Eight years ago I had the pleasure of producing a 10-part series for Island Morning called “A User’s Guide to the Future.” Every week we covered some aspect of “new technology” — the Internet, privacy, banking and so on.
Across the desk from me, running the show for every episode, was Island Morning anchor Wayne Collins.
Wayne announced his retirement today.
When you’re in the guest seat on radio, there’s nothing like having someone naturally curious doing the interviewing, and that’s what Wayne is. I could always walk into the studio knowing that Wayne would be interested in what I was going to be talking about, simply because he is a guy who’s interested in the world around him and how it works.
I’m going to miss Wayne in that chair.
Comments
As some one from away, I have come to understand how powerful local radio and TV can be. Part of the power of holding the community together is how we all tell each other our stories. We in time hear most of the voices on the Island — even if we do hear some more often than I would like. I think that it is this iteration often on subjects that aren’t strictly news is a very binding process.
Having a trusted intermediary is what makes this experience work and for me Wayne and Roger have been so pivotal. Their effectiveness is not simply their personalities but their deep knowledge of the community. Now they are going or gone, I sense a loss. The morning and evening time slots are eroding before our eyes and it seems only a matter of time before the CBC goes national.
What a tragedy!
With internet technology folks — can we not recreate a local station for a fraction of the cost of a traditional station. I even sense that Peter’s page maybe a start?
What do you think?
I think that the benefits of local radio on PEI as a sole reliable path of information has as much to undermine it as recommend it. I found that the ability to challenge things happening off PEI was more easily engaged than in local matters. Makes lots of folk feel happy but is it responsible? Wayne would tick folks off a lot for being what was seen as a bit brassy in a cheery way but which was little more than being a curious intellegent Newf. [If you ever want to hear a full blast newfie phone-in, for example, check out the VOCM relay at — I think 570 am — most nights. Nasty and funny.]
Here now in a smaller Ontario city I have “Ontario Morning” and the Ottawa drive home show. The latter is possibly the best in the country with Brent Bambury, late of Midday and now on CBC saturday mornings nationally. Curious, funny and — most importantly — not apparently bumping into glass walls on certain topics. The “Ontario Morning” show covers such a wide area and population, it is really a high level news show as opposed to community information.
With the interest in local news and information outstripping the ability to cover it via radio, I see the internet pages of the CBC as my real source of local news — Mitch was my real source of news for the last two years.