Such An Important Story.

I can't say I'm too impressed with the lineup editor for CTV Saskatoon's 6 o'clock newscast tonight.  The lead story?  That consuming marijuana is bad for dogs, and the number of cases is going up.  I don't know about you, but I'd say a report about someone being shot last night at Preston Crossing is more important than dogs getting sick from people being stupid.

Goodbye, Mr. Barnsley.

Sad news to report.  Greg Barnsley has died at 83.  Anyone who watched Saskatoon TV prior to 1992 will be familiar with Barnsley.  One of the original on air personalities at CFQC TV Barnsley appeared in various roles for the station, including weatherman on CFQC's news broadcasts and host of Kingo Bingo.  In 2014 the newly renovated CFQC studio was named the Greg Barnsley Studio in his honor. 

You can hear Barnsley's distinctive voice in the following 1984 documentary.

Once On The Dial.

I had a nice surprise today.  During my travels I came across a mailbox with a "Radio 600 CFQC Saskatoon" sticker on it.  I'm sure I haven't seen one of those in twenty years or more.  I really should have taken a picture.  Fortunately I came across a photo of it at the Radio Sticker of the Day blog.   It's the style at the top of the post.  Of course the one in the photo is much nicer looking than the faded example I saw.  Several decades on a mailbox will do that to an image.

My family were consistent listeners to CFQC in the '70s.  However we eventually began to listen to CBC for some reason.  Perhaps we just changed our tastes, I really can't remember.  CJWW currently holds the station's old 600 khz frequency assignment, while the callsign lives on via the local CTV station.

Hey CFQC!

Tell your newscasters to stop pronouncing Iraq as "eye rack."  That is not how that country name is pronounced.  Doing so makes them sound like uneducated hicks, and I suspect a lot of uneducated hicks know better.

Off The Dial.

A long chapter in Canadian radio ended today. The callsign CFQC left Saskatoon's radio airwaves as Hot 93 FM, the current holders of the callsign, became 92.9 The Bull under the call letters CKBL. The original CFQC hit the air on the AM band in the 1920s, broadcasting on 600 khz until February 6th, 1995, when it became Hot 93 on the FM band. CFQC will continue in use on television as the callsign for the local CTV affiliate, which retained them even after the ownership of the radio station changed in the 1980s.

Although I didn't listen to Hot 93 it's sad that CFQC has been replaced. One of the earliest Canadian radio callsigns is now gone, assuming of course someone doesn't attempt to have it reassigned to them, although I would suspect if it is reused it may not be in the Saskatoon market.

A Question of Priorities.

I'm skeptical of claims of media bias. For every claim that the North American media is a bastion of liberalism(in the modern American abuse of the word, of course) I could find you a claim that it's a tool of the corporate elites. But I'm far less skeptical of accusations of exploitation and sensationalism. A classic example occured tonight at the start of local CTV affiliate CFQC's six o'clock news broadcast. They pushed aside what was obviously intended to be their top story, a report on how a local taxi driver helped police capture a robber, to give us "breaking news" about the JonBenet Ramsey case. Why? The story has no direct relevance to the citizens of Saskatoon. It didn't even occur in Canada. Yet CFQC's news department decided this was so important a story that it should be covered immediately. Call me cynical, but such a move seems a rather blatant example of pandering to prurience. Of course it's just the latest example of what's been going in with the Ramsey case for ten years. Some of the coverage over the years has seemed pretty damn close to abuse of the poor girl. And why? It's safe to say dozens of little girls were murdered in the US in 1996, yet that case was the one that got all the press. But one assumes most of those cases didn't have various elements that made for easy use by the media, like the artfully done photos, video footage, and so on of JonBenet Ramsey, the odd to outsiders world of child beauty pageants she was involved in, and other details that have made for tabloid fodder, whether it was the actual tabloids exploiting it or not.