1 of 1- RadioActive
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Absence Aggravates Agar
Just three days after a major Internet outage silenced John Oakley, the same thing happened to one of his competitors. Jerry Agar was unable to get on the air at his regular 9:08 AM timeslot on CFRB after experiencing technical issues from his home studio in Etobicoke.
John Moore, who had just said his goodbyes to listeners 10 minutes before, was forced to reappear and fill in, while soliciting phone calls as they were waiting for the problem to be fixed. (They also filled in with about 5 minutes of spots before taking that step, but eventually, they couldn't just keep airing non-stop commercials. Although with this station, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference!)
[Edit: Whatever the problerm was, they finally fixed it after the 9:30 news, and Agar went on as normal.]
Last edited by RadioActive (October 5, 2020 9:45 am)
- Chrisphen
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
If only they had easy access to the resources of a major telecom to promptly address the issue...
- Glen Warren
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
Chrisphen wrote:
If only they had easy access to the resources of a major telecom to promptly address the issue...
I'm kinda picking up on what your putting down...
- g121
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
Just three days after a major Internet outage silenced John Oakley, the same thing happened to one of his competitors. Jerry Agar was unable to get on the air at his regular 9:08 AM timeslot on CFRB after experiencing technical issues from his home studio in Etobicoke.
John Moore, who had just said his goodbyes to listeners 10 minutes before, was forced to reappear and fill in, while soliciting phone calls as they were waiting for the problem to be fixed. (They also filled in with about 5 minutes of spots before taking that step, but eventually, they couldn't just keep airing non-stop commercials. Although with this station, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference!)
[Edit: Whatever the problerm was, they finally fixed it after the 9:30 news, and Agar went on as normal.]
*chuckles* so what you're saying is the 9-9:30am timeslot today was the best Agar show ever! : )) ..
- RadioActive
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
It has not been a good day for Bell stations across the province.
In addition to the problem with Agar in the morning detailed above, Evan Solomon wasn't able to take phone calls because the long distance line he uses out of Toronto went down. He spent the last 15 minutes of his show reading texts instead.
Then, Tom McConnell came on CKTB in St. Catharines at 2 PM, but he wasn't there long. The first 12 minutes or so of his show had him talking, but only the first sentence could be heard. Then the signal cut out. Then he came back with another half sentence, and the signal disappeared a second time. And again. And again. And again.
He finally got a text telling him he was cutting in and out. and with no real choice, he asked his producer to "play some music while we fix this." And for the next 15 minutes, the talk station changed into a music format as the switch took a lot longer than they'd obviously hoped. To make matter worse, one of the songs his tech played had the word "fucking" in it, which went out very clearly over the air.
That song faded out just after the offending word aired, to be followed more sensibly by an instrumental. But still no Tom. Then a third song started. In the end, McConnell - who was broadcasting from home - came back after 15 minutes of music, complaining that he'd been relegated to his "basement studio" - but not until you heard him doing an on-air mic check to make sure everything was working.
All in all, not a great day to be at a Bell station anywhere in Ontario.
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
And just to conclude the perfect fiasco day for Bell, their on air signal for CFTO suddenly disappeared just before their 6 PM news. I would not want to have been in the engineering department on Monday! When it rains, it pours and all that...
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Thread Starter- RadioAaron
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
Almost all Bell TV stations are out, radio streaming, and remote hosts. Major power outage at Agincourt.
- RadioActive
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
What a nightmare day for Bell stations in Ontario! All of the stuff noted above - and now this. I don't often feel sorry for this company, but this has been a very rough day for them.
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Thread Starter- g121
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Re: Absence Aggravates Agar
Almost all Bell TV stations are out, radio streaming, and remote hosts. Major power outage at Agincourt.
ah, so that's why i lost TSN's OverDrive during dinner tonight,