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| B-Mac in the T-Dot | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Ben MacMurchy, October 15, 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thanksgiving weekend, I headed off to Alliston, north of Toronto, to spend time with my family. The day I went back to Belleville, I was stuck in downtown Toronto all morning before the next bus to Belleville came. How did I kill time? Walk around downtown with my camcorder and get some radio-related pics. |
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| The east wall of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, 250 Front St. West. CBC Morning was on the air from the atrium. The CBC building is also home to the Glenn Gould Studio, a concert hall/recording studio/memorial to the famed Canadian pianist whose statue sits on a bench outside; also housed at the CBC is the International Academy of Design. |
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| Across the street is the 553m (1,815 ft.) CN Tower, the world's tallest freestanding structure. Nine FM and seven TV stations transmit from the CN Tower. The FM stations on the tower are: modern rocker 102.1 The Edge (CFNY-FM Brampton), hot AC CHUM FM (104.5), specialty CBC Radio Two (CBL-FM 94.1), AC CHFI (98.1), multicultural CHIN (100.7), classic rocker Q107 (CILQ-FM 107.1) who we'll see more of in just a moment, soft AC 97.3 EZ Rock (CJEZ-FM), jazz CJRT (91.1), and hot AC Mix 99.9 (CKFM-FM). The TV stations up here are CBLT (5-CBC), CFTO (9-CTV), CICA (19-TVOntario), CBLFT (25-SRC), CIII (41-Global), CFMT (47-indie), and CITY (57-indie), as well as CDTV's experimental digital TV station. |
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| Something I knew I just had to see while in Toronto: the ChumCity building, at Queen & John, home to CHUM's TV division. Unfortunately, I didn't go into Speakers Corner, as I didn't have anything to talk about that would be worthy of airtime on the TV show. As I passed by the front doors, some derelict was arguing with ChumCity security about "public property and private property". Okay... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Uh-oh! Somebody's in trouble! Moses isn't going to like this! Actually, it's just a setup. Citytv retired one of its old ENG trucks by faking a crash through the east wall of the ChumCity building. The front wheels just keep spinning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Toronto's other FM transmitter site: First Canadian Place. Eight of the city's smaller/less powerful stations transmit from this master antenna, and they are: CBC Radio One flagship CBLA (99.1), classical CFMX-1 (96.3), urban Flow 93.5 (CFXJ), multicultural CIRV (88.9), classic hits Jack FM (CISS 92.5), CBC Radio Two's French-language counterpart (CJBC-FM 90.3), as well as campus stations CKLN (88.1) and CIUT (89.5). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The cops have had to deal with much larger crowds than this outside Toronto's radio & TV stations. Our Lady Peace held a free show that morning at 102.1 The Edge, Yonge & Shuter. The lineup extended to Queen St. (and this was at around 8:00 a.m.!) |
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| Q107's new-ish Hard Rock Cafe studio, near Yonge & Dundas. The morning show was on air from the main studio in the Eaton Centre. The gear in here includes a Ward-Beck R2K board, Maestro live assist/automation, EV RE-20 mics, Denon CD cart players & MiniDisc machine, 360 Systems ShortCut digital audio editor, and a Telos phone system. |
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| No explanation needed: the CHUM Radio building, 1331 Yonge Street. |
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| Standard Radio's headquarters at Yonge & St. Clair. Yes, that's CFRB (1010) and Mix 99.9 up there. The ticker is plugging the Mix's ratings period contest. |
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| Finally, on the way out of a bus stop at the Scarborough Town Centre, I caught a glimpse of CTV's compound at the 401 & McCowan Road. All of CTV's specialty channels are based here, as is master control for CTV O&O stations CFTO (9 Toronto), CKCO (13 Kitchener), CJOH (13 Ottawa-Hull), and the CTV network itself. |
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