The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » It's Embarrassing

laffin · January 2, 2022 7:46 am

The advent of 2022 embarks with the realization the year will continue with the questionable level pf professionalism in today's newsreaders. The newsroom bloodbaths in 2021 have resulted in the corporations, who are the majority of station owners, solely concentrating on their bottom lines. As a former ND in the 70's, many of the current on-air types would have had their auditions filed for "further consideration". Their delivery, pronunciation and their knowledge, or lack thereof, of the geographical area from which they broadcasting is astounding. The frequency the term "rather" is inserted in their delivery only highlights the error and underscores a predominate lack of skill. Perhaps these corporate pseudo broadcasters have decided, the need to produce a professional, authoritative newscast in not the priority it deserves. Today's quasi news heads appear to have no idea what an air-check is.

JB866 · January 2, 2022 10:38 am

I agree wholeheartedly!
The ruthless cuts have caused increasingly poor quality product for listeners.
The removal of properly qualified and seasoned newscasters/journalists only to be replaced by cheaper, less educated talking heads who regularly make glaring and cringe-worthy errors.
One recent example that irked me was over the past few days on 1010 newscasts where the obviously young and inexperienced news reader in referring to a story on covid testing changes constantly mis-pronouncing and confused the word "illegible" for rather than what it should have been as "those who are eligible to receive covid testing".
This is only one of many such embarrassing errors that have occurred.
What has happened to this industry where the powers that be care so little about the standard of the product they are producing?
The bean counters have, and continue to decimate this once proud and noble industry.

Broodcaster · January 2, 2022 10:45 am

It doesn't help when a corporation will have a single announcer read news for multiple cities/markets and it quickly becomes evident that the reader is not familiar with those markets.

kevjo · January 2, 2022 12:24 pm

Charlie wrote:
But the current self-promotion on 1010 promises loyal listeners that they are the go-to source for all the latest news, investigative excellence and in-depth analysis. Surely they wouldn't exaggerate.

Perhaps bring those questions to their newsroom. After all they say that's "where Toronto gets answers".

mojo55 · January 2, 2022 1:18 pm

Professional newsreaders are alive and well at AM 740 and Classical 96.3. Kudos to Jane Brown, Bob Kompsic,
Andy Johnson, Christine. Ross and Jeremy Logan. From a discerning listener who remembers the bygone
glory days of the news departments of CFRB and CKEY.

paterson1 · January 2, 2022 1:35 pm

This also applies to some of the on air talent beyond news. The voice tracking or even live shows of many announcers lacks any personality, fun or humour or any real connection to the audience.

Asking the listener over the rushed 10 second intro of a song "when do you take down your Christmas tree?" isn't exactly an interesting break and a rather lame attempt to include whoever is listening. Then in this random break usually comes the invite to talk about it on social media.

Often if the program is voice tracked, in the next break, which is several songs later nothing further is mentioned. But then, a bit later in the hour, there will be another inane disconnected question like "do you think Squid Game is too violent?.."

However I know for a fact that some of the social media responses if they do make it to air can be made up since virtually nobody has texted or emailed. Even worse, the supposed phone interplay with a "listener" can be a station staff member calling in with a planned bit to talk about whatever the announcer blurted out about taking down the tree or violence on Squid Game.

Whoever is hiring or mentoring the new on air talent seems to be looking for nameless, interchangeable announcers lacking any personality, humour or creativity. But most of all, a real lack of any fun on air.

Many programs seem like they are done with minimal effort, minimal music knowledge, and a uncaring attitude about the quality of what is actually going on air. In some cases it seems like radio has given up altogether, and that is not only embarrassing but sad.

Sonomag · January 2, 2022 1:48 pm

My English Profs must be spinning . How many on air types are slipping into saying "aaaayyy" instead of "a" (ahhh) , theeee instead of "the" and "ave" instead of avenue . On Camera presenters ..please keep your hands down ..you are not explaining the News to us , you are reporting it as written . While we are at it ...the word is News (North,East,West,South ) not Noooooze and watch simple to fall into bad habits with terms like "out there " . Coming up is the Month of - February (Feb-Brew-Ary) not Feb-you-ary .Just saying .

pinto · January 2, 2022 1:57 pm

The overnight Rogers Network news is atrocious as well.

RadioActive · January 2, 2022 2:21 pm

pinto wrote:
The overnight Rogers Network news is atrocious as well.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I've been waking up early on the weekends for some reason and sometimes I tune into "CityNews Coast To Coast" as they call it. There is a woman out of Vancouver doing the overnight run solo and she is just horrendous. She has an odd accent, which is a bit off-putting. That would be fine, but her read is terrible and there are so many errors in the way she pronounces words, phrases and other common names and idioms, I can't fall back asleep, I'm cringing so badly!

Surely, Rogers could find someone better than this to air on all their news stations across the country, regardless of small audience size in that daypart (night-part?). What she did in a recent story to the name "Sylvester Stallone" should be against the law.

Hansa · January 2, 2022 2:50 pm

Sonomag wrote:
My English Profs must be spinning . How many on air types are slipping into saying "aaaayyy" instead of "a" (ahhh) , theeee instead of "the" and "ave" instead of avenue . On Camera presenters ..please keep your hands down ..you are not explaining the News to us , you are reporting it as written . While we are at it ...the word is News (North,East,West,South ) not Noooooze and watch simple to fall into bad habits with terms like "out there " . Coming up is the Month of - February (Feb-Brew-Ary) not Feb-you-ary .Just saying .

Some of that would be tonal shifts as Canadian English evolves (and as American pronunciation becomes more influential). Also "thuh" and "thee" are both correct but usually you say "thuh" before a consonant and "thee" before a vowel - the preference for "thuh" in all cases might be a generational one (or your prof's preference) rather than being correct or incorrect.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/08/17/canadian-accent-is-shifting-changing-how-we-pronounce-words.html

https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/in-the-midst-of-the-canadian-vowel-shift/

Last edited by Hansa (January 2, 2022 2:55 pm)

Broodcaster · January 2, 2022 3:03 pm

mojo55 wrote:
Professional newsreaders are alive and well at AM 740 and Classical 96.3. Kudos to Jane Brown, Bob Kompsic,
Andy Johnson, Christine. Ross and Jeremy Logan. From a discerning listener who remembers the bygone
glory days of the news departments of CFRB and CKEY.

Thank goodness there are some left. And good hosts know how to talk TO the listener and not AT the listener.

Ale Ont · January 2, 2022 3:28 pm

I cringe when I hear newscasts on most private stations. News people don't have the chance of learning in a smaller market on an overnight shift.
I auditioned for a job years ago. I was called back and told "I will hire the person who will work the cheapest."
I didn't go back.

January 2, 2022 3:43 pm

Ale Ont wrote:
I auditioned for a job years ago. I was called back and told "I will hire the person who will work the cheapest."

Fascinating. Approx. what year was that, Ale?

Ale Ont · January 2, 2022 3:57 pm

About 15 years ago.

kevjo · January 2, 2022 8:35 pm

paterson1 wrote:
This also applies to some of the on air talent beyond news. The voice tracking or even live shows of many announcers lacks any personality, fun or humour or any real connection to the audience.

Whoever is hiring or mentoring the new on air talent seems to be looking for nameless, interchangeable announcers lacking any personality, humour or creativity. But most of all, a real lack of any fun on air.

Many programs seem like they are done with minimal effort, minimal music knowledge, and a uncaring attitude about the quality of what is actually going on air. In some cases it seems like radio has given up altogether, and that is not only embarrassing but sad.

That's one that really sticks out to me on a number of stations. The formula is make a statement, invite feedback, quickly get into a song but say little or nothing about the music. On certain stations in the GTA it's appalling how the hosts show a detachment from the music in that they don't mention the song or if they do there's no show of interest in it. There must be some research that has unearthed some data saying that listeners don't care to know anything about the music they're hearing. Up until not too long ago, passion and knowledge of the music was usually a job requirement.
One embarrassing aside from the world of voice tracking - earlier today I heard the on air host musing about Betty White's secret to longevity and how she was planning to celebrate her 100th birthday.

Sonomag · January 2, 2022 9:06 pm

Do you have an Television Anchor that stands out as someone to learn from and is easy to watch . CTV has several notables including Lisa Laflame ,Omar Sachadina and Sandy Renaldo .CTV News Channel also has some wonderful young talent . I wonder who is coaching the on air talent ..any idea's or thoughts .

Tomas Barlow · January 2, 2022 10:34 pm

I seem to remember a thread here where everyone told stories about mispronunciations and other screw ups.
Is everyone here also an embarrassment to the industry?

Radio Bob · January 2, 2022 11:18 pm

A certain 6pm national radio newscast had both a host and a reporter saying "ay" instead of "ah" (including "Aynother") tonight. I shouldn't listen. It's bad for my blood pressure. Yelling at the radio usually helps.

Sonomag · January 3, 2022 6:56 am

I hear you Bob . It's disgusting .

Tq345 · January 3, 2022 10:05 am

My current pet peeve is the use of partial sentences by newscasters, leaving out words like "are" "is" "was" "were" and so forth.

"Toronto police saying two people injured in a crash downtown" instead of "are saying" and "were injured."

I blame it on the texting and Twittering culture where proper sentence structure seems to have gone out the window.

rawkgurl · January 3, 2022 10:42 am

With the exception of the big broadcasters in major cities and some independent outlets, I would say there's a dusty newsroom that no one uses and no news director in 95% of stations.

Last edited by rawkgurl (January 3, 2022 10:44 am)