In the face of this threat, like any other organization struggling to survive, the CBC should be producing excellence. Instead, it keeps pumping out notably mediocre entertainment. And The National, rather than getting better and better at informing and enlightening Canadians, which is what it's supposed to do, keeps screwing up.

Compared to CBC's The National, CTV offers a cleaner, neater, tighter, better paced, and better-written news program. Even so, there's too much narrating over edits and when that's done, we stop listening to the words for a moment.

With a federal budget coming down in just three weeks, Peter Mansbridge asks the Bottom Line panelists, "What's so bad about running a deficit?" Nearly 20 minutes later, I still haven't a clue. Only bright point is that Mansbridge suddenly becomes a lot more human now he can talk to real people.