If you ever listened to WCBS 880 News in New York over the past 43 years you heard his excellent reports from city hall.
Rich Lamb retired and the station sent him off in style.
It's a great media story.  A nice change from lay-offs and stations closing.

https://www.radio.com/wcbs880/news/local/listen-wcbs-880-on-air-tribute-to-reporter-rich-lamb

RadioAaron wrote:

splunge wrote:

Scorpio42 wrote:

Looks like another locally produced community radio station disappearing?

Perth’s Lake 88 FM sold to Renfrew’s My Broadcasting Corporation
CHLK-FM 88.1 Perth, (Lanark County) Ontario 
https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/10339350-perth-s-lake-88-fm-sold-to-renfrew-s-my-broadcasting-corporation/

CHLK is a commercial radio station

Yes, and it is also a community station in that it's locally owned, operated, staffed, and targeted, which I'm pretty sure is what splunge meant, not its CRTC designation.

We don't live in a commercial.
Kindly stop mixing up community radio with commercial radio. Thanks.
Community radio is listener supported.

I don't watch much sports anymore but when I did I always preferred it the other way around. I'd turn down the volume on my TV and listen to the radio while watching the game instead. I always found radio play-by-play more descriptive and interesting and doing it this way meant I could "watch" the game while doing other things because, with baseball especially, who wants to stare at a screen for 3 or 4 hours when not much is happening for much of the time. Unless the TV play-by-play announcers actually announce with a radio audience in mind (and they won't because it will annoy the TB audience) this will disappoint a lot of people and lead to fewer listeners. 

I think My Broadcasting Corp.  has been after Lake 88 for awhile.

Scorpio42 wrote:

Looks like another locally produced community radio station disappearing?

Perth’s Lake 88 FM sold to Renfrew’s My Broadcasting Corporation
CHLK-FM 88.1 Perth, (Lanark County) Ontario 
https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/10339350-perth-s-lake-88-fm-sold-to-renfrew-s-my-broadcasting-corporation/

CHLK is a commercial radio station

This Toronto Sun article confirms that under the new plan, there will be very few spring training games at all on the radio. 

"There will be no radio broadcasts through the majority of the 28-game exhibition schedule — either on-air or on the web — leaving a huge void for the fans of one of the most intriguing teams in baseball this spring."

"...Three of those 10 scheduled games will be Sportsnet productions, coming as they do in the final week of the Grapefruit League schedule, which will serve as TD Ballpark dry runs for the regular season. The simulcast of those three will air on radio."

But that's not all. 

"Sportsnet claims the TV/radio simulcast is being done “in an effort to minimize travel and closely adhere to team, league, and government protocols related to the pandemic.”

"This is bunk, of course. It’s being done to save money.

"As near as we can recall, the then radio crew of Ben Wagner and the since released Mike Wilner managed to call a full slate of games from their Toronto studio, just as Shulman and Martinez did on the TV side.

"Besides selling short the intellect of their fan base, it’s insulting and a development that could set a worrying precedent going forward." 

Blue Jays fans left in the dark as Sportsnet blows up broadcast plans 

The Star indicates those few spring games will be the March 21st contest against the Yankees, the following day's test with the Tigers and Detroit again on March 28th. I will always remember shovelling snow out of my driveway while listening to a spring training game. It always made the chore just a little bit easier, knowing the Boys of Summer were just around the corner. Sadly, that won't happen this year. 

Another memory ruined by the penury

CFRA and former CFRB and 640 morning show host Bill Carroll went on the air Friday with a sad announcement. Brian Fraser, the former technical producer on his Ottawa morning show, succumbed to cancer Thursday night, following a two year fight with leukemia. 

Carroll was emotional as he paid tribute to his lost colleague.

From the Ottawa Sun:

“It’s the age and the potential he had that makes it so hard,” Carroll said. “We’ve all lost people. I’ve lost more than my share, including my Mom and Dad. There’s just something about someone (that young). The last time he was in the studio working he was 24 years old … I just can’t believe he never came back."

Bill Carroll Pays Emotional Tribute To His Former CFRA Morning Show Technical Producer  

CKTB's Tom McConnell did an entire segment about this on his Friday afternoon show. His feeling, like mine, is that baseball is made for radio and there's a huge difference in the way it's called on either medium. Baseball on TV doesn't need the descriptions radio does, with too much verbiage on the tube becoming annoying. 

And while I agree that the Vin Scullys of the world may be able to pull it off, there aren't that many of them. (Shulman can probably do it, but I doubt very much Buck Martinez can.)

What was strange about the segment on 610, though, was McConnell's oblique references to the Fan 590, including wondering if Rogers deliberately waited for "Tim & Sid's last show" to drop this 'bombshell.' He referred to it as a possible "Friday dump," a technique politicians use to deliver bad news at the end of the week, while people's attention is elsewhere, and they forget about it on the weekend. 

He also talked about the firing of Mike Wilner, perhaps suggesting this plan has been in the works for a while.  

Whatever side you're on with this issue, though, it's very unusual for a Bell Media radio host to talk about a Rogers radio station for 15 minutes on his show. Just like real radio play-by-play in Toronto this year, it's something you won't hear too often! 

I'm sorry they are going back to a 3 man team, as I prefer a two man booth.  Buck and Dan did a great job last year. 

The addition of a third person provides little benefit (regardless of who it is) and more often than not just results in too much "noise" and interruption.

I am looking forward to see this, two experienced journalists anchoring the new program.  CP24 overall is a good station and this hopefully will be an improvement in the evenings. I am glad they are ditching or moving the real estate show and a few others from the 7-9pm slot and sticking with news.
 
Bell did something similar a few years ago with many of their local CTV stations.  They let people go, cancelled sports and then turned around and expanded the evening television news package.  News on CTV channels start at 5pm and in many cases they also hired or brought in new reporters.  That's how it worked at CTV Kitchener with the local cast 5-7pm weeknights. 

And they now often scoop the daily Waterloo Region Record on stories which didn't happen as much before.  The on air talent is good to not so good, but the reporting by and large is well done and better in my opinion than a few years back, with more live reporting.

Just FYI, the Twilight Zone reboot has been cancelled by CBS/Paramount. So it will not be back on City. It never did live up to the original or even some of the later reboots, IMHO.

The Twilight Zone Not Returning for Season 3 at Paramount+

It depends how it’s done. Dan Schulman did ESPN Radio’s Sunday Night Baseball and calls a great game on radio. If he does radio play by play on TV it’ll be fine. Vin Scully did it for years in Los Angeles.

 Frasier is the latest program that will be making a comeback in the future.  But this time on CBS Paramount+.
Bill Brioux has the details on this and a few other reboots...
https://brioux.tv/blog/2021/02/26/why-frasier-will-soon-be-back-in-the-building-and-other-reboot-reasons/ 

What a strange announcement. There is a huge difference between coverage of baseball on the radio and on TV. A lot of the magic of the former medium will be lost if they simply broadcast television audio. And how, exactly, does Ben Wagner remain part of the team if he's no longer doing play-by-play? 

Sounds like a typical Rogers cost cutting move, that will do nothing to improve the games on the radio. 

Sportsnet has released its spring training TV schedule. Hazel Mae tweeted that Sportsnet is producing three of the games on March 21, 22 and 28 so the remaining should be feeds from the other teams' broadcasts.

The interesting tidbit in the press release is this:
"Sportsnet will be streamlining production for the 2021 season by simulcasting TV broadcasts on Sportsnet 590 The FAN and across the Sportsnet Radio Network. Blue Jays fans can now enjoy the legendary voices of Buck Martinez, Dan Shulman, and Pat Tabler on both TV and radio. Ben Wagner remains part of the Blue Jays on Sportsnet broadcast team, joining Jamie Campbell, Joe Siddall, Hazel Mae, and Arash Madani in covering all the bases throughout the season."

Here's the announcement