sowny.net | The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum


You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?

December 18, 2023 6:52 pm  #1


Rare Audio: The Day Henry Shannon Retired From CFRB

This is a very rare aircheck that I found on an old cassette. I had no idea I recorded it. It's the final 30 minutes of an Andy Barrie show on CFRB Toronto from June 30, 1995. He was saluting Henry Shannon, a long time traffic reporter who had been with the station since 1969. 

In addition to Shannon's reminiscences about his years in the literal air chair, it contains tributes from other traffic reporters who were around at the time, all of whom worked at different stations in town - including Bob Summers from CHUM, Jim Curran from CBL, and Russ Holden and Daryl Dahmer from CFTR - a rare time when competition didn't matter. And of course there's an appearance by the veteran morning man Wally Crouter, who once commanded the biggest audience in Canada.

It's also a small snapshot of what the station sounded like at the time when it was still riding high in the ratings and had a full newsroom. (That's CTV's Avery Haines doing the 11:30 AM newscast.)

It's a frozen slice of time from a radio station that existed a very long time ago that's no longer the powerhouse in Toronto that it once was.

Hear it here.