TALK! Radio held Vancouver’s rapt attention for fifty years. Decades of scoop journalism, blunt spoken truth to power!
Instant democracy! Everybody listened!
Then it was killed off!
Watch how it all happened, from fascinating start to brutal finish.
Thanks to George Orr and crew who produced this Excellent Video on the early days of talk radio and the players in Vancouver
Awesome history of Vancouver’s talk radio!
Beautifully done… a treat to watch and listen to.
Like many things in broadcasting, talk radio and indeed CKNW itself, were done in when the CRTC allowed one company to own multiple outlets in one city. One company cannot sustain the cash outlay of several stations as easily as they could a single outlet. Therefore, they did what they could to make the payroll. i.e. cut from the top and hire newbies for cheap. That in turn, led to audience decline on a large scale. In short order one ownership group was followed by another until the entire city was full of ‘used to be’ stations. I waited many years for the CRTC to make changes to the original order and I’m still waiting. Broadcasting was sold down the river by greedy conglomerates and an uncaring, unthinking governing body.
OUTSTANDING! Congratulations to George Orr and crew for pulling so much together. The audio and video production is superb. Those were the days my friend, too bad they had to end. There are so many highlights but the best bits for me involved Warren Barker and the legendary George Garrett. Watching Garrett chase that scoop right down to the wire delighted me and got my pulse pounding. The amazing thing is over his career he notched up thousands more. The end of the production brought a tear to my eye. Bravo on this masterpiece of radio history.
That was excellent!! So interesting seeing all those old clips and interviews of Vancouver Broadcast legends.
Having done radio news and talk in the U.S., I found this great history of Vancouver radio to be fascinating and very well done! Am I correct that George Garrett spent a few years in the 1970’s down here in the Seattle market?
Well done Mr. Orr. Thank you for the trip down memory lane. Those were the good old days of radio. Hopefully someone at Chorus would see this, and see where they booted it. Now Chorus is doing it to TV……turfing the pros to save a dollar and saying goodbye to ratings.