Cool YMLF mention

[Livia]

GEORGIE BINKS:
Jocks around the clock

CBC News Viewpoint | May 26, 2006 | More from Georgie Binks



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Georgie Binks is a freelance writer living in Toronto. She writes for the Toronto Star and National Post, and has written for Chatelaine, Homemakers, Elle, Glow and Style at Home, as well as salon.com. Georgie is a former CBC radio and television reporter and editor. She has been a feminist since she wrote an essay in high school on "The Changing Role of Women in Society" at her mother's suggestion.


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As I was taking a run around the dial on my car radio recently, I hit two conversations at random. In the first, a female caller challenged the hosts about their fascination with one of the men's "members."

"You mean his penis?" one asked. Much guffawing ensued. In the second, a male host regaled other male hosts with the little-known fact that the word "fagocite" (as he imagined it was spelled), actually existed. Insane laughter followed. The word does exist, but is spelled phagocyte, a white blood cell that engulfs and consumes foreign microorganisms.

Welcome to radioland of the '00s. Gays may be marrying and women running corporations, but to the guys (and guys do predominate in rock radio) it's retro thinking all the way. They look forward to drinking a lot of beers on the weekend, and complain about the little lady bossing them around.

I remember when radio was magic to me. The only thing that saved my sanity as a teenager was listening religiously to several hours of rock music each night on CFRA in Ottawa and WYBG in Massena, N.York. Sunday nights, I could pick up stations as far away as Chicago or Tennessee on my little transistor. When I walked into CFGO in Ottawa in 1976, I knew I'd found my passion. I spent the next 17 years working in radio news. I know radio from both sides of the microphone. Until the internet arrived, radio was the most immediate, the most intimate, the least produced of all media.

My complaint is that as other media have evolved, radio is not only stuck in a time warp, it seems to have taken a huge step backward. As other technologies took off, radio station owners panicked. Rather than coming up with innovative solutions to restore dwindling audiences, they turned to gross-out radio to win them back. Howard Stern is probably the best known. I admit to listening to him when his show was broadcast in Toronto in the '90s. I loved the way he challenged authority and marvelled at the shocking language he used (I couldn't believe he got away with it). His monologue after his marriage broke up was truly moving. He spoke about how it was affecting his children and about his own personal agony. In my opinion, it was the best thing he has ever done, because it wasn't scripted, nor was it aimed at a particular audience. It was just Stern telling me something very personal. Unfortunately, the next day he went back to the same old prattle, which in particular involved the depiction of women as if they were simply a vehicle to move a great set of breasts and a nice behind. If Stern, who now lives in the land of satellite radio, is to push boundaries any further, he's going to have to perform colonoscopies on the air — it's all that's left.

Stern had a huge influence on many male radio hosts, who live to emulate him. In Toronto area, fart jokes and homophobia are a mainstay of the daily prattle. The only progressive view I've heard in the realm of homosexuality occurred when a guy called into a radio station several years ago to wish his boyfriend a happy anniversary. Without skipping a beat, the host asked him how long they'd been together. It was refreshing. This was a teen radio station, in tune with the times in more ways than one. Sadly though, the radio station dumped its format when it became clear there was more money to be made pursuing an older audience with a host-less format called "Playing What We Want," music on an endless loop, interrupted only by commercials.

Can satellite radio save radio? Broadcast consultant Greg Diamond with Byrnes Media in Burlington thinks satellite radio will improve regular or terrestrial radio, whose greatest strengths are immediacy and locality.

Diamond says, "Satellite radio will make everybody better. Regular radio won't go away soon. This is just another competitor on the landscape." To its credit, satellite radio features channels for everyone from kids to science enthusiasts.

In the land of terrestrial radio there's going to be a new kid on the block, which may shake things up. In April, the CRTC approved a broadcast license for Rainbow Radio, which will serve the gay and lesbian community in Toronto. It's scheduled to go on the air in the next 12 months. It's not satellite radio — it's just your neighbourhood station, broadcasting to a community that has been ignored or defiled in the past by mainstream radio. Let's hope it will provide that much-needed soul that is missing in radio. These days it's seems to be all focus groups and formula with an unhealthy dose of fart jokes.

There's little heart and soul to radio anymore. Way back when I started out we were always told to remember we were only speaking to one person, not a whole audience. Disc jockeys frequently bounced into the newsroom trying out material on us, to see how we reacted. It was important to reach an audience, one person at a time.

These days there's little personal touch. Many stations run news and sports from one feed, music is on a loop. Announcers serve as technicians, there to fix things if they break, but not as hosts or people actually driving the vehicle.

I remember nearly 30 years ago, sitting in my car in Stratford, Ont., listening to a Toronto radio station. The disc jockey was introducing the Fleetwood Mac song You Make Loving Fun, and he brought such a personal touch to it, that right then and there it was just the two of us — he wove such a magical and personal spell I've never forgotten it.

Imagine being able to create a spell someone remembers 30 years later. No satellite radio, no specialty radio channel, no studies or focus groups. No insults. Just one radio host talking to one person who gets his message. That's some kind of magic. .

[Lala]

Originally Posted by Livia

I remember nearly 30 years ago, sitting in my car in Stratford, Ont., listening to a Toronto radio station. The disc jockey was introducing the Fleetwood Mac song You Make Loving Fun, and he brought such a personal touch to it, that right then and there it was just the two of us — he wove such a magical and personal spell I've never forgotten it.

Imagine being able to create a spell someone remembers 30 years later. No satellite radio, no specialty radio channel, no studies or focus groups. No insults. Just one radio host talking to one person who gets his message. That's some kind of magic. .

Yeah. That's why I want to go into radio. Hopefully, I can help change some of this ****.

I can't stand male djs. They seem to be such a group of know-it-all ass holes.

The YMLF mention is cool. I can picture it.

[SortaSavageLike]

You mean, the DJ didn't go on about the band's drug addicitions, didn't scream "rock and roooooooolll!!!" at the end of the song like assholes, and despite being the ugliest, fattest, and least vocally endowed men within 100 miles, didn't comment of Christine's voice and appearance? Wow. Sometimes I think I'm gonna slip on a trail of slime just listening to most DJs. Bunch of sorry blowhards.

Though one of the few redeeming things I've heard of FM radio before 10 am into the last six months were our local classic rock DJs tearing in Fred Phelps daughter. What a bitch, but she got what was coming!

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by SortaSavageLike

You mean, the DJ didn't go on about the band's drug addicitions, didn't scream "rock and roooooooolll!!!" at the end of the song like assholes, and despite being the ugliest, fattest, and least vocally endowed men within 100 miles, didn't comment of Christine's voice and appearance? Wow. Sometimes I think I'm gonna slip on a trail of slime just listening to most DJs. Bunch of sorry blowhards.

Well, at least you're not bitter.......

[GypsySongbird]

Originally Posted by SortaSavageLike

didn't comment of Christine's voice and appearance?

what did they say about christine?
if its mean better not tell me because i might cry!
her voice is amazing! & she is absolutely stunningly beautiful!!!