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B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
What if you had to suddenly evacuate your home with no real notice and then couldn't find any local coverage on your radio, as you're racing away from the scene in your car?
That's what one angry listener near Kelowna, B.C. discovered when the wildfires in that province forced her out of her home, without knowing what would be there when she gets back.
My one caveat is that she only discovered her local CBC outlet later, but her complaints about the local talk station picking up Toronto programming from thousands of miles away certainly resonates.
"On Friday night and through Saturday as this fire was threatening to burn down Peachland and Summerland, instead of any information about evacuation centre locations, how to get assistance or where to go for shelter, all we got was music and senseless banter on every FM station.
Worse yet, on AM1150, our local NEWS station, all we got was pre-taped repeat talk shows from Toronto, shows about food and wine that encouraged people to visit the South Okanagan, and football and baseball games. Eventually there were some short news updates but even those sounded pre-recorded and presenting dated information."
She makes a great point about how radio used to serve its community of licence and how that's not true anymore.
Okanagan's lack of live radio coverage 'concerning' during wildfire emergency
- BowmanvilleBob
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
Everything old is new again. Does anyone remember the hurricane that hit Halifax area in the early hours of the morning back in the early aughts? Environment Canada was frantically phoning local media outlets trying to get someone to go on the air to warn locals that the storm had strengthened as it made landfall. They couldn’t find anyone. Or the station in Fort Nelson, B.C. that ran out of market programming during much of the day? When a major snowstorm hit and paralyzed the community, the mayor and local law enforcement broke into the studios, cut the network feed and began broadcasting local emergency information. In both cases, local emergency authorities complained that radio dropped the ball when it came to community service.
There have certainly been exceptions. Radio stations in places like Slave Lake and Fort McMurray did outstanding work in keeping local residents informed during major forest fires in those areas. But what if a major emergency disrupted cellphone and internet service across the GTHA today. How would local radio stations handle it?
Last edited by BowmanvilleBob (August 14, 2026 8:08 am)
- Shorty Wave
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
BowmanvilleBob wrote:
What if a major emergency disrupted cellphone and internet service across the GTHA today. How would local radio stations handle it?
Funny you should bring this up BB as it was on this date, August 14th in 2003, the GTHA experienced a major black out that lasted a few days. I remember listening to the radio for updates while trying to navigate my way home. I don’t recall which station it was but more than likely it was AM680 as I used to tune in for traffic back in the day and wasn’t into talk radio at the time. My phone didn’t work either, until later the next day.
- Capricasix
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
What if a major emergency disrupted cellphone and internet service across the GTHA today. How would local radio stations handle it?
Funny you should bring this up BB as it was on this date, August 14th in 2003, the GTHA experienced a major black out that lasted a few days. I remember listening to the radio for updates while trying to navigate my way home. I don’t recall which station it was but more than likely it was AM680 as I used to tune in for traffic back in the day and wasn’t into talk radio at the time. My phone didn’t work either, until later the next day.
I remember standing in the driveway listening to 680 on my car radio!
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
In the article the evacuee also blasts the amount of local television coverage, but I disagree with her on that point. Global BC (which is widely available across BC) has done a top-notch job of covering these fires, they’ve had multiple reporters live in the Okanagan. As they have a full slate of newscasts on weekends they had live coverage on the morning news, at noon, 6 and 11 on both Saturday and Sunday during the height of the evacuations.
I don’t think there’s another local TV broadcaster in Canada, save for maybe TVA Montreal or CP24, that serves its audience this well.
This doesn’t necessarily help evacuees in their cars, but it’s still timely information they can get.
On the radio side, I’m not sure why this person overlooked the CBC initially but CBC Radio in BC has also done a very good job in emergency situations. I remember when the Lytton fire happened during the Heat Dome of 2021, they broke into regular radio programming and had a special province-wide emergency broadcast and opened the phone lines to callers. I believe they had the Vancouver morning show host come in.
Last edited by MJ Vancouver (August 14, 2026 6:52 pm)
- Scarboroughbluffsradiof99
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
Radio neads to step up.
People think in situations like these, I can just use my phone.
What if the internet is down?
And, about the local talk station in kelona, Did'nt vista promis local programing?
So, there still airing bell programing?
- Shorty Wave
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
What if a major emergency disrupted cellphone and internet service across the GTHA today. How would local radio stations handle it?
Funny you should bring this up BB as it was on this date, August 14th in 2003, the GTHA experienced a major black out that lasted a few days. I remember listening to the radio for updates while trying to navigate my way home. I don’t recall which station it was but more than likely it was AM680 as I used to tune in for traffic back in the day and wasn’t into talk radio at the time. My phone didn’t work either, until later the next day.I remember standing in the driveway listening to 680 on my car radio!
And radio was the only source of info at the time, it got me home that evening by telling me which roads not to use, traffic was chaotic as there were no traffic lights and when it got dark, no street lights. It was a strange couple of days.
- Scarboroughbluffsradiof99
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
Funny you should bring this up BB as it was on this date, August 14th in 2003, the GTHA experienced a major black out that lasted a few days. I remember listening to the radio for updates while trying to navigate my way home. I don’t recall which station it was but more than likely it was AM680 as I used to tune in for traffic back in the day and wasn’t into talk radio at the time. My phone didn’t work either, until later the next day.I remember standing in the driveway listening to 680 on my car radio!
And radio was the only source of info at the time, it got me home that evening by telling me which roads not to use, traffic was chaotic as there were no traffic lights and when it got dark, no street lights. It was a strange couple of days.
That was when radio did its job and was local.
I was only 3 when the blackout happened, so I don't remember it.
But, say, if silly rogers shut down 680 news and that happened again in Toronto, how will we get uptodate info?
Corus is bear bones, 1010 will be talking about parenting or wine or something unrelated, maybe cbc radio 1 will step up?
- ED1
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Re: B.C. Listener Outraged By Lack Of Local Coverage As Fire Ravages City
In the article the evacuee also blasts the amount of local television coverage, but I disagree with her on that point. Global BC (which is widely available across BC) has done a top-notch job of covering these fires, they’ve had multiple reporters live in the Okanagan. As they have a full slate of newscasts on weekends they had live coverage on the morning news, at noon, 6 and 11 on both Saturday and Sunday during the height of the evacuations.
I don’t think there’s another local TV broadcaster in Canada, save for maybe TVA Montreal or CP24, that serves its audience this well.
This doesn’t necessarily help evacuees in their cars, but it’s still timely information they can get.
On the radio side, I’m not sure why this person overlooked the CBC initially but CBC Radio in BC has also done a very good job in emergency situations. I remember when the Lytton fire happened during the Heat Dome of 2021, they broke into regular radio programming and had a special province-wide emergency broadcast and opened the phone lines to callers. I believe they had the Vancouver morning show host come in.
There’s also BC1, Global’s 24 hour regional cable news channel for BC (much like CP24 but not as ambulance chasing…). They’ve done some extra live coverage on there.
Last edited by ED1 (August 15, 2026 1:11 pm)