By Jenn Mondoux
Among the Eaton Centre’s march break crowds of kids and teenagers, a middle-aged group is madly filling our forms. Welcome to the world of CFRB tryouts, the last in a three-stop tour for Toronto’s talk-radio station, AM 1010.
Aspiring talk show hosts are required to say their name, contestant number and speak into a microphone. The winner will get their own show on CFRB. Over 1,000 people tried out at last week’s Eaton Centre auditions.
“You had 90 seconds to say why you should and could be on thread,” said CFRB’s Carlo Massaro. “And if you fumbled, you were out.”
One person will be chosen to host their own show every Sunday morning from midnight to 4 a.m. for one year.
Some hopeful contestants let their personalities lead their auditions for on-air employment. One contestant reminisced, “I can remember when CFRB wasn’t CFRB and when Gordon Sinclair was a boy.” Another contestant voiced his views while applying. “Canada has been reduced to a nation of whining children. I challenge the left wing to expose themselves for what they are…liars! My name is Rob and I could go all night.”
CFRB has been on the hunt for the perfect talk show host since March 12. They combed the city last week, stopping in Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke, Scarborough Town Centre and finally, the Eaton Centre.
CFRB representative Scott Mackenzie says the contest is part of the station’s movement to a “grass roots” level.
“This is the first contest of its kind in North America,” said Mackenzie, who will be working on the production of the new show. “We want the average person to speak to the average listener.”
CFRB is stressing the ‘no experience required’ component of the contest, but the message may not have registered with some of the contestants. Karen Musytschka, a first-year Radio and Television Arts student at Ryerson and classmate Rebecca Milloy headed out to the Eaton Centre last Thursday to check out the action…and to do some job scoping. But after taking a look at some of the contestants, Musytschka and Milloy had second thoughts. “Opportunity knocks softly,” Milloy said as she scanned the growing crowd. “This isn’t soft enough, not for us.”
Musytschka agreed. “Maybe we should just send them an audition tape,” she said. “Then we could get more of a mid-day show…where people would actually hear us?”
CFRB’s audience age is also discouraging to younger contestants. With a target group of 50 and over, some contestants had doubts whether CFRB would even consider anyone under 30.
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