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February 26, 2023 12:08 pm  #1


Who Does A Sunday Morning Trivia Show Better: CFRB Or CJAD?

The Sunday Morning Trivia Show has been a staple on CFRB for years, but did you know that a similar program has been running on iHeart counterpart CJAD in Montreal for a long time as well? 

Just out of curiosity, I tuned into AM 800 online Sunday to hear what they were doing. And I was truly surprised by the differences in the two shows, which I had expected to be similar coming from the same owner. Instead, during the hour I was monitoring, they were in the middle of a something called "Showdown."

It involves having callers come on and ask the co-hosts (Ken Connors and Dan Laxer) their own questions. (I find this kind of odd, since there's no real way to verify the accuracy of the answers.) One wanted to know what the acronym "EPCOT" at Walt Disney World stood for. The hosts didn't know. (“Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.”) Another asked the name of the scale used to measure hot sauce. That one, they got. It's called the Scoville Scale.) 

After the callers pose a question, they're asked to pick from a list of station-provided and unconnected trivia stumpers from numbers 1-20. (I'm not quite sure how they expect callers to keep track of which numbers have already been called, and indeed, a few called out digits that had been previously picked.)

Even more puzzling, people can call in and answer questions that no one got. But that would allow anyone to look it up online while they're waiting.  

There do not appear to be specific categories, as the Toronto show has, and there are no theme sets of questions as far as I can ascertain. Also, I didn't hear two contestants being pitted against each other. Most of the listeners were local, as you'd expect, although I heard a guy from Winnipeg and another from Toronto calling in. 

There does appear to be a prize (at the time I was listening, it seemed to be a gift basket, but I may have heard that wrong.) I'm just not entirely sure how you win it, but I believe there's a draw of all callers at the end of the segment. Unlike 1010, you don't need to get a question right to be in the running.

All in all, it seems a lot more freeform and looser than the CFRB version, which I think is better organized and more coherent, although the two hosts sound a lot more professional than the one who fronts the show here. That's not meant as an insult to Jason Agnew, it's just that the Montreal duo sound like they're more experienced in radio. Plus, the hosts often discuss trivia behind the trivia as the show goes on.  

Still, to be honest, I find the Toronto one a lot more challenging and better organized, with superior prizes and more variety. And that, as they say, is not trivial.