1 of 1- mace
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Happy Belated Birthday
On November 1st the Toronto Sun celebrated its 48th birthday and Billboard Magazine celebrated its 125th.
- Bristol
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And Durham Radio's CJKX-FM ( KX96) Ajax-Toronto turned 25! Congratulations.
- RadioActive
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One more birthday to add and it's quintessentially Canadian.
The beginning of the long dash: Happy 80th anniversary to CBC Radio's longest running segment
- darcyh
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I remember when the Sun first came out. It was the first tabloid style paper that I ever saw. Punchy little paper too.
- Forward Power
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My late father was a devoted CBC Radio listener at home, had it on almost all the time. I'll admit, as a very young child, I was a bit frightened by the NRC time signal broadcasts, especially the ten seconds of silence and the "long dash" that followed. As soon as I heard the first hour of Radio Noon wrapping up, I would run out of the room to avoid, as I called it, "the boop".
That wasn't the only thing on southern Ontario radio & TV that frightened me: Viacom's "V of Doom" logo, which was seen many times on CKVR in the '80s, was terrifying, and today I'm glad I'm not the only person who feels/felt that way about the V of Doom.
Finally, getting back to the topic of birthdays, I know it's not really radio/TV-related, but happy birthday today to my wife!
- RadioActive
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That time signal goes back to 1939, part of the war effort to coordinate operations to an exact second. If you listen to the interview (featuring the actual announcer who currently voices the top of the hour feature) you'll hear him talk about how they had to upgrade the technology over the years.
When new computer software came in, that long pause before the final 'dash' registered in the system as dead air, firing off all kinds of emergency measures in CBC master control. They were forced to make changes to the way it was done to fix that problem, including preventing unwanted emergency filler from firing off to cover what wasn't actually an error at all.
He also reveals he frequently gets recognized by some when he speaks simply because of that very brief once-a-day announcement. Most often he says, it's cab drivers who listen to a lot of radio and realize they've heard that voice somewhere whenever he gets into a taxi.
- potentiometer
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Laurence Wall appears to be too modest to mention that he is the afternoon news announcer at the local CBC station in Ottawa and has been for years. Active in the community with an intelligent sense of humour befitting such a Renaissance man, the people in the Capital love him.