Preville on Politics
Good news for sports radio junkies
Posted on August 3, 2007 by Philip Preville
It’s been a slow week, but this is news to shake up the Toronto sports-media scene: AM640 is going to turn their Leafs Lunch show with Bill Watters into Leafs Drive Home, an effort to steal some numbers from Bob McCown’s Prime Time Sports on The Fan 590, which rules the roost in this town. If, like me, you’ve ever found youself listening to McCown’s in the afternoon show in frustration—listening, and waiting, and wondering when the hell he’ll ever stop with the pregnant pauses and the pointless chitchat and calling Nick Kypreos a Greek (har har) and finally get around to actually saying something interesting, which is the job he’s paid so handsomely to do—then you’ll welcome this news. Maybe McCown will shape up.
If you listen to the show long enough, you come to get a handle on the show’s formula. McCown doesn’t bother to chat with the traffic and weather guys; his throws to their segments appear to be pre-recorded, which makes the show seem lazy. He and his cohosts bide their time until after the five o’clock news (which, I’d wager, is the time when the show’s audience peaks), then manage ten minutes of well-paced, insightful discussion, before digressing back into pointlessness. I was always thankful that I could switch over to AM640’s afternoon news program, which often sunk its teeth into city hall issues and which—given how often he appears on the station—I had taken to calling the Denzil Minnan-Wong show. The change will be a blow to coverage of Toronto City Hall on AM radio. So good news for sports junkies, but bad news for political junkies, and for those like me who enjoyed carrying on both conversations at once.
Philip Preville
Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.
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Comments
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Mark Dowling August 3, 2007 at 11:10 a.m.
All of the Fan guys do that with the stopping for five seconds every sentence - very annoying! At least from 5-7 they have guests on which tends to eliminate that. All the same, I think Bill Watters will ultimately lose a battle with McCown (as long as he stays matey with Brunt et al) but perhaps PTS will cover more than five stories a week - repeated every day - and give "legal expert" Rob Becker the heave-ho.
Ronny August 3, 2007 at 1:06 p.m.
As a resident of Toronto, but a fan of the Oilers, the only sports radio I listen to is piped in from Edmonton over my internet connection. At 1260 AM, an old UofA radio station aquaintance, Bob Stauffer, certainly knows how to fill those annoying pregnant pauses. During a 6-hour marathon session covering the Oilers Dustin Penner RFA signing, which cut away only to broadcast the press conferences of both Lowe and Burke, Stauffer read tens of listener emails on air and fielded many calls. The highlight: during a guest spot with NHL heavyweight Georges Laracques, and at Laracque's prompting, Stauffer relayed the story of a practical joke he once played on a former university roomate, someone called 'Uncle Ian'. While Uncle Ian spent most of his time at his girlfriend's house, Stauffer, unbeknownst to Ian, would let Ian's cat out to do its dirty business. The resulting empty litter box led Uncle Ian to the conclusion that his cat was constipated, and to remedy this he began giving his cat a laxative. The story ended, I kid you not, with Bob defecating in Fufu's empty litterbox himself and returning it to the basement. Upon his return home, Uncle Ian is purported to have said: "Fufu, you're all better!" I simply could not believe my ears. Maybe I've been in Toronto too long.
Jimmy the Geek August 3, 2007 at 4:22 p.m.
Bob Stauffer's alive and well and on internet radio? Jeezus, I gotta get a load of that guy!
Mark Dowling August 3, 2007 at 11:46 p.m.
I don't think Bob McCown knows what the "interweb" is, does he? Still less read out emails? Mostly I only hear him post 5pm though so maybe he's figured it out.
Dave McDonald August 6, 2007 at 1:21 p.m.
Could not agree with you more on McCowan. Put simply, when comes on I change the channel. Old, tired and arrogant is not a pleasant combination. Cannot believe they keep him around.
Rob Allen January 30, 2008 at 5:04 p.m.
McCown is definitly one of the best sports radio hosts' in North America, let alone Canada. Stauffer is a joke.