Rockin' Ray Michaels, who works afternoons at The Grand, is often on location on weekends for the station.

I have two memories of this, including one I'd long forgotten about (or wiped from my memory.)

I was board oping when the station was doing some kind of live remote event. The host was fine, but he then welcomed a personality who did a show on the station. The latter guy was more than half in the bag when he stumbled up to the microphone, and the host said, "and here's [name withheld], who does his show every night at 6 PM. How ya doing?"

What followed was a string of f-bombs and s-words, all spewing out live over the microphone. Why he did it we never did find out. He could have been fired, but he was pretty high profile and was only suspended for a few weeks instead. But what a bizarre turn of events - you'd expect some unknown drunk might try to disrupt your live boradcast but not one of your own people! 

As for the one I tried to forget, it involved an All Candidates Meeting during an election in a key Toronto riding. We'd rented out this old theatre and spent the day preparing, doing everything from setting up the mics and the dias, and even washing down the seats - something I never thought I would do in radio!

As the time drew near for the great debate, the candidates showed up, and so did a group of sketchy looking guys, all sporting construction hard hats. It was open to the public and they sat in some of the freshly washed chairs. 

About five minutes to air, one of them got up, approached the stage and sat down in one of the on-air seats - and absolutely refused to move. He claimed he was on the ballot and deserved to be part of the debate. And he wouldn't leave, as his menacing colleagues in the audience looked like they wouldn't take no for an answer. 

We were minutes from air, no time to call the cops and getting ready to go on air with a heavily promoted debate the station had spent a lot of money and resources on.

What to do? In desperation, the producer went to the candidates and asked if they'd mind sharing the stage with this idiot door crasher. All of them indignantly said an emphatic "NO", they wanted nothing to do with the creep. But with no time left, they took their seats on stage beside him. 

The show started and the producer, who was also acting as moderator, told the audience what happened and explained why this unannounced intruder was taking part. In a moment of extreme hypocrisy I've never forgotten, the legit candidates all smilingly said on air they didn't mind and that anyone had the right to run and they were happy to have him. 

Somehow, we made it through the 90 minute debate with no violence or swearing. The guy was a cretin but he gave his answers and shut up. But what a bizarre way to run a remote. Now that I think of it, it's the only one I was ever involved in. Thank God.

paterson1 wrote:

I did likely over 150 remotes in my on air career.  Especially at CFOS, they were the masters of remotes and "live reports".   CKNX also did their share both on AM and FM that I either sold or was on air.

We were paid extra for the broadcasts, back in the 80-90's the rate was $20 per hour plus travel time.  Both stations did a lot of out of town remote broadcasts.

Overall I didn't mind doing them, but your show goes out the window since you will be doing interviews, talking to company representatives, answering questions from people about the station, schmoozing, etc. 
The upside is, you have an operator back at the station that runs all of the spots and music, so you are just doing your breaks.

The live reports and full remote broadcasts were an important source of revenue back then for the station and really was good PR overall. It connected you and the station to the community, and overall they could be fun.  Both stations also did some live broadcasts that were not sponsored but community events like a Christmas fund or hospital fundraiser.

We did everything, grand openings, car dealerships, winter carnivals, downtown BIA promotions, fall fairs, mall midnight madness events, home shows, folk festivals, fishing derby's, store sales etc. etc.

In all of my years, I never really had many problems.  One year when broadcasting from Food City in Owen Sound, a young girl who seemed to be challenged started screaming at the big Dr. Pepper display that was set up beside me.  As I was doing my break you could hear the screaming in the background.  I just mentioned that it was a child who likely wanted to get back home.   

As a news guy, I never did remotes but did my share of live hits from news events or breaking stories. Most jocks I knew treated remotes as a necessary evil, something they had to do, rather than an enjoyable way to spend a day on the weekend. A few used them as opportunities to surreptitiously promote their side hustles to the people they met on site (wedding DJs, MC work etc) or to forge relationships with retailers in the hope of getting discounts on future purchases.

A couple of stories come to mind:

- I was living in Calgary at the time and was driving around on a fine summer afternoon listening to a certain local radio station where a jock was doing pre-taped cut ins from a local car dealership. Coming out of a newscast, I heard "Well, hi again everyone, this is Randy So-and-So at XYZ Motors where today's special deal is.....F#######CK! Take two...Well hi again everyone this is Randy So-and-So....". The jock back at the station quickly cut to music. Never heard another cut in from that remote for the rest of the afternoon.

- In small market southern Ontario during my early days in radio, our afternoon guy was doing a weekend remote from a local hardware store. Everything seemed to be going to plan until he had to talk about sale prices on the Husqvarna chainsaws and other equipment. He screwed up the pronunciation of Husqvarna so badly that even the staff at the store were audibly cracking up behind him. Made for great stuff for our staff Christmas party blooper tape.


 

Did my fair share of remotes during my (brief) career as a DJ back in the '80s. I hated doing them but is was extra money. One time, however, while at CFCO Chatham I did a remote at a county fair to promote the station itself (rather than a paying sponsor). As such there was no money so, instead, they paid me in Arby's coupons.

Great interesting stories.

Thanks to all that shared their experiences.