The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Why Is This Host Doing His Entire Show On The Phone?

**Posted by RadioActive** February 12, 2025 12:41 pm

Ben O'Hara-Byrne took over for Ben Mulroney on Wednesday and is likely to be in for him the rest of the week.

But when O'Hara-Byrne came on, he hosted all three hours over the phone and boy did it sound bad. Especially when most of his guests were on mic via Zoom, giving them near-prefect studio quality.

I can't figure out why they didn't try to re-establish contact with the guy, who lives on the west coast and does a network show on Corus every night.

It certainly was odd to hear a host on the phone and all his guests on near mic quality talknig back to him.

Wonder what happened? And will it happen again on Thursday?

**Posted by Scarboroughbluffsradiof99** February 12, 2025 12:47 pm

Now a lot of ethnic hosts do there shows on the phone.
For example, Ravna gora serbian show on chin radio.
Branka has not been in the studeo since 2020.

**Posted by RadioActive** February 12, 2025 12:57 pm

Yes, but this is Corus, not some small ethnic station. And this guy is on every night from a legit studio with a professional quality mic on a radio network. No reason to use a poor quality phone line to do three hours.

**Posted by Scarboroughbluffsradiof99** February 12, 2025 1:12 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Yes, but this is Corus, not some small ethnic station. And this guy is on every night from a legit studio with a professional quality mic on a radio network. No reason to use a poor quality phone line to do three hours.

Then, its just another big broadcaster being cheep and cutting corners.
Another good reason to sell to stingray.

**Posted by RadioActive** February 12, 2025 2:24 pm

It just sounds weird when the guest's sound quality is better than the host's.

**Posted by ED1** February 12, 2025 2:24 pm

Corus's "Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer" on 630 (now 880) CHED Edmonton hosts his show over the phone (assuming from his hotel room) when he is travelling with the team. He had his board-op/backup host back at the station in case anything went wrong, but 99% of the time the show went off without a hitch. It didn't seem like listeners were too bothered by it as he sounded fine on air, and always mentioned where he was if he was travelling.

**Posted by radiokid** February 12, 2025 5:18 pm

I tend to think this was a last resort issue with tech... because with all the technology available including free technology that can allow you to sound like you are in studio over basic internet connections with next to no delay, it seems weird that they would willingly allow a host to be remote over a regular phone line. It's bad enough when listeners call in via their phones. Corus is not new to radio, talk radio or remote hosting. Surely this was a last resort situation.

**Posted by RadioActive** February 12, 2025 5:25 pm

Don't know but the worst part is the last two hours are going to be repeated across the entire Corus Radio Network at night. So it's doubly unfortunate.