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SOWNY » It's About The Music and Storytellers On The New ICON Radio » Yesterday 11:42 am

paterson1
Replies: 7

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It is interesting how they do mix up the talk about music between the hosts and audio from the artist.  I heard a break with Robert Plant speaking about Stairway To Heaven.  This song doesn't get much airplay anymore but it was interesting hearing Plants thoughts many years later.  His break was maybe a minute and then of course into Stairway. 

I find this interesting since so many so called music stations say almost nothing about the music they play or even what they have just played.  Some of this is because of VT but other than occasional Hollywood gossip about the artist, usually nothing about the actual song, artist or any background. 

As long as they have some news (as indicated above) and any important weather and traffic information this station could have some success, especially with more mature listeners and earthy folks that live in Nanaimo and the island.  Valdy's music has a new home.  

SOWNY » St Patrick's bore » Yesterday 9:00 am

paterson1
Replies: 13

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I don't get the connection between a diverse population and people enjoying a parade or a party.  On CP24 they were interviewing people (some a little drunk) at a Toronto Irish pub yesterday.  Most they interviewed were people of various ethnic backgrounds, and all seemed to be enjoying the day and some dressed up in green.  

SOWNY » Ever Wonder Who Picks The Radio Station Playing In A Waiting Room? » March 17, 2024 8:54 pm

paterson1
Replies: 4

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I remember being in a sports bar with some friends about 15 years ago near downtown Toronto.  For whatever reason they had Magic 106 Guelph blasting out on a Saturday afternoon inside the bar and out on the patio.  I was surprised the station was coming in so clear on Eglinton West on a summer afternoon. 

Talked once to a teller at a TD bank.  She told me that they sometimes had radio wars among the staff.  The bank manager eventually decided they would rotate the station every other day between the local adult contemporary and country stations. This was to tone down the friction among the employees who couldn't agree which station to have on during the day.

SOWNY » It's About The Music and Storytellers On The New ICON Radio » March 17, 2024 1:28 pm

paterson1
Replies: 7

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CKAY, Vista Radio's Coast FM 91.7 as of last Friday became ICON Radio.  The station is on Vancouver Island's Sunshine Coast in the Nanaimo area and has a classic hits format.  Brought back are some veteran announcers which they call Storytellers in the name of Brother Jake Edwards, Gerry O'Day, Gentlemen Jim Jackson and Barb Montgomery.

Here are the last few minutes of Coast FM and the changeover to ICON Radio, courtesy of RadioWest.ca.  https://www.radiowest.ca/crn/iconradiolaunch.mp3 . 

More on the changeover from Broadcast Dialogue..https://broadcastdialogue.com/vista-radio-launches-91-7-icon-radio/

SOWNY » How Did This Song Ever Make It To #2 On The CHUM Chart? » March 17, 2024 9:34 am

paterson1
Replies: 9

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I could see Zoomer radio spinning this song on St. Patrick's Day today and I am sure Roger Ashby has played it as well on his show.  When played the announcer would give some background or information on the tune.

Back in 1966 in addition to CHUM, CFRB and Ray Sonin would have played Off To Dublin In The Green and Wally Crouter it in the morning, CKEY and CBC radio could also have also given it some airtime.  So the song would have had a lot of airplay in addition to CHUM in Toronto. 

Everything wasn't as political in 1966 and I recall the "playing of the spoons" was popular.  This was a big part of the Abbey Tavern Singers sound.  I believe the group also appeared from time to time on CTV's Pig and Whistle,  a very popular and highly rated show for years on the network. 

Another song that is not played much anymore would be Andy Stewart's Donald Where's Your Troosers?  A song that reached #1 on the CHUM chart and #37 on the UK singles chart in 1960.  This song was picked up again in 1989.  Airplay on the BBC1 morning show gave "Donald" another life and this time reached #4 in Britain.     

SOWNY » RadioPlayer App Coming To The US Market » March 16, 2024 2:51 pm

paterson1
Replies: 1

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RadioPlayer which has been around in Canada for over seven years and many countries in Europe, has announced that they will be launching the app in the US.  More details from radioINSIGHT. https://radioinsight.com/headlines/266158/radioplayer-announces-us-launch-adds-ken-lloyd-as-us-partnerships-lead/

SOWNY » Favourite Television Characters » March 16, 2024 12:17 pm

paterson1
Replies: 14

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My favourite characters are mostly comedy.

Wayne Knight- Newman on Seinfeld.  Newman always looked harmless, but he had a darker evil side and this made him fun to watch.

Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris- Frank and Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld. We have all likely known a couple like this, disagreeing about everything and fighting and yelling over nothing important.  

Ken Osmond- Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.  The mouthy slacker teenager  who always was overly polite around adults.  When the grownups left the room, he could be an a-hole especially to those he thought were below him.  A timeless character who never fooled anyone.

Harriet Sansom Harris-  Bebe Glazer, Frazier's scheming and ruthless agent.  What Bebe wants..Bebe gets.

Martin Short- Jiminy Glick on Prime Time Glick.  Shorts best character and so funny.  Glick is the shallow self important interviewer of the stars.  He is not impressed usually with who he interviews and often doesn't even ask them any questions about themselves.  What he does talk about has nothing to do with who his guest is.  Talking to Billy Crystal..."Do you think Marvin Hamlisch should still wear denim?"

John Candy- William B. on SCTV.- The ultimate loyal talkshow sidekick.  Unsung, unappreciated but the Sammy Maudlin Show wouldn't be the same without William B. Williams.  "Sammy..if I could just say something...."    

SOWNY » Corus Launches New Radio Show Across Ontario, But Not On Talk Stations » March 15, 2024 11:11 am

paterson1
Replies: 13

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Wouldn't any rerolls be new to your sister?  Had a radio friend that was in NY a few years ago.  He said NY radio is somewhat over rated.  He was talking daytime and not overnight however. 

SOWNY » Why More Original Streaming Shows Are Ending Up On Free TV » March 14, 2024 10:38 am

paterson1
Replies: 4

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Easy to see why this is necessary since all of the streamers are in the red so much.  But it is odd how all of the major US OTA networks for a while now have been promoting that the show you are watching tonight on NBC, CBS, ABC is available on Peacock, Hulu, or Paramount+ tomorrow.  All of them are running new scripted programs on their streamer the next day. 

Now they are just doing the opposite, original product from the streamer playing at a later date on the OTA network.  However there is a problem here.

While I enjoyed Only Murders In The Building, I didn't like the blurring of lips and censoring of the audio whenever a swear word was spoken.  And on some shows this came up a lot.  It was on later in the evening, and at least CTV could have let the show run with no editing.

Speaking of the Canadian networks, yes they have run programming from their streamers.  CTV recently ran Little Bird which originally was on Crave, CBC has run various programming originally seen on GEM.  CTV2 is currently running The Sopranos (unedited) as is Crave.  Years ago CTV ran LetterKenny unedited after the Super Bowl after the show had become Crave's most popular series. 

SOWNY » Why Foster Hewitt Deliberately Lied During Some Hockey Broadcasts » March 13, 2024 6:17 pm

paterson1
Replies: 4

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Doug Thompson wrote:

Jack Kent Cooke did a lot of shady things in his broadcasting history. When he didn't get the Toronto TV license that went to Baton (Basset/Eaton) that became CFTO, he sold CKEY and moved to the U.S. where he was granted instant citizenship.  

At one point he bought Top 40 KRLA in Los Angeles and held a contest that had the FCC take away his license.

He's also the guy that changed the name of CKEY's DJ Digger Dave Mostoway to Duff Roman.

Doug, you may be able to shade some light on this story and confirm if it was even true.  I had heard that at one point in the early 60's CHUM played a prank on CKEY announcing that the station was changing format to beautiful music or  MOR.

CHUM apparently had promos on the air, even ads in the paper, promoting the fact that by such and such a date and time CHUM would stop playing rock and roll.  As the story goes, CKEY thought they would get a jump on the competition and started to play the beautiful music format first.  Sort of what CFTR did to AM640 and the flip to news. 

Naturally when the time and date came CHUM didn't change anything and CKEY was playing beautiful music.  I had some doubts that this story was even true, but in that era of Toronto radio, stations like CHUM and CKEY did bait each other a lot. 

Any truth to this story, or were any similar pranks played on the competition? 

SOWNY » Neilsen Ratings Details » March 13, 2024 5:59 pm

paterson1
Replies: 3

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The TV Ratings Guide isn't bad.  It has daily prime time US ratings for both OTA and cable.  You sometimes need to scroll down a bit since they often don't post the results in order.  Usually the previous evening numbers are available around 1:30-4:00 in the afternoon.  These numbers are updated so any TBA will be posted eventually and ratings may be adjusted up or down slightly.  You can also check out ratings and the top shows from years ago. 
http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/2024/03/tuesday-tv-ratings-31224-password.html

SOWNY » Oscar Ratings Up For ABC » March 12, 2024 2:25 pm

paterson1
Replies: 3

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CTV must be very happy with those ratings.  I watched most of eTalk's hour recap last evening.  Well done and they certainly had access to the stars on the red carpet.  

SOWNY » Canadian Radio Owner Fills Gap Left By Dying Local Newspapers » March 12, 2024 2:13 pm

paterson1
Replies: 10

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I think local radio (especially community stations) put some of the weekly papers out of business.  My hometown had a vibrant weekly paid paper called the Fergus-Elora News Express that had been around in various forms since the mid 1850's. 

The paper became a shadow of itself soon after the local radio station, The Grand went to air in 2011. The Express became a free publication but eventually closed the doors after more than 160 years in business.   

The local radio had ads on the air from day one, even getting into on location broadcasts from local merchants in Fergus/Elora/Elmira and Guelph.  Alarming for the paper was when national auto advertising started to appear on the radio and no longer in the weekly.

The area still has a local paper which covers all of Wellington county and this free circulation tabloid is still flourishing.  

SOWNY » WLS Chicago Remakes Classic Jingles » March 12, 2024 1:41 pm

paterson1
Replies: 7

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WLS and TM Studios in Dallas have brought out new reworked jingles for WLS-FM based on what WLS-AM used back in the 70's and 80's.  WLS-FM has a classic hits format and is the #9 station in Chicago with a 3.3 share.  Hear the new jingles that should bring back some memories.  From RADIOINSIGHT..https://radioinsight.com/headlines/265984/wls-fm-resurrects-classic-sonic-logo-with-new-tm-studios-custom-jingle-package/

SOWNY » Global Toots Its Own Horn Over 50th Anniversary » March 12, 2024 12:58 pm

paterson1
Replies: 8

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Bill Brioux talks to Global programming executive Troy Reeb about Global and their 50th Anniversary.  Also posing the question if Global would even still be here if it weren't for shows like Love Boat and NBC's must see TV back decades ago. Things changed for the network with the advent of simsub.  More from brioux.tv.
https://brioux.tv/blog/2024/03/11/this-weeks-podcast-corus-evp-troy-reeb-celebrates-50-years-of-global-television/ 

SOWNY » They Still Offer College Courses In Broadcasting. But Is Anyone Going? » March 11, 2024 2:14 pm

paterson1
Replies: 15

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My old alma matter actually has more offerings for broadcasting than when I roamed the halls.  Conestoga College in Kitchener has separate two year radio and television courses and also a one year Performance Media and Digital program.  When I was there our course was 3 years for both radio and television. 

Kyle Christie and Nancy Richards formerly of CTV Kitchener teach at the college. 

SOWNY » Why Global May Face A Small Simsub Dilemma On Sunday Night » March 11, 2024 1:42 pm

paterson1
Replies: 12

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Last night it was announced that 10 films had been nominated for best picture and then Al Pacino just announced the winner.  I agree it was confusing, and I didn't know they had been showing the various nominees throughout the broadcast.  Overall I thought it was a good show and most of the reviews for Kimmel as host have been positive.  Also thought the In Memorial segment was poorly handled. 

Here is Bill Brioux's thorough review on last nights broadcast.  From brioux.tv..https://brioux.tv/blog/2024/03/11/jimmy-kimmel-trumps-trump-at-the-94th-annual-oscars/

SOWNY » Sirius XM Launches Odd New Campaign To Win Back Subscribers » March 11, 2024 1:04 pm

paterson1
Replies: 4

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Yes it ran last night on CTV but I didn't watch the whole ad til now.  Did it run 3 minutes last night on the broadcast? Sometimes what is on Youtube and on TV are not the same.  Some Super Bowl ads are 90 seconds on Youtube but only 60 or 30 during the broadcast.  

SOWNY » Last Days Of Top 40/CHR On AM Radio From 1992 » March 10, 2024 10:48 am

paterson1
Replies: 14

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Tomas Barlow wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

Great energy. Didn't know this show existed at the time!

Anyone know who the VO voice is?

It says Erin Davis on the page.

Yes, as mentioned above Erin Davis (not the CHFI one) was the news reader.  The VO talent for the show sounds like Evelyn Macko to me.

SOWNY » More Nonsense with Sports Channels!! » March 10, 2024 10:43 am

paterson1
Replies: 4

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I have no problem with the sound levels on the sports channels of which I have 10.  The one channel that always seems to have low and erratic levels is the Weather Network. I think the volume issue is with them.

All other channels I receive with Bell Fibe don't usually require much adjusting and I do have separate speakers for the television.  I do as Radiowiz mentioned, use the volume for the television for both the speakers and TV.  Good clean stereo sound.

SOWNY » Last Days Of Top 40/CHR On AM Radio From 1992 » March 9, 2024 9:02 pm

paterson1
Replies: 14

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RadioAaron wrote:

The width in 1992 was not due to video - most of the artists in this countdown didn't break because of video - it was due to lack of new superstars and overall direction. CHR ratings were in the toilet. It was a transition time in need of a lightning rod and Alternative provided it.

Not so sure.  In 1992 the video channels were at their peak of popularity and they were breaking the new music and artists with radio trying to keep up and often not succeeding.  The superstars were on Much Music and MTV with airplay, live concerts and interviews.  Music television absolutely contributed to top 40 and CHR's lack of direction, simply because they were being out gunned. 

Look how Much Music could fill the street with their live concerts outside of their studios or even for a weekly dance show like Electric Circus. They were showing their audience on TV every week, and in many cases the artists were right there to perform and to talk.  Top 40 and pop music popularity is often brief, but in the mid 80's and the next twenty years it was music television that largely determined who the new musical superstars were. 

SOWNY » Last Days Of Top 40/CHR On AM Radio From 1992 » March 9, 2024 2:46 pm

paterson1
Replies: 14

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RadioAaron wrote:

Nirvana being #1 on this countdown is very symbolic.

What a mess Top 40 was at the time. Imagine being 16 and the countdown on the CHR station includes Michael Bolton, Bryan Adams with Rod Stewart, Haywire, etc. The stage was set perfectly for Alternative to become the mainstream for a few years.

Even Z100 NYC, one of the most successful CHR launches ever, became an alt-rock driven station shortly after this aircheck. 

Much Music, MTV, Video Hits etc. had a lot to do with this.  Top 40 radio was forced to play the wider playlists and new artists seen and heard on television. 

SOWNY » Last Days Of Top 40/CHR On AM Radio From 1992 » March 9, 2024 2:43 pm

paterson1
Replies: 14

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arc23 wrote:

When did each Of the AM stations in Toronto drop top 40 music or current music I believe AM640 was the last to have no music programming in any day part But do we have a date for the last bit of CHR music in Toronto on AM?
Also wasn't Tarzan Dan on M640 near the end of their music run ?
 

I believe you are right arc23 AM640 was the last AM station in Toronto to finish with top 40 music. 

640 was on Oct 10, 1995.
CFTR ended their top 40 years on June 7, 1993
CKOC Hamilton on Feb 17, 1992
CHUM on June 6, 1986

Of all of these 1050 CHUM had the most press about dropping top 40.  The Toronto newspapers had articles on the format change, and both CTV and CBC national newscasts in addition to local Toronto television covering the story.  Even a couple of Buffalo TV stations mentioned that CHUM radio in Toronto had moved away from top 40 music.  CHUM apparently had listeners in the Buffalo area for decades, and pre dated WKBW with the rock and roll format.

As far as I know Tarzan Dan was at AM640 or whatever the station was called when the music left the airwaves.

SOWNY » Bell Media does it again... » March 9, 2024 12:39 pm

paterson1
Replies: 11

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When I was in the newspaper business we would have co-op students from the college and universities working in the newsroom or as an ad builder in creative, or occasionally in the sales department.  A few were hired by the company to cover a maternity leave or as a full time job in news, creative, or sales assistant.

All of the students seemed to enjoy the work but were looking at their time as only experience.  Even the few that were hired didn't stay any longer than a year and treated work at the newspaper as a step to move them closer to the work and career that they really wanted.

This was 10 years ago, so I am sure even fewer students now get experience from newspapers.  Some papers no longer have a physical building and staff work from home.  

SOWNY » Jackie Shane Biopic Traces Her Career & Why Toronto Radio Rejected Her » March 8, 2024 4:03 pm

paterson1
Replies: 10

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Does the movie come from the premise that Jackie Shane was rejected by Toronto radio or was the Hollywood Reporter editorializing?  Who got the CHUM AM and FM wrong, the movie or the writer of the article?  Two major errors that I hope wasn't made by the film maker. If it was the film maker then they didn't do their research well. 

Any Other Way reached #2 on the CHUM chart.  So how then was the artist rejected by Toronto radio?  CKEY also played the single. The song was a hit in Toronto only, and spent 9 weeks on the CHUM chart.

According to wiki Any Other Way sold over 10,000 copies in the Toronto area and this was very successful considering her small New York City record label, Sue Records, had poor distribution.
 
Jackie liked Toronto so much that she lived here from 1959 until the early 70's.  And most of her success was in Toronto. I read in another article the reason she left was to take care of her ailing mother back in the US. 

Here is the CHUM Chart from the first week in April 1963.  

SOWNY » Viewers Will Miss At Least 2 Jays TV Games This Season, Both In May » March 7, 2024 9:33 pm

paterson1
Replies: 5

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Radio Bob wrote:

Oh, we'll notice.  The overall productions are vastly different, and the Apple TV+ presentation isn't the better of the two.

I agree.  I watched three of the Apple TV+ streams last year and all had too many technical glitches, both sound and picture.  

SOWNY » 2024 Canadian Screen Award Nominees For Television » March 7, 2024 1:34 pm

paterson1
Replies: 1

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This breaks down the number of nominations per network for CBC, Bell Media, Global, Rogers and APTN. 
From Broadcast Dialogue. https://broadcastdialogue.com/canadian-screen-awards-nominations-by-network/

SOWNY » AI Used To Help Program Music On US iHeart Stations » March 7, 2024 1:22 pm

paterson1
Replies: 1

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Really interesting article from INSIDERADIO that talks about how iHeart in the US is starting to use AI for music programming.  

Other topics covered are projected growth of radio this year stateside, how radio is surpassing TV in some areas. Also featured is the the success of iHeart selling their podcasts, with big increases in revenue for this new adjacent business.
https://www.insideradio.com/free/how-iheart-is-using-ai-to-help-make-music-decisions/article_199d9be2-dc67-11ee-9d88-2367c0e782d1.html 

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