Radio Free Rafe

Suddenly it has become very quiet on the airwaves of British Columbia. AM 600 and Rafe Mair parted company at 10:30 on Friday morning, as the long time legendary talk show host announced that his program was to come to an end on the Jim Pattison owned station.

Mair joined AM 600 two years ago, bringing his hard edged talk radio style to a very unlikely place, a station better known for Sinatra and Martin (Deano not Paul). His two hour daily gabfest was a completely different direction for the syrupy meanderings of the rest of the on air crew, so it's not particularly surprising that his time there has come to an end.

In an article on the Tyee website, Rafe himself offers up his on air obituary, all be it a temporary one if he has his way. Rafe does a fair amount of patting himself on the back in his farewell address to the listeners, adopting a kind of third person approach to it, suggesting the world is poorer place without a Rafe Mair to shake the trees from time to time.

And taking away a healthy dose of ego, he's probably quite correct. While his shows of late have not been the same energy charged affairs that brought down a Vander Zalm or scared a Glen Clark, he still when motivated could cut through the BS that so often invades the generic talk shows.

Having left CKNW after 19 years under a bit of a cloud of politically incorrect circumstances, he took advantage of the offer at AM 600 to try and recapture some of the early days magic that made him BC's most listened to talk show host, a worthy holder of the torch from Pat Burns and Jack Webster to name two of BC's more famous talkers. He tried, but for whatever reason the audience did not follow him in great enough numbers to keep the show on the air, there are reports that his program did not bring enough advertising dollars in to cover off his 200,000 dollar salary. In a business that is all bottom line his days would have been numbered with each and every billing period.

Bill Good who took over the Mair timeslot at NW, has done a fairly good job of maintaining NW's talk show reputation. His show is informative, challenging and a good fit for the audience. Good is not as confrontational as Mair could be, nor does he seem to latch on to a horse and ride it into the ground. One flaw with the Mair shows over the last few years has been his constant focus on fish farming, which while a very important issue seemed to be Mair's cause celebre. There were too many times a listener would tune in only to hear the same old song dragged out again, Fish Farms are bad. No doubt we get the idea, but there was other news out there and sometimes it got lost in the pursuit of Rafe's personal hobby horse.

He did however rattle cages and with his absence now as he says in his farewell, there will be a gap in the media machine for awhile. He single handedly took on Alcan over the Kemano completion project effectively making him persona non grata in Terrace, though as things have played out he was ahead of the curve on that one. Mair railed on about Alcan's plans to use Kemano energy to sell to the USA, while the Kitimat smelter remained locked in a Charles Dickens' like environment of technology. Ironically someone on the same side of the argument as him now is none other that Bill Vander Zalm. Controversy indeed can make strange bedfellows.

When he left CKNW it seemed very much that the station was in the midst of a mild revolution, his departure was followed about eighteen months later by the retirement of Frosty Forst the long time morning show host on NW and then by the News voice of NW John Ashbridge. The on air anarchy of the morning show at that time gave listeners a bit of a glimpse as to a bit of the animosity of some of the players in the studios, against the bean counters at Corus.

In an earlier article for Tyee, Mair recounted how the industry had changed and not for the better. Many might think of it as sour grapes, but in reality he was only stating his report from the front lines of what must have been a rather nasty civil war inside the station that was the Top Dog.

Stylish to the end, he left the AM 600 studios on Friday with a TV crew recording his final moments on air and his vow to return one day. Dressed to the nines and flashing a smile (maybe a grimace) as he walked out the door of an on air studio, perhaps for the last time. Though he certainly is not leaving to sell pencils on the sidewalks of Vancouver, the conditions of his buyout include a salary until August of 2006. As he quipped to the cameras on his way out the door, you can make a pretty good living on radio station buy outs! Radio Historians can check out the AM 600 archive for his farewell address and his last week of shows, while they keep it up on the website!

While he says he'd like to be back on air by New Year's one wonders where exactly he might fit in. There are not many radio stations at the moment doing anything resembling intelligent talk on the air. NW has a couple of worthwhile adventures on the air at the moment, but a return there is not going to happen. The other two talkers in Vancouver are Mojo and the Team, both catering to the sports audience or the fart joke crowd or both and one in the same, one can't see Mair fitting in at either, plus Corus owns Mojo so that's a non starter to begin with. The CBC wouldn't have a clue what to do with him and anyways the curmudgeon quota at that Noah's Ark of broadcasting called the CBC already has two angry old guys, a dude named Don Cherry and the Newfoundland tiger Rex Murphy, both of whom scare the brass enough on their own.

After that it's voice tracking on hip hop, country or classic rock stations. The possibilities are not great for the talk show veteran, despite Rafe's MacArthur like vow to return. He does have his regular spot at the Tyee, and some readers there have suggested he explore podcasting as a possibility, or maybe the soon to arrive satellite radio revolution may make some room for him, so perhaps he will still be around in some form or another.

If indeed this is the end of the on air road for the man who commanded a legion of listeners for many years, may he take with him, the best wishes of a province of talk show fans for his hard work over the years. He's right, the industry has changed, there may not be room in the bean counter's world for a muckraker, as he self described himself and that is too bad. A good dose of fear every once and while helps keep everyone honest.

If for nothing else, his ability to hold a targets feet to the fire will be missed. He asked the questions many of us wish we could have asked and frequently wouldn't let up until he got us an answer. Guess we'll have to get to work on our own now and look for the answers, he gave us a pretty good road map, should we choose to follow it.