565...Les Lye Dies, The Boyle Gets Fired

This is what is wrong with Canadian TV and Radio.

Les Lye, 84, died a day or two ago. He had been on Ottawa radio and TV since the late 1940's, primarily on CJOH TV. Tons of press on this one.

There was a time that this town, and your town too, had local radio and TV stars; Les Lye was one of those. When you watch US TV, and I know you do, they have tons of local heroes that the local press and populace get excited about. In Canada, not so much.

Which brings me to Andrew Boyle. Mr. Boyle has been doing mornings for about a decade here in Ottawa, on Hot 89.9 and for the last five years on KISS FM. He also died this week, but only career wise. No press on this one.

Therein lies the problem. Back in the day, and that day is now south of the border, TV and Radio stations understood the value in promoting their talent, making them local heroes. Now they don't. They pay meagre wages, hire cheap, boring talent [just listen to radio, watch local TV in this country, it pretty much sucks right across the board] and wonder why they have trouble making beaucoup d'argent.

The contrast is there with these two talents. Mr. Lye hasn't worked for about 20 years in this market and will be missed; Mr. Boyle hasn't worked in this market for about 20 hours and won't. The reason is simple. Both were commodities but Mr. Lye was treated as a commodity that could be a longterm profit centre; Mr. Boyle was not.

WFDS

389...Michael Jackson Died Thursday

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson died Thursday.

Radio died right along with him. Most radio stations just kept John Tesh rolling, Ryan Seacrest babbling and voice tracking mindlessly ploughing through the playlist.

When John Lennon and Elvis Presley died, decades before consolidation, national program directors and big chains controlling everything from Toronto, Montreal, New York and Los Angeles most stations were immediately broadcasting on-air tributes, news accounts and playing wall-to-wall dead guy music.

In my town the only station that I heard going wall to wall Michael was the station that I am with, 93.1CKCU, which has, and this is a positive, a laissez faire attitude towards programming. Although the hit stations in town, TAG FM, KISS and HOT did talk about Michael Jackson they also played the songs that were programmed weeks, days, months ago. If anything, CFRA, the local right wing news talker and CBC ONE, the lefty news talker, were more on the story than the contemporary stations.

Not hating, just stating.

Score one for local TV, like Local4 in Detroit, stations that were out on the street in their towns and a big one for the Internet.

WFDS