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SOWNY » How Did This Song Ever Make It To #2 On The CHUM Chart? » Yesterday 9:29 am

Hansa
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1966 is actually before the Troubles broke out and before the Provisional IRA broke off in 1969 and started its bombing campaign. In 1966 the IRA had been largely inactive for decades and so this song's reference to joining the IRA was seen as a historical reference to Ireland's War of Independence 50 years previously rather than an endorsement of contemporary terrorism.

SOWNY » How Did This Song Ever Make It To #2 On The CHUM Chart? » Yesterday 9:19 am

Hansa
Replies: 9

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How was the Chum chart drawn up? Wasn't it based on requests or on local record sales (ie calling up Sam's and A&A each week and getting their sales numbers?)

SOWNY » Global Toots Its Own Horn Over 50th Anniversary » March 12, 2024 1:16 pm

Hansa
Replies: 8

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Global's initial business plan was also to lease its network of transmitters to OCEA (now TVO) during the daytime (until 5 pm when Global would sign on) as OCEA only had channel 19 in Toronto. However the educational station got funding to build its own network of transmitters and never used Global's leaving a hole in Global's budget - and schedule- in its first year (I'm not sure how long it took them to launch a daytime schedule- I think they must have done so fairly quickly. Ironically Global's Witness to Yesterday featuring Patrick Watson "interviewing" figures from history ended up getting more play on TVO than it ever did on Global (TVO was repeating it well into the 80s)

SOWNY » Jackie Shane Biopic Traces Her Career & Why Toronto Radio Rejected Her » March 9, 2024 1:54 pm

Hansa
Replies: 10

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There are some other errors in the Hollywood Reporter article - it calls her 1967 album Jackie Shane Live, a "bootlegged recording" when it wasn't bootlegged at all. 

SOWNY » Durham ByElection...Where Are The Results?? » March 5, 2024 3:57 pm

Hansa
Replies: 18

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A complete nutter. He'll be at home in Poilievre's caucus - until he's not.

SOWNY » Radio Covers Mulroney's Death Quite Well With Very Little Prep Time » March 3, 2024 11:14 am

Hansa
Replies: 26

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Destroyed our industrial base. Gave away dozens of crown corporations at fire sale prices including one that manufactured vaccines (the buyer was a multinational that closed the Canadian factory) - shortsightedness that screwed us during the covid crisis.

SOWNY » Radio Covers Mulroney's Death Quite Well With Very Little Prep Time » March 3, 2024 10:34 am

Hansa
Replies: 26

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jughead jones wrote:

Greatest PM in the history of this country. RIP. The 640 morning show on Friday was an excellent cross section of people who knew him well. 

Almost broke up the country with Meech Lake and Charlottetown before destroying his party.

SOWNY » Another Old Familiar Voice Turns Up On Sauga960 » March 2, 2024 10:14 am

Hansa
Replies: 8

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I'm reading this really gripping New Yorker story about the cutthroat gold for cash business in Toronto and the time one of his rivals allegedly hired a hit man to kill Jack Berkovits.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/10/the-golden-age-calvin-trillin

SOWNY » Radio Covers Mulroney's Death Quite Well With Very Little Prep Time » March 2, 2024 9:20 am

Hansa
Replies: 26

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peter wrote:

Doesn't matter which Party is in power, the CBC gets their usual bailout, annual $$$$. Therefore, they are biased. Duh!
PP will change that!!!

That would be a shame. CBC, especially the television service, needs reforms but eliminating the CBC would be a serious loss that would be regretted.

SOWNY » Another Old Familiar Voice Turns Up On Sauga960 » March 2, 2024 9:16 am

Hansa
Replies: 8

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I'm not particularly a Shurman fan but I have to give him credit for taking ownership and responsibility for the on-air incident that led to his leaving 640.

SOWNY » How Long Can Cable's "Ghost" Networks Like MuchMusic Survive? » March 2, 2024 8:48 am

Hansa
Replies: 16

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It seems to be a law that every specialty channel eventually turns to muck.

SOWNY » Radio Covers Mulroney's Death Quite Well With Very Little Prep Time » March 2, 2024 8:45 am

Hansa
Replies: 26

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In retrospect, I think getting rid of all the US programming was a mistake. Even the BBC carries some American programming. Having a few US hit shows across the schedule brings in viewers and many will stick around and catch the Canadian shows. It was the private sector stations who were really pushing for an all Canadian CBC - meanwhile the private commercial channels in the UK carry much less American programming than do CTV or Global.

SOWNY » Which Daytime OTA Soap Opera Gets The Youngest Audience? » February 28, 2024 5:31 pm

Hansa
Replies: 17

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I wonder if any US network will ever launch a new daytime soap again. I don't believe there's been a new soap opera since NBC launched Passions in 1999.

SOWNY » Two Hour Tonight Show In Primetime Will Celebrate 10 Years Of Fallon » February 28, 2024 5:24 pm

Hansa
Replies: 3

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Did Leno get any prime time anniversary shows? I recall Letterman having a few for Late Night at NBC but none for him at CBS - or at ABC for Kimmel.

I'm not sure what the point is anyway in the age of YouTube when anyone can watch old clips whenever they want. (The same is true of "clip shows" generally.)

SOWNY » Time Magazine Releases Archive Of Radio Stories » February 27, 2024 3:10 pm

Hansa
Replies: 11

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BowmanvilleBob wrote:

Wilson, who died in 1924, made the brief radio address on the eve of what was known as Armistice Day (now known in Canada as Remembrance Day or Veterans Day in the U.S.) in 1923 to lament the fact that the U.S. was unwilling to join the League of Nations, which was the precursor to the current United Nations. Ironic that more than 100 years later, certain right wing factions in the United States are pushing for the country to back away from international organizations like NATO. It's a classic case of what goes around comes around. 
 

Interestingly, that's not actually the broadcast TIME was referring to. The article was published Monday, May 10, 1943 but the incident occurred in 1919:

 Radio: The Voice That Failed
The little-known story of the first U.S. Presidential radio broadcast was told last week in Movie-Radio Guide.

President Wilson was aboard the liner George Washington, returning from the Versailles Peace Conference. It had been announced that on the Fourth of July (1919) he would address the crews of all the convoying ships. The significance of this communication was noted by only a handful of newfangled thinkers — radio men. Most U.S. newspaper editors, buried the news among their gall bladder ads.

Engineers John H. Payne and Harold H. Beverage (now of General Electric and RCA respectively) rigged up the equipment. President Wilson's advisers insisted that the microphone be concealed: they were afraid it would make the President nervous. The engineers therefore hid the device in a cluster of flags.

Woodrow Wilson said in part : "We told our fellow men throughout the world, when we set up the free state of America, that we wanted to serve liberty everywhere and be friends of men. . . ." No one but those within earshot heard more than an occasional word.

No one had told Woodrow Wilson about the hookup.He had spoken, not from the stand, but from a hatchway 20 feet away

SOWNY » Time Magazine Releases Archive Of Radio Stories » February 27, 2024 1:06 pm

Hansa
Replies: 11

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RadioActive wrote:

 
 
The First Presidential Broadcast Nobody Heard 1943
 
Imagine being the very first president of the U.S. to give a speech on radio – and almost nobody heard it. It happened in the early 40s, when crews were afraid Woodrow Wilson would be scared off by all the remote equipment needed to get him on the air as he toured a Navy ship. So they hid it all, which didn’t exactly work out well.
 
"Woodrow Wilson said in part : "We told our fellow men throughout the world, when we set up the free state of America, that we wanted to serve liberty everywhere and be friends of men. . . ." No one but those within earshot heard more than an occasional word. No one had told Woodrow Wilson about the hookup.

He had spoken, not from the stand, but from a hatchway 20 feet away." 

The article may be from early 1940s but the event it describes would have been sometime before Wilson left office in 1921 - likely before his stroke in 1919. Wilson was long dead by the early 1940s and FDR had been on the radio plenty of times in the 1930s with his Fireside chats (as had presidents preceding him. 

CBC’s Politically Correct Language, 1939

 Turns out, being politically correct isn’t just for the modern era. And leave it to the CBC to bring it up way back in 1939.
 
“No longer, for instance, should Canadian announcers refer to singers as silver, golden, or velvet-voiced; no longer should they use such hard-worked adjectives as magnificent, superb or famous; to be shunned are Hollywoodisms like genius, glamor.” 

That doesn't sound like political correctness as much as avoiding cliches - something both broadcasters and print journalists are prone to if they're not careful. 
 

SOWNY » Another Toronto Morning Show Host Laid Up By Surgery » February 21, 2024 4:20 pm

Hansa
Replies: 10

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"Alex Pierson gets hip" reminds me of a headline that supposedly made it in the Times of London in the 1980s for an article on Labour Party leader Michael Foot chairing a committee on disarmament: "Foot Heads Arms Body"

I actually saw with my own eyes a Globe and Mail article on farmers appealing for assistance from then-Saskatchewan Premier Grant Devine: "Farmers Seek Devine Intervention"

And don't get me started on former New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord.

SOWNY » Another Toronto Morning Show Host Laid Up By Surgery » February 21, 2024 9:32 am

Hansa
Replies: 10

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RadioActive wrote:

Greg Brady, who is off the air on AM640 for a bit recovering from knee surgery. ...Jerry Agar also had knee surgery a few weeks ago, ...Alex Pierson appears to have returned fulltime, despite the discomfort of recovering from hip replacement surgery, ...

When did Tonya Harding move to Toronto and which station is her show on?

SOWNY » You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations? » February 19, 2024 1:29 pm

Hansa
Replies: 10

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I think hyperlocal is the way to get people listening to terrestrial radio these days so I'd try to insert some community content - newscasts at least for morning and afternoon drive and noon as well. Some live remote programming. A few interviews or other local items at least during the drive times. You can do this on a music station, you don't need a full "news/talk" format to do it.  If people want wall to wall music these days they will use their iPod or a streaming service - no need to try to duplicate that on local radio.  In CKTB's case, even if there's no budget for full day local talk at least have it in the key dayparts and have at least one reporter and newsreader for hourly newscasts - a larger newsroom if possiblle.

SOWNY » CFRB Morning Show Live On Family Day But Not AM640 » February 19, 2024 1:24 pm

Hansa
Replies: 15

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AMFM wrote:

They should be doing live shows today.  Radio is federally regulated; not provincial.  This is a provincial holiday.

Banks are also federally regulated but they're closed today. I believe provincial stat holidays apply to all workers in the province (unlike fed stats that aren't recognized provincially). I'm not a labour lawyer though so I could be wrong. 
 

SOWNY » Conrad Black is the headline keynote at the WAB conference in June » February 19, 2024 1:18 pm

Hansa
Replies: 15

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It's always nice when an ex-con is given a chance to do community service. 

SOWNY » Toronto Mike with update on Reshmi Nair and The Rush » February 17, 2024 9:14 pm

Hansa
Replies: 8

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AspectRatio wrote:

newsguy1 wrote:

Also The Rush has tended to have two hosts who play off each other, so really would be best with two new voices. 

John Tory and Deb Hutton as the male/female duo?

Restoring John Moore to the afternoon shift and Tory/Hutton do that AM shift?

Tory and Hutton? That would cover the entire political spectrum from A to B.

SOWNY » Would You Watch A Rebooted "Bewitched" - The Drama? » February 15, 2024 12:31 pm

Hansa
Replies: 5

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Bewitched really works as a satire of 1960s suburban middle class life and gender roles (in many ways its a somewhat feminist satire). I don't think it would work as a straight drama set today.

SOWNY » CFRB Upside Down: Tory In The Morning; Moore In The Afternoon » February 13, 2024 12:55 pm

Hansa
Replies: 19

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Binson Echorec wrote:

Occam's Razor - they need a fill in for The Rush but Tory is unavailable for the afternoon, hence the swap. As stated in the OP, it's a one day anomaly. While not ideal, nobody will get hurt.

Except if there are morning commuters who fall asleep during the morning rush.

SOWNY » For Monty Python Fans, This Is Sad News » February 13, 2024 9:43 am

Hansa
Replies: 15

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Idle always falls out with people over money - he also feuded with longtime musical collaborator Neil Innes (who was his partner for The Rutles and various other projects).

SOWNY » Best Ever Super Bowl Ratings On CTV/TSN/RDS » February 13, 2024 9:39 am

Hansa
Replies: 14

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The bump in viewership wasn't for the game itself, I suspect, but for Taylor Swift.

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