NEWS 95.7 turns 10, celebrates with live broadcast at The Westin Nova Scotian

A decade ago, Paul Martin was Prime Minister, gas was 86 cents a litre, the war in Iraq raged on and Hurricane Katrina had just ravaged New Orleans.  The Chicago White Sox won the World Series, the NHL was emerging from a year-long lockout that cancelled the Stanley Cup final, and on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005, NEWS 95.7 hit the airwaves.

NEWS 95.7 is turning 10, and Rick Howe is hosting his show from the Westin Hotel on Friday, and invited back a number of former employees and talk show hosts, including Jordi Morgan and Todd Venoitte, who joined the show on Friday.

Morgan said he misses being on the airwaves on News 95.7, particularly his weekly Friday faceoffs with Rick.

“You used to mercilessly with your intellect,” Morgan said tongue-in-cheek. “I think it’s really healthy to have both sides of the arguments, it’s an open forum and is healthy for our democracy.”

Venoitte agreed with Morgan on the importance of talk radio as it gives people a voice. He has been working on his own podcast since December, and The Todd Venoitte Show has had 100,000 hits online. He’s also working in the financial sector.

Morgan is the Atlantic Vice-President for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Howe also spoke with Mayor Mike Savage, the former Liberal MLA helped as an advisor in negotiations for News 95.7’s CRTC license to get on the air.

One of the most popular hosts to grace the station, Andrew Krystal also joined Rick Howe and spoke of his favourite news stories while he was on the air.

Number one was when the HMCS Toronto came home late to save fuel costs, which Krystal’s then fiancee was serving on, leading him to irritate a number of officials.

The Defence Department hates me, the Navy hates me, the Prime Minister still won’t even be interviewed by me,” Krystal.

A close second was when Central Nova and Conservative MP Peter MacKay told former NDP leader Alexa McDunnough to, “stick to her knitting.”

Krystal is now running his own communications business in Toronto.

Listeners who come down can put their name in a draw to win a Blue Jays prize pack for a chance to win a couple of home game tickets to a 2016 home game at Rogers Centre, an official baseball with display case and Jays hats and t-shirts.

Since Day One, the talk shows on NEWS 95.7 have been drivers of conversation, a chance to discuss differences of opinion and sheer entertainment.

For one host, The Afternoon News was a simple concept, it was a show about news in the afternoon.

“If you’re going to ask me what we talked about, we probably talked about everything because that’s what we always talked about,” said Tom Young.

Young, who had been a radio main-stay in Saint John for over 30-years at the time, came aboard for the launch of NEWS 95.7 in October 2005, bringing his own brand of talk radio to the air waves in Halifax.

The show was on for the station’s first six years, and Tom talked to everyone he could get a chance to, with the exception of that one elusive guest.

“The one guy I always wanted to talk to was Stephen Harper,” he said.

The Afternoon News, Maritime Morning with Andrew Krystal who was succeeded by Jordi Morgan in October 2010, The Rick Howe Show and The Sheldon MacLeod show, The Todd Veinotte Show, The Weekend Gardiner with Niki Jabbour, weekend editions of Maritime Morning hosted by Erin Trafford, then Scott Simpson, Ask the Experts…the list of staff goes on and Tom said the list should go on for everyone who wants to speak their mind.

Rogers launched the news/talk brand in the Maritimes across three markets simultaneously in Halifax, Moncton and Saint John, but before that, Mike Savage was working as a consultant in the local business community, and he received a phone call.

“I had a call, I think it was Phil Lind at the time, asking me if I would be interested in being considered to do some work for Rogers who was interested in bringing talk radio to Halifax,” Savage explained.

Savage agreed saying he thought a news station would fill a gap in the media marketplace, the current mayor sat on an advisory council that helped get NEWS 95.7 to air.

“This would have been shortly after Hurricane Juan, it seemed like there was an avenue, an opportunity for a news station to be bringing updates on important events,” he explained.

Savage went on to become an MP, then the mayor of the city. He said one of the obligations, responsibilities, occasional joys, and sometimes a headache, of being a public figure is appearing on NEWS 95.7 to answer a few questions.

Plenty of journalists have worked in the station’s newsroom over the years, and NEWS 95.7 has given several students that first crack at the business on a much bigger stage by way of internships.

Erin Moore is an instructor in the Radio & Television Journalism Arts Program at Nova Scotia Community College, she said her students have had invaluable field experiences while interning in the newsroom.

“They don’t sit around shadowing people, they actually become reporters and producers working in a practical way,” Moore explained. “They’re sent out on assignments, they’re going to news conferences.”

Listen to the first moments of NEWS 95.7: