[78-L] 78-L mail should be normal now ^

[David Lennick]

A couple of months ago I was in North Bay looking at a collection, and Radio 
One was the only thing that wasn't headbangers or shitkickers. And MAN was it 
depressing. Program after program documenting grief, woe and misery everywhere 
in the world. And moderately talented Canadian performers who couldn't get 
airplay anywhere else even if they offered free beer and free inflatable women. 
Radio Two is just as appalling, although it has some strange appeal these days 
to folks whose heads are still stuck in the free-form rock of the late 60s. 
Classical is down to five hours a day and hosted by some giggling Gertie who 
plays a complete symphony but cuts in midway to make sure you know what it is 
and how to spell it. You wonder why I listen only to WNED-FM in Buffalo?

Rewind back a few decades..driving from Toronto to Thunder Bay, and for long 
stretches there's NOTHING on the radio coz there's no radio. Occasionally you'd 
see a sign indicating an LPRT (remember those?) which repeated the CBC AM 
network and had a range of a few miles. No in-car cassette players coz the 
cassette hadn't been invented yet. We did a lot of singing in those days.

dl

On 9/26/2010 10:22 AM, agp wrote:
> At 03:43 26/09/2010, SB wrote:
>> It should be noted in passing that the dubious decision of our Canadian
>> Broadcasting "Corporation" to abandon their treaty-granted "clear
>> channel" AM frequency deprived countless Ontarians of hearing the
>> programming for which their taxes had paid...?!
>>
>> 99.1 FM has an approximate range of 100 miles or less...which does
>> NOT include much/most of northern Ontario...?! OTOH, 740 AM
>> (now passing through a series of content-free broadvasters!) was
>> receivable in ALL of Ontario...in fact, much of North America!
>
> Back when CBL/ 740 was up and perking I used to listen to it every
> night here in Pittsburgh.
>
> Don't get me started on how CBC has totally screwed up Radio One.
> Ooops. Looks like you have so I'll vent. I speak solely of Radio One
> in Toronto, but other's mileage may be the same. The programming has
> become so Toronto-cenetric, that CBC on 99.1 (and its southern
> Ontario repeaters) has no relevance to a labourer or farmer  out in
> Haldeman county for example. Programmes like Here and now and Metro
> Morning focus solely on Toronto issues and the 'arts' coverage is
> decidedly 'urban'. I can't imagine that a blue collar worker out in
> Tilsonburg really cares about hip-hop music in Toronto.
>
> My cellphone has an app that allows me to listen to CBC here in
> Pittsburgh. The other morning I was listening  to Metro Morning while
> on the bus to work. They played a psuedo-jazz rendition of a the song
> Sunshine Superman originally done by Donovan. The female singer
> seemed to doing it in one time signature and all the instrumentalists
> in another. The one instrumental solo sounded like a prime example of
> Stan Freberg's line "that's close enough for jazz."  Host Matt
> Galloway gushed over how great this track was. Maybe to someone who
> lives in the high-rise jungle along Lakeshore Drive who pretentiously
> sips their Starbuck's lattes it was, but any one outside the GTA it
> was a filler to the 6.30 AM newscast
>
> When Radio One loses the pretence and does stuff like 'Rewind', which
> delves in CBC archives for snips and music from CBC's  past (78
> content here!), it does suceed.
>
>
>> I have no idea if CBC has set up an array of FM "repeater stations"
>> to attempt to recreate the wide range of 740 AM after sunset...?!
>
> Yes they have, but there are still holes in the coverage. Between
> Parry Sound and Sudbury is along the 400/ highway 69 is and example.
>
> T