His name is Matt Allen and his new gig is something of a homecoming. 

Meet Matt Allen, The New Host Of CBC Radio's Afternoon Drive For London & Windsor 

I'm going to check at 6 PM to see if he's still on as scheduled. 

What could such a small station do that breaks any laws? It possibly involves one of its hosts.

Brian Crombie is the ex-husband of Bonnie Crombie, the former mayor of Mississauga. On Wednesday, Crombie officially threw his hat in the ring to replace his now divorced wife at City Hall, joining a roster of almost 20 other candidates. 

Fair enough. But Mr. Crombie also has an hourly show that airs every weeknight at 6 PM on Sauga960, with a repeat at 6 the next morning.

If I'm not mistaken (and I hope someone will correct me if I am) the rules state that once you officially register your intention to run for office, you are ethically required to cease any radio or media commitments, in order not to give any candidate an unfair advantage. Yet when I was tuning by Sauga960 on Friday, I stopped for a second and heard them running a promo for his show. It's OK to buy ad time to get noticed, but to continue with your own daily show? I think that may violate election law.

Technically, I believe he should no longer be on the air. Whether they comply with that rule or not for municipal votes, I have no idea, but he should in good conscience remove himself from the show immediately until after the election.

CFRB has already dropped Dipka Demerlla as a regular on its Round Tables at 7:45 and 8:45 AM weekdays, after she also confirmed she was going for the top job. 

Will Sauga960 do the same thing? If not, do they have to give equal time to all the other candidates? 

Again, I'm not sure what the law is, but this is something I've always seen happen during every election when a media person is involved. Shouldn't CKNT be required to do the same thing?

Radio Online is a generally good site for radio news, and I usually find them pretty interesting and accurate. Until I stumbled on its page listing the city's FM dial, where so many things are wrong, it's hard to imagine where they got the info. 

Take the listing for CHUM-AM. Please. It claims the station, which clearly has AM in its designation, is located at 97.7 on the FM dial. For some reason, it's owned by Freeland Broadcasting, which I'm sure is a surprise to Bell. 



But it doesn't end there. Apparently CKDX is sharing 99.9 with CKFM, because both are listed as being on the same frequency. 



And then there's CIRV, which I'm betting most Toronto residents don't even know exists. It's an ethnic station at 88.9 that goes by the branding of "Red FM." But what it's not is at 107.5. I also find the ownership listing questionable. "Skynet Hawaii?" Is The Terminator a part owner?



And then there's CKLF at 88.1, which apparently is based in Brandon, Manitoba, not far from downtown T.O. It also lists the long defunct CKLN on the same frequency, but nary a word about CIND-FM. (For the record, there is a CKLF in Brandon, but it's obviously nowhere near Canada's biggest city.)



Here's a look at the topsy turvy listings, for whatever they're worth. Frankly, I expected better from this site and wonder how they got so many so wrong. 

Radio Online's Toronto Database

I live in northern North York and I can't get a sniff from Oshawa on 107.7. Worse yet, 1580 is also practically all noise, so while I'd like to listen to CKDO off air, I can't. The only place it comes in well is in the car, where its HD signal is on 94.7 - and even then, its relatively weak signal often gets blocked out by geography and other buildings.

How cheap is cheap? When it comes to their properties, there seems to be no end to the penuriousness of Rogers and Bell.

It turns out they've allowed the Leaf radio crews to actually go on the road during the playoffs, instead of just calling the action from a Toronto studio. But it appears the only reason they gave approval is because they don't have to pick up the tab. Instead, the NHL is paying the freight.

There's no immediate explanation for how that came about, but according to The Daily Hive, it may trace back to a blown Joe Bowen call from last year when the veteran announcer couldn't see the action and credited the wrong player with scoring a key goal.

But the Leaf crew is the lucky exception. Rogers has kept the Canucks radio play-by-play crew at home during the playoffs instead of letting them fly to Nashville to cover the action on scene. 

Rogers is also keeping its Jays' radio crew home for the year, sitting in a studio in downtown Toronto instead of heading out with the Boys In Blue & White for half the season. No word if that will change if the Jays make the playoffs, which is still a long, long way off. But I will always believe that being where the game is being played provides better coverage than if they stay at home. Sadly, this seems to be the new normal for Canadian teams.

Don't forget to try Tubi.tv, which is not, to my knowledge, affiliated with Bell in any way. A great FAST service and if you have a VPN set to the U.S., there's even more on it, but if not, still a lot of great stuff there for Canadians.

There seems to be a lot more sports stuff on the board than usual on Thursday and here's another one. What was going on with that marathon Blue Jays broadcast? There were deluges and monsoons in Kansas City and the Jays-Royals afternoon game was delayed - and delayed and delayed - for more than 3 1/2 hours before they mercifully called it, with field conditions at Kauffman Stadium at one point being called "a lake."

I understand the reluctance of owners to call the game (which the Jays lost 2-1, after it was finally stopped in the 5th.) My question is about how long the radio coverage has to stay on during that inevitable down time. I tuned in to the Fan 590 for an update around 3 PM, and the crew was vamping to fill time. On and on it went, and instead of resuming "normal" programming, the station did what has to be the longest rain delay show in team history. 

I checked back in around 4:30 - still waiting, still filling air time. Then just before 6. Still talking about the rain. By the time they called the game near 7 PM, those poor fill-ins had been on the air seemingly non-stop for almost four hours. (They did give Blair and Barker a rest for a while, but they were back for Jays Talk, which went on until 8 PM.)

I know things can change fast, but shouldn't they have gone back to regular programming at some point when it reached almost 4 hours, with a promise to return with updates? What else is there to say in all that time?

I have to give the guys credit. I didn't hear it all, obviously, but they somehow got through it. 

There's no "mercy" rule in baseball, but shouldn't there be one for the crew calling and commenting on the game? Four hours of babbling fill-in while waiting for the rain to stop seems like an eternity and there had to be a better way.

Or at least, a batter way.

I almost put him in, but wasn't he mainly heard out west? I admit he belongs on the list, but I wasn't sure how many in this part of the land would have had the chance to hear him.

The problem with these polls is there's limited room for the choices and inevitably, someone deserving (like Robson) is going to be left out. I probably should have put in an "other" in retrospect. 

In light of the passing of Bob Cole, if you had to pick just one of these greats from the storied history of Hockey Night In Canada, which one would it be?

Restricting it to just a few platforms seems to me like a way to guarantee very few will see it. What an odd choice.

Are they available if you don't have either of them?

FAST stands for Free Ad Supported Streaming Television, and it's the latest big thing, like Pluto and Tubitv. Now Bell has joined the free-for-all, although this may not quite be free for all. At least not yet.

The stations will be available on LG and Samsung TVs, but it's not clear if you'll be able to access them using other means, like your phone or laptop. 

Here's the list:

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CTV @Home: A variety of CTV's best lifestyle programming that spans from feel-good to feed-good! Enjoy classic episodes of The Marilyn Denis Show, Mary's Kitchen Crush, Country House Hunters Canada, and more.

Corner Gas Channel: Return to Dog River, Saskatchewan with all episodes from one of Canada's highest-rated comedy series of all-time, as well as its spin-off, Corner Gas Animated.

CTV Gridlock: A traffic jam worth being stuck in! Enjoy classic episodes of Highway Thru Hell and the entire series of Heavy Rescue: 401.

CTV Laughs: Laugh out loud with this collection of funny, featuring side-splitting sitcoms, roast battles and stand-up.

The Mightiest by CTV: Mega machines take on mighty missions with the most innovative stories from Mighty Trains, Mighty Cruise Ships, Mighty Ships, Mighty Planes, and The Mightiest.

CTV News: Features the best from Canada's most-watched news organization including CTV National and CTV Local News, Power Play, Question Period and W5.

TSN The Ocho: Home to the best of seldom-seen sports, TSN The Ocho features unusual and entertaining sports and competitions including kickball, table tennis, ultimate frisbee, slippery stairs, cornhole, and more.
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There are also three French language streamers, and Bell promises there are more to come. But if they're not available to everyone, that certainly would restrict the audience. So far, none of those look terribly interesting to me. But it will be worth keeping an eye on them to see what else they might come up with

It's the latest speculation in The Buffalo News. A column by Alan Pergament notes the prominent owner of several properties recently purchased some of the debt of competitors Cumulus and Audacy, leading to speculation he could wind up owning more stations than are allowed in a single market. 

Pergament believes despite the fact they're on AM, both WBEN and WGR are untouchable. But the rest could be up for grabs if it comes to that.

"A combined Audacy/Cumulus Buffalo apparently would have to sell one FM and three AM stations to get under federal ownership guidelines.  

WGR and WBEN are the most valuable AM stations. It might be difficult to get a buyer interested in WWWS, WWKB or WBBF, which have low listenership. WLKK would appear to be the least valuable FM station."

But the columnist also notes that any such moves might be months if not over a year away - if it happens at all. 

Are there changes coming to Buffalo radio?