regular season, particularly because it doesn’t take up very much time on the schedule and offers a pleasant break between programs.

Barenaked Lady Steven Page has been given a shot at a pop-culture analysis show called All the Rage. The show is often an amusing look at Page’s nerdy interests such as comic book superheroes, however it suffers from an abundance of distracting non-sequitur sound effects that makes Page seem a little like a child at a soundboard, though this may be part of his charm.

A slightly disappointing return is Seán Cullen’s “wacky” program from last summer’s schedule, Simply Seán. Cullen makes us feel conflicted—he’s funny exactly half of the time, and the other half he comes off as that one kid in elementary school who wanted so desperately to be the well-loved class clown, but only solicited occasional forced chuckles and looks of pity. A redeeming point is Cullen’s fairly good musical taste, but that’s broken up by Cullen's hit-or-miss attempts at being a poor man’s Eddie Izzard through stream-of-consciousness comedy.

One of this season’s best attempts at drama comes from now California-based comedian Russel Peters and writer Alan Rae. Monsoon House is a satiric look at both Indian culture and the Canadian publishing industry and is set mainly in Toronto. The unfortunate thing about Monsoon House being part of the summer schedule is that it’s actually a repeat (albeit, a welcome one) from last fall.

Canada's number one political issue right now may be the environment, but health care has been in the top three for decades. It's about time that it got a spot on our public broadcaster. Dr. Brian Goldman’s White Coat, Black Art provides a fascinating look at the world of health care from insiders. Goldman takes a sometimes-disturbing, scathing and revealing look at the many issues of our health care system such as the unspoken, yet common practice of jumping the line for surgery. He also shows the human side of medicine, such what sort of music surgeons groove out to.

The summertime also means a bit of host-shuffling for year-round programming, as regular hosts get their summer vacations and new hosts are given a shot at some of CBC’s bigger programs—giving a chance for Toronto-based radio personalities to host shows with more of a national and international scope. This season's summer hosts have been generally impressive, and it's particularly pleasing that Matt Galloway, the host of Toronto’s afternoon program Here and Now has been given a chance to take a bit more of a serious role as the host of The Current until August 3. Galloway’s interview skills have been honed during his time on Here and Now and he’s able to excellently handle some pretty heavy interviews—on Tuesday he interviewed an anonymous woman who had to flee Iraq because she had done some civilian work for the Americans. We've also enjoyed Toronto sportscaster Kevin Sylvester's engaging turn as the often-traveling summer host of Sounds Like Canada, which has shown us how diverse the man can be.

There's an excellent amount of diversity of topics for the summer schedule, yet there's a bit of a local feel. A lot of the programming that we get on 99.1 FM is produced at the CBC building on Front Street and certainly there is a fair amount of Toronto-based content on the summer schedule, whether it’s in programs, hosts, or both. Yet the new programs present to us a diverse view of the country as well as our own city. “We’re a mixture of Toronto and network programming. That’s what we are,” says Franklin sternly—and so far, we like what we’re hearing. While some wonder what a purely local public radio station would be like, the mix give allows us to look outside of our own civic bubble.

Give these programs a listen and let the CBC know what you think. The CBC doesn't do focus groups for their summer programs, but they want to know what's relevant to you. “Relevance is a big deal,” says Franklin.

After all, you do pay for it.

Photo of the CBC building by tysonwilliams and photo of the CBC Atrium by James Boston from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.