Morning Glory
As commercial stations duked it out for ratings supremacy in the toughest market in the country, the unexpected occurred: a Toronto CBC program hosted by Andy Barrie climbed quietly to the top. How did that happen?
Andy Barrie pulls up in a taxi to the Front Street entrance of CBC’s downtown Toronto fortress at approximately 5:30 a.m. After settling the fare with his long-term driver, who jokes that Barrie has paid for at least 10 per cent of his mortgage, the king of morning radio grabs his copies of The Globe […]
The Incredible Shrinking Newscast
For a lot of radio programmers, no news is good business
In 1981, the Federal Communications Commission deregulated radio in the U.S. and changed the character of American stations. Among the regulations relaxed were those governing news content-a station is no longer required to broadcast any news whatsoever-and the result has been that too many stations have become little more than free jukeboxes. The reason is […]
After It Happened
Elizabeth Gray's fight to prove the CBC was wrong
Broadcaster Elizabeth Gray is in the midst of a controlled panic. With three days to deadline she’s taken on a piece for CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning that will analyze the decline of the National Energy Program-no small feat for the most seasoned of the current affairs show’s field producers. But Gray characteristically has taken on […]
