The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Old News Isn't Good News For CFRB

**Posted by RadioActive** April 26, 2025 11:19 pm

What an embarrassment for CFRB on Saturday night. Their 11 PM newscast featured Sean Leathong from CFTO reading headlines. Nothing wrong with that, except when it came to his reporting on the Leaf game. At one point, Leathong made reference to the game getting underway in Ottawa, with the Leafs having the chance to sweep.

As we all know, that didn't happen. But what did is that it looks like 1010 was running a pre-taped newscast from around 7 PM - some four hours old. Meanwhile, the game had just ended in real time and that would have been the lede had it all been done in real time.

Saving themselves the money from bringing in an actual live newscaster would have prevented this, but alas, those days are long, long gone. Not that many were listening or didn't know the score by then, but it was startlingly noticeable on such a big local event that this was very old and very out of date. Proving once again that "Ontario's Authoritative News Voice" isn't so authoritative anymore.

**Posted by eladb** April 27, 2025 12:38 am

Pre-recorded newscasts have been going on for quite some time on 1010 on weekends...sad.

If they don't care enough to have a live newscaster working, isn't there a Canadian Press newscast they can air instead on weekend evenings? That would sound a heck of a lot better than a pre-recorded one with information that is no longer relevant.

**Posted by mace** April 27, 2025 6:02 am

Back in the era when CFRB was Ontario's Authoratative News Voice, I remember someone commenting that if the world was to end tomorrow, Torontonians would all tune into CFRB to hear their report on it.

**Posted by RadioActive** April 27, 2025 7:00 am

eladb wrote:
Pre-recorded newscasts have been going on for quite some time on 1010 on weekends...sad.

If they don't care enough to have a live newscaster working, isn't there a Canadian Press newscast they can air instead on weekend evenings? That would sound a heck of a lot better than a pre-recorded one with information that is no longer relevant.

Actually, the Canadian Press newscast is also pre-recorded - but only by a few minutes. They have to do it just slightly before the top of the hour in order to ensure a) it's error free and b) they have time to upload it to the server so stations can access it. That's why there's sometimes a difference or delays from one station to another.

It also means they never give partial scores in their sports reports if the game is still on, because they can't guarantee the tally won't change by the time it gets to air.

**Posted by mic'em** April 27, 2025 10:07 am

CBC Radio 1 in Sudbury apparently airs the same local newscasts at 8.30, 9.30, 10.30 and 11.30 am. On one morning last week, the female announcer slipped on a word at 8.30, and the same incident occurred at each cast until noon. I was surprised they would let it go.