Just last month I took a tour of PROUD FM, the first radio station in Canada targeted specifically to an LGBT audience, and the first commercial terrestrial LGBT radio station in the world.
My contact there is Bob Willette, PROUD FM program director and former producer of the Humble and Fred show. Yes, Bob Willette is Bingo Bob. We use the PROUD FM studio to record our Humble and Fred podcasts.
Yesterday, PROUD FM fired four hosts.
The morning show team of Deb Pearce and Patrick Marano and the afternoon team of Shaun Proulx and Mark Wigmore have all been let go following, Proulx says, the foursome's insistence on a joint meeting with station manager Bruce Campbell.
The morning show and afternoon show are the most popular spots, and to fire both teams in one flail swoop is pretty unusual.
I sent Bob an email last night asking him if anything interesting happened at work. His official fit-for-print statement is this: "what happened is a private affair between Proud FM and the affected individuals. The differences are private in nature and won't be revealed by the company to the media at this or any other point."
Others suggest the Evanov Radio Group, the station's owner, has an ulterior motive. The CRTC is about to approve an application to increase power of PROUD FM to 250 watts from its current 50 watts. Evanov also owns Z103, and this could be a ploy to repeat Z103 in Toronto with the stronger downtown signal.
From what I've heard about the Evanov Radio Group, it's certainly not beneath them. What's going on at PROUD FM?
