Rafe Mair the one time king of the British Columbia talk radio airwaves is back!
The once dominant voice of the always boisterous radio talk wars, was shuffled off of the airwaves a few years back, having been let go by CKNW and then finding that his next stop on the radio carousel Jimmy Pattison's AM600, wasn't willing to wait for an audience to build up for a run at the perennial leader. He provided a thoughtful examination of the trials and tribulations of the radio talk world for the Tyee shortly after being dismissed by AM600.
Since then Mair has kept active with a website and through his writing for the Tyee and other local Vancouver publications, but he's always made it clear that radio was his bully pulpit and that he missed the daily thrust and parry of verbal jousting that it offered.
So he's making a comeback of sorts, this time as a three times a week host on an Internet based radio program. No large corporation to be beholden to, no Program Directors and Station Managers to try and pressure him to tone it down or go easy. And to be truthful at the moment, not much of an audience to join in on the debate.
The plan is to grow the project over the next few months, which currently is available for free off the Internet, then once the audience builds suggest that a small fee of five dollars a month will be required to join in on Rafe's radio revolution.
He explained in the Tyee how the project is going to work for and what the future holds for his latest venture in the world of British Columbia commentary and debate.
The Internet talk radio streaming system has grown fast in the USA providing for some pretty large names in broadcasting. Rush Limbaugh regularly preaches to his converted ditto heads through his website and Dr. Laura Schlessinger has built her on air empire on the backbone of a web based Internet site that offers up archived shows, and special features as well as live broadcasts for the vast audience wanting to sit through her daily three hour tutorials on how to be a better person or solve those demons in your life.
Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, is likewise offered up as a streaming Internet subscription based program, one that looks at items that are on the stranger side of the agenda. From UFO's to shadow people, and exorcisms to earth changes and other phenomena, Noory's program offers extra features to subscribers as well and regularly draws listeners to the archives who may have missed a regular over the air show.
While all three appear on numerous over the air (free) radio statoins in the US and Canada, this expanded service is perhaps the future of what was once over the air radio, but Limbaugh, Noory and Schelssinger have built up a base over the years and can draw from a large worldwide pool of devotees.
Rafe Mair likewise has built up an audience over the years, but the pool will be significantly reduced from those big leagues of Internet subscription radio. Now you have to start somewhere I suppose, but it will be an interesting study to see if British Columbian's will be willing to part with 60 dollars a year for a daily one hour sampling of the latest thoughts of Rafe Mair.
While he's spot on as he would say, about the reach of the bean counters of corporate radio into the editorial world at times, there is still a rather faithful following of the CKNW offerings from Phillip Till in the mornings, through Bill Good's popular mid morning talkfest and now on to the latest politico turned gabber Christy Clark who has just been provided with her own platform to offer up ideas and stir debate (and the odd bout of animosity it would seem). NW wraps up the daylight hours with a fairly informative late afternoon show called the World today, the move on from there with some syndicated programming and then a three hour BC based sports talk show with Dan Russell. It's talk, talk, talk, talk talk non stop, a format that has brought in the numbers in the ever expanding upper reaches of the over forty demographic.
When Mair was at his radio post, the shows were always highly entertaining, informative and tended to annoy the powers that be, both in corporate radio and further afield into politics. A good sign for a grassroots gabber, but probably a career limiting trend in an industry that has become very corporate over the years. The key for his success however was that he was backed up by a pretty strong and powerful signal pounding out from a well known name brand.
Heading to Canada's still incubating world of Internet radio may bring him back to where he belongs and doing what he loves, but what remains to be seen is if his once loyal audience will be willing to pay for their punditry.
Click here for instructions on how to listen in to Rafe Mair on line, free for now...
No comments:
Post a Comment