''Spark'' was a Canadian radio

talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (201 ...

about "technology and culture." Hosted by Nora Young, the program made its

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent o ...

début on September 5, 2007. The show was also broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio 159 and, since January 9, 2010, on

Vermont Public Radio Vermont Public Co. is the public broadcaster serving the U.S. state of Vermont. Its headquarters, newsroom, and radio studios are located in Colchester, with television studios in Winooski. It operates two statewide radio services aligned wit ...

's network of stations in the United States. It was also broadcast in Australia on the

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Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...

network. ''Spark'' was produced in

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by Young and a team that consisted of Michelle Parise, Adam Killick, and Kent Hoffman. The show ended in September 2024 after 17 seasons. The program was made collaboratively with its audience. Nora Young often encouraged listeners to become "Spark Contributors" by participating in the active conversations on the Spark Blog, notifying the Spark Team of interesting ideas to investigate, or even recording interviews and letting Spark use them on the show. The show often played phone messages left by Spark listeners and featured comments left on the Spark Blog. Its episodes made use of

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music until October 2010, when CBC management realized that Spark was available on some platforms considered to be commercial, violating use restrictions of most of the music available under the

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bu ...

s. This prompted Spark to limit its use to the APM Music library. Spark sometimes comments on proposed legislation that affects widely used technology. An example was the

Copyright Modernization Act The ''Copyright Modernization Act'' (), also known as ''Bill C-11'', was introduced in the House of Commons of Canada on September 29, 2011 by Industry Minister Christian Paradis. It was virtually identical to the government's previous attemp ...

and the bills leading up to it.

Producers

In addition to Nora Young, producers included Michelle Parise, Adam Killick, Kent Hoffman Dan Misener, Elizabeth Bowie and Carma Jolly.

Multiple podcasts

The on-air version was available as a weekly podcast, augmented with two additional audio feeds: Spark Plus (which featured "bonus audio" such as full interviews), and "Bandwidth with Anshuman Iddamsetty", a weekly technology column by one of Spark's producers. Spark Lite, a low-bandwidth podcast of the on-air version powered by blip.tv, was available from November 2008 to October 2011; it ended due to changes in blip.tv policy.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spark (Radio Show) CBC Radio One programs Audio podcasts Canadian talk radio programs 2007 radio programme debuts 2000s Canadian radio programs 2010s Canadian radio programs 2020s Canadian radio programs 2024 radio programme endings