Mike Drolet was certainly available, already works for 640, has broadcast experience and has done it before. I'm not sure why they didn't just ask him.

RadioActive wrote:

I know Corus isn't exactly flush with cash these days, but for the second time in a few weeks, they asked Brad Smith to do a 6-hour on-air shift. That's asking a lot for a talk format, where, outside of spots and news, you can never shut up.

I like Smith but don't know that I could tolerate a 6 hour block of him. But - do you know if all of that was live? Sometimes for such a long shift they'll dip into a reroll of a segment that ran earlier in the shift/day. For instance, if Smith had a couple phone or Zoom guests/experts in the Greg Brady slot lasting 8 or 10 minutes or whatever, they might then just play that segment again in the Smith block. Shane Hewitt's Bell Media "The Nightshift" has its last hour as a reroll, though not always from that same night - on Fridays, for example, it's sometimes "best of" segments from elsewhere in the week.

Different scenario, but 1010 live hosts in the Christmas to New Year's stretch like Richard Crouse or Jason Agnew would sometimes reroll a segment from earlier in the show (or the same pretaped interview segment aired twice) - I suppose with the idea nobody is continuously listening for that whole block anyway. If this happened with Smith, it's still him so an audience that comes and goes may be none the wiser (though sometimes they'll say "earlier today I talked to..." and run it).

Last edited by AspectRatio (February 11, 2026 9:39 pm)

AspectRatio wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

I know Corus isn't exactly flush with cash these days, but for the second time in a few weeks, they asked Brad Smith to do a 6-hour on-air shift. That's asking a lot for a talk format, where, outside of spots and news, you can never shut up.

I like Smith but don't know that I could tolerate a 6 hour block of him. But - do you know if all of that was live? Sometimes for such a long shift they'll dip into a reroll of a segment that ran earlier in the shift/day. For instance, if Smith had a couple phone or Zoom guests/experts in the Greg Brady slot lasting 8 or 10 minutes or whatever, they might then just play that segment again in the Smith block. Shane Hewitt's Bell Media "The Nightshift" has its last hour as a reroll, though not always from that same night - on Fridays, for example, it's sometimes "best of" segments from elsewhere in the week.

Different scenario, but 1010 live hosts in the Christmas to New Year's stretch like Richard Crouse or Jason Agnew would sometimes reroll a segment from earlier in the show (or the same pretaped interview segment aired twice) - I suppose with the idea nobody is continuously listening for that whole block anyway. If this happened with Smith, it's still him so an audience that comes and goes may be none the wiser (though sometimes they'll say "earlier today I talked to..." and run it).

Can't say they never do that on 640 (and I know Shane Hewitt's show is essentially over by 10 PM, though it goes on with a reroll for another hour) but with the news from B.C. breaking, there's no way they could have gone to a replay and kept it current. That story was breaking all day long, until the RCMP presser at 2 PM our time.