Wally Crouter always made a point of not only doing his CFRB morning show on Christmas Day but he would open up the phone lines. He saw it as a public service, a way to provide companionship to listeners who were alone on Christmas (and as an aside, it also made for good radio).

Stan Roberts did an annual Christmas morning show on WGR, and Wes & Carol Atkinson did the same on FM 108 for years.

RadioActive wrote:

If you're a fan of Christmas music, boy did you ever get your fill on Friday night and all day Saturday. Far too many stations that I briefly monitored opted for the easy way out, abandoning their formats for non-stop Xmas tuneage. Among them: Boom 97.3, CHUM-FM, CBC Radio 1, AM740, BNN Bloomberg 1150(!) and most alarmingly CFRB. Even WBEN-AM was simulcasting its Star 102.5 FM outlet. 

Seasonal old-time radio played out on both CKTB and GNR640.  

Those who didn't opt for the endless cruel Yule gruel included Q107. But I don't remember hearing anyone else stay within their normal parameters.

I'm not really surprised at 1010 - they do this every year. But with just about every station on FM offering all Christmas all the time, especially CHFI, it seems silly for them to bother. Consistency, to me, is the number one most important format rule - always give the audience what they're expecting, whether it's 9 AM or 3 in the morning. And a talk station might have been expected to have some pre-programmed shows about the season, without the non-stop music everyone else was playing. 

All I can say is thank God for Funny 820, which has been on in my house for most of the day, when I felt the need for a local radio fix or was out walking the pooch. CityNews 680 maintained the norm, as well.

On another angle, cheers to City TV, the only Toronto TV station to bother with an actual 6 PM newscast on Dec. 25th. None of the others - Global featured a tribute to health care heroes, CFTO had a football game, CBLT was showing a multiple part version of "Vanity Fair," and CHCH was off on another Xmas special - made the effort.

I know it's the holidays but only one station could be bothered? Yeah, the viewership is low and it's nice to give staff the night off, but Toronto is the major market in Canada. One newscast might not have been too much to ask for stations that always boast "you can count on us for coverage." All the Buffalo TV outlets managed to put together a newscast at 6.

On the other hand, jeers to City TV's Richard Southern, who presented the Business Stories of 2021 on that newscast. He went through all the usual suspects from the year almost passed - the supply chain nightmare, endless inflation, ships stuck in the Suez Canal, the Game Stop stock manipulation from Internet activists, etc. etc. But it seems he forgot about one very, very big story - the battle in the boardroom that engulfed the Rogers family, as they fought for control of the company. 

Hardly a small yarn and it was on the front pages of every paper for weeks, if not months. And thanks to its eerie similarity to the hit HBO show "Succession," it made headlines around the world. But somehow the Rogers-owned City didn't think it was important enough to mention. Go figure!

On the other side of the country, only Global BC had a full slate of newscast on a Saturday Christmas day (morning for 1 hour, noon, 6, and 11).