I normally never listen to 2 minutes of commercials on a radio station. But on Saturday night, something happened on CKTB in St. Catharines that I simply could not turn off.
 
It was an audio trainwreck that was unlike anything I’ve ever heard in the era of automation. The station airs the Bell Media show “Viewpoints” at the same time as CFRB does on Saturday night. But when I accidentally tuned into 610, I noticed they were at least half an hour ahead of their Toronto counterpart.
 
I have no idea why, but the show finished at the odd time of 9:38 PM, and it was followed by the Canadian Press newscast from the previous hour, also airing at a strange time. That took five minutes. What, I wondered, would they do to fill the rest of the time between 9:42 and 10 PM?
 
Turns out, the software kept playing CKTB promos. Not one. Not two. But dozens and dozens and dozens of them, some 15 seconds in length, others 30. On and on and on they went, minute after minute after minute.
 
I have to admit it was like watching a car wreck. You don’t want to look but you simply can’t turn away. How long could this possibly go on?
 
By 10:05 PM – now more than 20 minutes in - it was still underway, the same promos repeated endlessly again and again with no one there to stop this ghastly waste of airtime.
 
Finally, at 10:06 PM, the weekend repeat of Coast to Coast began, ending what has to be the all time record for useless clutter ever heard on an Ontario radio station.
 
And it’s a funny thing – none of those promos for their sports coverage, Ice Dogs hockey, NBC Radio news affiliations or to remind me for the 87th time that they’re “The Voice of Niagara” made me want to listen to them at all.
 
Automation is an amazing technology. Except when it doesn’t work. Then it’s simply a trainwreck. And the station went off the rails on Saturday night. And I'm guessing only a radio nut like yours truly would stay tuned through the whole thing, just to hear when it might come to an agonizing end.