Bell Media 'relieves' Dad of his duties, stranded due to the Pope, Now & Next Video-cast

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Welcome to SSN BTS Vol 22

Quick note, I’m going bi-weekly with our newsletter for the summer months because - summer!

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Well Reader - it’s been a wild couple of weeks.

I've got quite a few newsletter drafts on the go, but let's start with the one that hits closest to home.

More than 26 years ago, I remember sitting in our family room crying.

Dad had come home from his job as News Director at AM640 in Toronto (which then was a juggernaut ripe with innovation - you can hardly say anything like that about the station now).

He announced to me and my little brother that he’d quit and was taking ‘the big job’ at the ‘big station’ - CFRB 1010. Big Leagues.

I cried because I was a selfish teenager who couldn’t process my emotions (and also because I knew in my bones that taking ‘a big job’ in media meant it became your life and I think I already missed my parents… but that’s a story for therapy and not this newsletter).

That day started a relationship that lasted longer than most marriages.

Yes, Dad was the forefront.

I don’t even know what his first job there was, maybe Assignment Editor? (Don’t worry, he’s reading this and about to Slack me to correct me).

He definitely hosted the Noon Hour show for a while.

He was the News Director there for 14 years.

He took that team of dozens of incredibly talented anchors, reporters, interns, engineers and talk show hosts to amazing places. Inaugurations, war zones, natural disasters, countless elections - I mean, it was the Big Job.

Big Leagues.

And as much as it was about Dad…it was also about the Traffords.

It was impossible to not be in a relationship with that station when ‘the Dad’ was more or less tethered to it all the time.

And I mean - ALL the time…

All the ladies at church would tell my Mom “oh, we heard Dave on the radio… we just love him”

My friends at school “Can you get us concert tickets cuz your Dad’s on the radio?”

But it was more than that.

Our lives revolved around that station.

At one point, we had a logo’d car - a Jeep.

And don’t tell anyone, but I totally drove it even though I wasn’t technically allowed.

Case in point -

In 2005, when I was moving out of residence after my last ever set of exams at University of Toronto, I stood at the corner of Wellesley and Queen’s Park Circle with two duffle bags waiting for Dad to pick me up.

After 45 minutes of waiting, my Mom called my flip phone to say he wasn’t coming and to take the subway.

Dad was on a plane to Italy cuz the Pope died.

I remember traipsing back upstairs in the chaos of move-out day and telling my friends my Dad was going to the Papal funeral and I didn’t have a ride.

No one else understood.

(And this was not the first or last time breaking news left me stranded on a street corner. Again, probably a conversation for therapy and not this newsletter).

This next part of the story is not mine to tell, but suffice to say that as time went on in that newsroom, Dad became more and more stuck in a machine he couldn’t control.

Standard Broadcasting, led by the Slaight Family, sold to Astral Media. Then Astral Media sold to Bell Media….

And other forces were at play too. Who can forget the 2008 financial collapse and the impact on news-media?

And if you’ve been paying attention at all in the last few years, you know when media corporations buy each other, when money gets tight at the top, the people on the ground suffer - either outwardly or internally, or both.

Dad had to lay off dozens of colleagues, friends and people he knew deserved better.

He had to cope with numerous changes ‘above him’ that put pressure on the newsroom and performance of the station.

As much as he tried not to, the agitation creeped home with him. It wasn’t like it was anger or anything crazy, but all of us Traffords felt the weight of the crumbling Big Leagues.

Even as his career continued to another (equally flawed) media organization, he remained connected to 1010.
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Maybe this is too much to say, but I really feel like that was the station that built him; it was the station that built me too.

He went back officially about eight years ago as the host of the weekend morning show. A gig he loved, but again - wasn’t great for the family because, well, he couldn’t do anything with us on weekends.

He stayed a regular roundtable contributor on the morning show every Friday.

Until last week.

When a hallway conversation happened, without the courtesy of a goodbye, or a real explanation.

And he was, in every sense of the word, unceremoniously relieved of his connection to 1010.

You can watch Dad’s first Friday YouTube Podcast here to hear him explain how it all went down. ​

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He texted me right after it happened.
He laughed because I think he knew it would eventually happen.

The bullshit of the last few years is thick, and almost everyone in the business is just waiting for the proverbial knife to hit them in the back.

My reaction was a bit more colourful, but again, I sorta knew the day would come.

I just wished it had all been a bit more human.

I don’t know why I decided to write this story today, except for that it matters.

It certainly matters to me, to us, but also to you.

This is legacy media right now.

Zero allegiance.

Zero care for the people and families who devote their lives to building an audience.

Just zero.

I’m really happy Dad and I are building Story Studio Network together.

He hasn’t left me waiting for a ride in at least two years ;)

Peace,
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Erin Trafford

Co-Founder, CEO | Story Studio Network

​Website | Instagram | Linkedin | Threads​

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