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For those that mentioned the morning show only was Paul Harper now the website confirms that he is flying solo on the station. Wonder what happened to Nikki. I liked her sound. She fit the station a little better I think then Paul
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So now, while Today radio is still having their "Great conversations", they are no longer advertising that fact.
"Great music, Great Conversations"
has been replaced with
"Ridiculous Music Variety" on their website:
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I don't know if this is a test or one off, but they are doing something called the Today Takeover. Sounds like they are taking requests. I am not sure if it is all day or just over the noonhour like BOOM. Tyler Barr who is on right now has been putting a few callers on air with their requests and gives out the phone number almost every break.
Just heard a promo saying that their music has Ridiculous Variety because it is based on "what you request." They still promoted the listener chats in the spot as well. Never heard Tyler before but he is pretty good and funny.
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They've been doing that feature since the beginning. Yeah, Tyler's quite good.
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The reason they do not advertise the station as a conversation station anymore is because once 7pm rolls around it is a best of the morning show for a couple hours and then the Katie and Ed show which is just a morning radio show from Calgary. So nothing live or local past 7pm. Even still during the day the afternoon show is weirdly setup as well. McGuire is based in Toronto but Vanessa is the midday host on Z95.3 in Vancouver and lives in the Vancouver area. So there have been a few instances I have noticed where McGuire will say something and then there is a very long pause before she starts talking. I have also heard it where he is on for a bit and then she comes on and does a different segment. As if it were two different shows mixed together. Example, they play a few songs, commercial break. He comes on, songs, she comes on, songs. So lots of weirdness that way. I think they are still trying to figure out the station but come on, it's been 2 years of this already.
I will admit the one thing that has surprised me is they are still running the same on air staff as when it launched with a couple exceptions. Drew left the weekend show (still with the company) and was replaced by Matt Hart (formerly at Indie 88) and Nikki who was a morning show co-host left and later ended up at Kiss 92.5
I still feel that this station will end up doing a format change sooner rather than later. The only problem is doing a format change that won't compete with Boom, but also doing one that would work in the market, and I don't think country is the answer as there are 3 stations that serve different parts of the GTA and at least two cover Toronto fairly well. So could the answer be, a rock based format similar to CFOX in Vancouver? Honestly that is my best guess. Because it could compete against Q107, Edge and Indie and to a smaller extent HTZ-FM as well. If marketed right it could actually compete with The Rock in Durham and maybe even Y108.
Also with a format like I mentioned it would be easy to retain most of the on air staff. Especially Matt because he worked the format already. Some of the on air staff could stay with the company and move to different stations as well. Stacy at Boom could be on the new rock based station.
Yes I know a rock based station would compete to a degree with Boom but I don't think that will effect boom as much, because there are a lot of artists that Boom plays that would not be on the Rock based station. Also if they were worried they could remove some of the rock from the playlist, even if it is a couple less rock based songs per hour. But something needs to happen at this frequency and I think it needs to be done soon.