Category Archives: Radio

Site maintenance, and New Radio Listings

Have this afternoon re-added the link to Jib Jab under Diversions (to your left), about which I wrote on February 12th (the item may be found by clicking on the Diversions link, under Topics, to the right).
Also, this afternoon, under the Radio heading, links to three wonderfully informative and virtually must-listen National Public Radio (NPR) shows have been added: All Things Considered, Terry Gross’ Fresh Air, and Morning Edition. In addition, another raft of radio links have been added.
In respect of All Things Considered, each day Monday to Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., hosts Robert Siegel, Michele Norris and Melissa Block present the programme’s trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. Steve Inskeep hosts the weekend programme. As is the case with all three of the NPR links, the option of listening to the entire programme, or individual items in which you’re interested, is available.
Each weekday evening, on Fresh Air — NPR’s Peabody Award-winning magazine of contemporary arts and issues — the programme features in-depth interviews with prominent cultural and entertainment figures, as well as distinguished experts on current affairs and news.
Winner of broadcasting’s highest honour, the George Foster Peabody Award, for its outstanding contributions to American radio, Morning Edition offers a daily two-hour mix of news, analysis, interviews, commentaries, arts, features and music. Morning Edition is heard Monday through Friday on more than 600 NPR stations across the United States, and around the globe on NPR Worldwide … and is now available as a link on VanRamblings.

Fresh and innovative

From time to time, VanRamblings will add links to Net-based radio stations.
One of my favourite radio outlets at present — the number one FM station in Europe, and currently the most popular radio station broadcasting on the Net — is Glasgow’s The Beat 106, who present the brightest amalgam of dance beat music available anywhere on the planet.
If you ever find yourself feeling a bit blue, the best pick-me-up that I know of is a listen to The Beat’s morning team, Paul, Des and Babs (available from 10 p.m. til 1 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, which is 6 a.m. til 9 a.m. Scottish time). Together, these three have fashioned one of the most stimulating and energetic morning radio programmes I’ve heard in years.
Where to find The Beat? Click here for a listen.

A bit of radio nostalgia

From my early days while listening in bed late at night to far-flung radio stations across the continent, through my employment with CKLG during its 60s and 70s heyday — when 730 CKLG was the Drake-formatted KHJ BOSS radio station which ruled Vancouver’s airwaves — til the present day, radio has always been a particular love of mine.
From time to time, VanRamblings.com will post airchecks of favourite radio personalities from days gone by. First up, this aircheck of Fred Latremouille on the CFUN morning show, circa October 24, 1984, with Kathy Baldazzi on traffic, and Tom Larscheid on sports.
For those interested, here are this past autumn’s Vancouver radio ratings.

Whatever happened to J.B. Shayne?

The state of radio in Vancouver is such that virtually no one’s interests are attended to. Radio stations programme music off the American Billboard charts, personality radio is almost a thing of the past (save Rafe Mair at AM600 and Frosty Forst at ‘NW), music with a huge following (ambient, techno, progressive house, electronica) has no place on local commercial airwaves, and the situation continues to deteriorate.
VanRamblings will weigh in, from time to time, on the state of radio.
Stay tuned.