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SOWNY » Law & Order Toronto Wins The Night For CITY TV On Feb 22nd. » March 8, 2024 2:47 pm

Tomas Barlow wrote:

Would you rather they did an episode about the current mayor whose biggest headlines have been dealing with the deficit and getting along with the premier better than expected?

Sounds more like 2 full hours of CFRB listening. 

SOWNY » Fans Upset After Score Bug Missing From Hockey Night In Canada On Sat. » March 3, 2024 12:49 pm

Another weird thing from hockey last night:  The first 10 minutes of the Leafs Rangers game had no commentary, just crowd and game sounds (all the graphics were fine).   It was great and reminded me of the time the French commentators were on strike so flipping to CBC French got a game with no announcers.    It feels much more like being there with out announcers once the sound is turned up.   I've got Dolby 5.1 surround so it was a nice change.    It would be nice if no announcers could be selected somehow.    Some of the international auto racing feeds have multi languages and one with no commentary but that isn't available in Canada, just the UK and Europe.

I also notice that when there's a minute left in the period, the voice of Paul Morris is used to announce it.    He's 85 and held the announcing job for 38 seasons, from October 14, 1961 to May 31, 1999 so I don't think he's attending    A quick check on the internet confirmed they use a recording.   I think he's only there on occasion.
 

SOWNY » See The First "Law & Order: Toronto" Trailer » February 23, 2024 9:48 am

RadioActive wrote:

Slight spoiler alert.

I liked the show well enough and will definitely watch it again. But my only problem with it is the same as I had with the original NBC-made "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" that starred Vincent D'Onofrio. 

The main detective in that one was simply too knowledgeable about everything. In the case of "Toronto," the guy is an expert on art, finance, meteorology, wine, medicine, Latin, history and way too much more. I never found it believable in the old NBC series and I don't buy it here, either. 

No one, no matter how clever, can be an expert on everything. 

That's just my opinion, others may not have the same issues. Despite that, though, it was a good start and we'll see where it goes as the episodes progress. 

I started laughing immediately after Graff (the guy you mentioned) started talking.   What kind of accent is that?   I've never heard one like it before.   It sounded too made up, almost an American impersonation of a Canadian accent, except that actor Aden Young was born in Toronto and moved to Australia at 10 years.   So I'd expect something genuine.    Another chuckle.   If you freeze the Toronto map in the early part of the show when they're looking for the body, you'll see it lacks details like streets and just shows a few neighbourhoods & landmarks, but the typeface was huge so it will do for viewers!    It looked like one of those tourist map handouts blown up to a full wall, not something in a police station.     I got a kick out of the show and will continue watching.   Great plot twist at the end and not one shot fired the whole episode that I noticed.   Something the showrunner said will be a characteristic of the series.

SOWNY » See The First "Law & Order: Toronto" Trailer » February 22, 2024 10:15 am

RadioActive wrote:

Ever since they announced a version of "Law & Order" would take place in Toronto, I've been curious to see how it will portray the city and what kind of "ripped from the headlines" stories it might dramatize. We finally have a small clue, now that a new trailer for the series has dropped online, the very first one that hints at what's to come. 

It appears one the of plots will resonate with folks here. It's about a scandal surrounding a mayor found to be smoking crack. The trailer also shows what appears to be a shot of an enriched City TV news screen and the actors walking towards what looks like Old City Hall. 



It seems like the show will stay true to the mothership down south - it even features announcer Steve Zirnkilton as the voice on the intros.

This is one Canadian show I'm really looking forward to and its first 10-episode season will air Feb. 22nd on City TV stations across the country. The date is interesting. That's a Thursday, when all the other L&O's air on NBC. So to show this one in primetime, it would seem likely that City will have to give up at least one of the simulcasts of the three other U.S versions. I'll be curious to see which one they pick and where they put the displaced American program. 

Toronto's new "Law & Order" series has a crack-smoking mayor scandal 

As a fan of those shows, I expect more-or-less similar plots.    I'll be interested in the actors accents and how they treat the local landmarks in the stories.     One of the Star Trek's produced here did a great job using landmarks in Toronto like Ontario Place / Science Centre / City Hall in their sci-fi fare but with a little CGI to spruce them up.    It was entertaining and not always easy to figure out what they were with all

SOWNY » See The First "Law & Order: Toronto" Trailer » February 22, 2024 10:00 am

betaylored wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

Some changes ahead for the mothership.

Sam Waterston to leave ‘Law & Order’ later this month after 400 episodes

Can't wait to see what he does next.

He's 83.   He can run for President and show those other two young whippersnappers how it's done!


I remember him from way back in 1984 in The Killing Fields.    The first time I noticed him.

SOWNY » Conrad Black is the headline keynote at the WAB conference in June » February 21, 2024 10:43 am

SpinningWheel wrote:

 Conrad's 2019 pardon  from Trump came just a few months after he wrote a glowing, complimentary and ass kissing biography called "Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other" in 2018 .     Makes me wonder if the book had anything to do with it.

I found this McLeans opinion piece by Stephen Maher good for a chuckle.

Whatdoes Conrad Black see in Donald Trump?

"Last June, in an interview on TVO, Conrad Black seemed taken aback when Agenda host Steve Paikin asked him about gossips who thought he was praising Donald Trump in the hopes of winning a pardon for his crimes.

“I think that would be a mealy-mouthed and almost a dishonourable thing to do,” said Black, who has a knack for the mot juste.

You have to agree with him.

If Black did write a book and a number of columns praising Trump, for the purpose of influencing him, that would indeed be mealy-mouthed and dishonourable, and Black would be a sad, pathetic figure, a tycoon who once sat in the House of Lords reduced to sycophancy in a desperate attempt to flatter the narcissist-in-chief so that he can once again travel to the United States, and glide through the gilded rooms where the one-per-centers drink their Moët and complain about all the tax they pay."
 

SOWNY » Conrad Black is the headline keynote at the WAB conference in June » February 19, 2024 12:44 pm

 Conrad's 2019 pardon  from Trump came just a few months after he wrote a glowing, complimentary and ass kissing biography called "Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other" in 2018 .     Makes me wonder if the book had anything to do with it.

SOWNY » Toronto Mike with update on Reshmi Nair and The Rush » February 18, 2024 11:21 am

Hansa wrote:

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.

That would end it for me for 1010 morning shows because the last thing I want to hear in the morning is political babble between those two.   IMO, there's already too much political content through the day on 1010 as it is.   

SOWNY » Viewer Alert: Vintage 60s & 70s Concert Coming To WNED » February 18, 2024 11:13 am

Thanks for the heads up.   It looks like one to see.   I set recording for the 2/26 @ 9:30pm show and only 90 minutes is allocated and by looking at the shows before and after, it's not a fund raiser.

SOWNY » Welcome to North America David Marsden CFNY 1979 » February 15, 2024 1:03 pm

It is like a time capsule with Marsden bringing up recent events in his dialogue and the quality is great.     The guy who recorded it mentions listening to 'ny in '76-77 when they played Spirit of The Age by Hawkwind.   It reminded me of how I caught the 'ny bug in those years as well, except in my case they were playing Karlia Suite by The Nice (Keith Emerson) which like the other, is fairly obscure and not exactly standard fare on any local radio station except for them.      The best was still to come!

SOWNY » Happy World Radio Day! Well, Maybe Not In North America » February 14, 2024 3:10 pm

RadioActive wrote:

Every February 13th since 2011 has been designated as World Radio Day by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and has been celebrated annually. 

Believe it or not, this is actually a big deal all over the world - except, for some reason, North America. If you do a Google News search for "World Radio Day," you'll see dozens and dozens of entries from countries all over the world - but not a lot from our part of the planet.

It's a big deal in Africa, Australia, England, Europe, India, Asia and many smaller countries. Yet, beyond campus stations and a few commercial ones, it's barely noticed here. I wonder why that is? The medium may have seen better days, but blowing its own horn once a year can't hurt. 

Either way, Happy World Radio Day! We may not broadcast the news to the world on this continent, but it shows that in some places, it's still a big deal.


World Radio Day: 101 years young, and still going strong!

There's a great episode of CBC Spark devoted to radio that's worth a listen.     From the technology and math behind it, an interview with the men from S. P. A. R. C. (Canadian radio museum)  to an expert view on radio's future.

The extraordinary power of terrestrial radio.

"In honour of World Radio Day, we explore the magic behind one of the most important technological creations in history, the innovations it inspired and its enduring power in an increasingly digitized world."


 

SOWNY » Famed Broadcaster Is One Reason Tennis Balls Are Yellow » January 23, 2024 12:18 pm

RadioActive wrote:

And then there was that unfortunate experiment with the glowing hockey pucks created by Fox, when it had the rights to the NHL in the U.S. It was supposed to be the next big thing, but wound up being anything but. It involved a lot of research, expense and specially-made pucks. And it was gone inside of two years, when Fox lost the rights to hockey and the technology they created stayed with them. 

"The glow puck has become a punch line, an oft-cited example of lowest-common-denominator TV stupidity. But the biggest problem with Fox’s glowing puck wasn’t the concept. It’s that it was born too soon.

They were especially bad when the puck wasn't visible by the near boards. You couldn't see the puck, all you could see was the glowing through the boards.  It was laughable.

SOWNY » Famed Broadcaster Is One Reason Tennis Balls Are Yellow » January 23, 2024 12:14 pm

Hansa wrote:

In hockey there have been various experiments over the years with orange pucks for similar reasons. 
Weird but true — The NHL has considered switching to orange pucks multiple times in its history
 

The world hockey association had them too.  They were probably the first.

SOWNY » Watching Cdn. Sports? You're Seeing Gambling Ads You Might Not Expect » January 20, 2024 1:10 pm

We were inundated with ads from the beginning and it was suggested that this was because online gaming was being launched and it would die down as company's money ran out and like the litany of pot stores, the number of players in the game would be reduced as the market settled in.    What's happened instead is there seems to be new ones or rebranded old ones showing up and even with restrictions on athletes doing them, the number of ads and placements keeps rising.  This is especially with the new ad technologies putting ads on the boards as seen from the centre camera.   The president of the gambling association's opinion is that the number of ads is OK, but I disagree.   There are far too many and the gambling category appears to make up 35 - 50% of the ad content of hockey games (I don't watch Basketball).    They should restrict the ads to only ones that include the 19 years-old + warning and see how that goes in reducing the number first, then consider restricting the ad time they're allowed if the flood continues.    If they don't, this will be more than it is, an annoying problem with ads, it will be churning out kids with gambling problems by the dozens and then it becomes a public health issue.    There's currently a small amount of the proceeds going towards gambling addiction programs but that's like saying 'we'll sell dope loaded with fentanyl and pay for the funerals to compensate'.   It's not a solution.

SOWNY » What Do Captain Kangaroo & Mount Everest Have In Common? » January 18, 2024 7:28 pm

Nice gesture, but why does it always end in more litter lying around on the mountain!   He and his team probably dumped loads of air tanks and other crap on the way up and then what's he do?    Leave more!     He should stick to leaving memorial stuff at the cemetery where there's plenty more to keep it company.         

And there's an estimated 200 dead bodies of climbers currently up there now, so it's not without risk.
 

SOWNY » Are There Too Many Panel Shows On Toronto Talk Radio? » January 18, 2024 9:34 am

RadioActive wrote:

Talk radio has a lot of sameness in it, and nowhere is that more apparent than the so-called “panel segments.”
 

I don't mind the panel segments themselves but must the topic be political or about societal problems most of the time (and that goes for the talk segments too)?   And maybe they should be in touch with what other shifts are talking about because on some days, hour after hour everybody seems to be harping about the same boring topic ad nauseam.   Maybe collectively they can try working a little harder, lean into it and find something else to cover instead of proffering the  low hanging fruit topics that are often the result of some crap sputtered by a politician with a mic in his face.   

I also would welcome more information / coverage other than politics of events with some real experts being interviewed and to see them reduce their reliance on opinions from the same tiresome group.

SOWNY » On this date fifty years ago... » January 7, 2024 11:37 am

Right around that time Global showed Toronto Toro's (WHA team owned by John Bassett) hockey games, mostly from Varsity Arena.  The announcers were Mike Anscombe and Bill Bird.  
Before leaving Toronto, the Toro's had former Leafs Frank Mahovlich, Paul Henderson and Carl Brewer in their lineup.    I followed them as a kid and unlike the Leafs, games were easily accessible at decent prices and saw lots of games on Global.

SOWNY » Mika Midolo No Longer At CP24 » January 4, 2024 5:31 pm

pinto wrote:

Think she was with Skywords traffic before that?  Never met her though was told she was super nice person.

She started as a spokesperson with the TTC and then moved to CP24.   She even did PA announcements on the subway system.  I remember her giving reports from there and there's a bio on her too that expands on it.

it's good to hear she's doing well after her fight with cancer.  

SOWNY » The Year In SOWNY 2023 » January 2, 2024 10:46 am

RA:  Thanks for putting this together and also your contributions to the Yellow Board.   
Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

SOWNY » Singhing the wrong tune » December 21, 2023 8:40 am

unclefester wrote:

I don't think those holiday remarks would bother a guy like Singh

He and his pal Trudeau like to be all things to all people

Boy!  Are you ever easily 'triggered'.   Take a deep breath and calm down man.

SOWNY » Rogers Cable » December 20, 2023 2:30 pm

RadioActive wrote:

turkeytop wrote:

Got a email yesterday from a collection agency demanding payment on my overdue bill from Bell Mobility. I don't have and never have had a Bell Mobility account.

I'm not saying this happened, but you should check to be sure your identity hasn't been stolen. I went through this a couple of years ago and managed to more or less nip it in the bud before it got out of control. 
 

Around 22 years-ago I had a rental car from Hertz in Markham and my drivers license and Visa info was scooped.   I only found out when I received two extensive bills (total $1500) from Telus for me and my fictional partner that had calls all over the world.  The phones had been purchased with my info at the Pickering Town Centre.    Then I got my Visa bill containing US $18,000 worth of camera gear ordered online from the USA that I never received.     Visa did a great job in clearing it up but my biggest issue was over how, a few weeks before, I used my Visa for a $4 pay phone call from Pickering to Mississauga (remember those days?) and Visa were all over it as 'unusual' activity.  They even called me at work!   But when the shit hit the fan later?   Not a peep from them! 

Lesson learned.   I check my credit report from Equifax / TransUnion once per year for any activity and check my Visa online frequently.    Always be careful if you hear about that kind of activity.      On the other hand, one of the cell numbers I had kept getting calls from collection agencies because the previous holder was a deadbeat.  

SOWNY » Tubi Or Not Tubi - That Is No Longer The Question » December 19, 2023 1:31 pm

Jody Thornton wrote:

But for me, it's down to the content.  You just can't watch this stuff on linear television.  The quality of streaming originals are just so much better ... er, usually.

 

Sometimes I'm shocked by the poor quality of old TV shows they allow on the air because I know better quality ones exist.  For example, Sci-Fi plays various ones from the post 1986 Star Treks and some look like they're off old VHS cassettes set on normal speed, the video is so fuzzy.      Of course the original series are excellent because they're from film and probably restored.    I'm pleased to hear that Pluto is showing higher quality video programs so I'll keep that in mind for the future.

SOWNY » Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers » December 19, 2023 12:53 pm

Interesting article and a follow up from an opinion columnist at Poynter.org       I was never much of a Sports Illustrated fan in the first place but this is just the beginning.

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers  We asked them about it — and they deleted everything.

Opinion | Reports that Sports Illustrated used AI-generated stories and fake authors are disturbing, but not surprising
 

SOWNY » A Tip for NordVPN Users » December 16, 2023 11:41 am

I know there's a few VPN users posting here and some may use NordVPN.     I've had headaches with Cineplex.com, TuneIn and a few others not working that were only solved by killing the NordVPN app in Windows 10 Task Manager, not pausing it or turning it off.     Nobody at Nord, Cineplex or TuneIn seemed to know what to do about it, but today I discovered that by disabling their new Website Protection feature, everything works fine.   That feature's default is set to 'On' and it breaks some innocuous websites.   Now they all work fine even with the VPN turned on!

I hope this helps someone because I spent hours messing with it and contacting tech supports out my yin yang!


 

SOWNY » Erik Thomas Leaving Raceline Radio & Broadcasting After 48 Yrs. » December 16, 2023 11:28 am

You would think that TSN would know how to spell Erik's surname.    It looks like everyone else here got it right but them!

SOWNY » Actor Andre Braugher Of "Homicide: Life On The Street" Fame Dies At 61 » December 14, 2023 11:05 pm

RadioActive wrote:

Oddly, one of his last performances was in a TV commercial for a Canadian cell phone company. 

I was saddened to hear about his sudden passing.   I've been a fan of his since 1993 when I first saw him on Homicide Life On The Street and followed his career.    I passed  by one of the ads for Virgin + on the sidewalk 2 days ago and found out about his death yesterday.     He was a Juilliard trained actor who first excelled in serious roles and later demonstrated his exceptional comedy chops in The Good Fight (an excellent show) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.    RIP.


 Virgin pulls ‘Obviously’ campaign featuring Andre Braugher

SOWNY » CFTO Chopper » December 14, 2023 2:06 pm

YMCA wrote:

It's the sound of freedom.

Could be.   Nice Apocalypse Now reference!

Premier Buck-a-Beer just announced an overdue change to booze distribution and I'm expecting a chopper any minute now to be hovering low over the Summerhill LCBO. 

SOWNY » CFTO Chopper » December 14, 2023 1:32 pm

Yesterday I heard a helicopter over midtown Toronto and assumed it must be covering something important that early in the morning (9 - 10 am).   The thing is loud enough to wake the dead and only 2 weeks ago it was on the scene at Mt. Pleasant / Davisville for a fatal tragic accident involving a pedestrian in a mobility device and a dump truck.  

This time it was covering a story to do with how a condo at Yonge / Balmoral applied to block lanes on Yonge plus bike lanes and sidewalks for 3 years for their staging area (read parking lot) and worked with the councillor to avoid it.    It's also replacing a 30 year-old medical building but that's for another day.    

Well, I tuned in and there it was, the wrong intersection and area and a stupid story about the condo!  Hardly a big deal.  They couldn't even get their directions right and would have been better served using a drone.  The real problem is the noise level.   These 'casual' one-off loud noises add up and are a big annoyance.   It must be really bad for shift workers.   At least the city is currently dealing with new noise laws coming down the pipe, maybe one for news choppers will be on it.

I wonder why they are wasting their money on this chopper anyway?  The police use drones, and news choppers seem to be just a gimmick for news coverage and for traffic conditions that rarely differ day-to-day.  

BTW, a few months ago a news chopper had mechanical problems and had to set down in nearby David Balfour park.   It was there for 2 days.   

I'm just glad the cops don't have one too.   Imagine the noise then.   I hear it's really bad in LA where they have a couple of them.
 

SOWNY » BBC Radio's "The Joni Mitchell Story" Now Online - & Not Geoblocked » December 8, 2023 9:50 am

Thanks for the heads up on this one.    I listen to a lot of BBC content via my VPN.    FYI, the page says it's available for 29 days.

(Update).

I'm on episode 5 of 6 and it's very good.  Episodes are 30 minutes each and you need to navigate the website a little to find them but it's worth it.  No VPN required.

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