paterson1 wrote:

One thing that Toronto's two struggling AM talk radio stations seem to lack (in addition to having any fun) is a real scarcity of show biz news or features.

Hear, Here!  I think John Moore could be better utilized in a major way.  He has show biz smarts, and seemed to showcase this more when he did his afternoon show.  John would often have Ann Shatilla on talking about Hollywood gossip.  There was the cocktail hour and a great theme and bumper music from Kill Bill (Battle Without Honour, something ...)

John playing quarterback to a bunch of pundits and panelists seem tired and limiting.  Roundtables were getting harder to bear back when I last listened, when it was always Jerry and Deb lined up with Scott Reid.  The topical positions of Marc Warner and Laura Babcock were always predictable.  Amanda Gailbraith seems to think all of the topics are ho-hum, and never seems to care about being there.  Shelley Carroll tries to be a polished city politician.  Sigh!  See what I mean?  Maybe it has improved lately, and RA did say Alan Carter is on now, so hopefully there is some betterment of the segments.

But given that patterson1 has revisited the lack of pop culture programming on 1010 and 640, methinks, perhaps not.

paterson1 wrote:

 
You would never know it listening to the talk stations.  Did anyone try to arrange with Paramount to do a live interview with Kelsey from the Bluma Appel Theatre where he was promoting the show? 

1010 wouldn't have even needed to go to or call into him at the theatre.....he was downstairs.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DAJbMe-J6Er/

CKTB does a good job handling pop culture.  Their local hosts are very at ease talking about sports, entertainment, and humour.  The station does pick up programming from Newstalk 1010 and the quality goes down and we are back to the politics, opinion, complaining and general negativity.  As various posters have mentioned in the past, both 1010 and 640 need to lighten up.

Last edited by paterson1 (September 22, 2024 11:42 pm)

Back in the day, AM680 had fairly decent show biz coverage with Gloria Martin and Rudy Blair. Although they were not talk radio, they kept me up to date and often brought my attention to events etc. that I wasn’t aware of. Miss them!

Binson Echorec wrote:

I agree that both 640 and 1010 could "lighten up" topics-wise - but I have no need for Access Hollywood/Entertainment Tonight/Etalk type celebrity gossip.

I agree, the last thing we need is more fluff like Access Hollywood etc.  If either or both 640 and 1010 had more of an emphasis on the entertainment scene in Toronto/Southern Ontario would be ideal.  But also when the stars are in town, try to interview them, or at least talk about it.   As mentioned above Rudy Blair and Gloria Martin did this in spades years ago on 680 News.

But I don't agree that an interview with someone like Kelsey Grammar when he was recently in Toronto would turn off anyone in St. Catharines or Winnipeg for that matter.  It's a feature not a three hour show.  And better talking about entertainment than interviewing Olivia Chow or one of the city councillors about Toronto's traffic problem or the downtown homeless.  That would be a tune out if ran in other markets. 

Some pop culture and entertainment news on the Toronto AM talkers would be a nice change and a chance for the hosts to get away from so much opinion "round table" radio, which is overdone.   Toronto always has a lot of well known entertainers in town both local and international. Why not take advantage of something that many other cities don't have so much of?