BOB MacGREGOR, 74: BROADCASTER
F. F. LANGAN
Special to The Globe and Mail
July 26, 2008
Bob MacGregor was perhaps the best-known overnight voice to be heard
reading the CBC radio news in the past decade. And that, even though
he worked only three nights a week - Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Out of the studio, Mr. MacGregor was a man who could not be
pigeon-holed. A lover of classical music and opera, he was also a car
nut who early in life stuffed a V-8 engine into an MG s****ts car. He
was a dedicated poker player, too: "I remember Bob MacGregor sitting
down at the Montreal press club one night in the seventies and saying
with a straight face: 'I must warn you. I can only stay until 9 in the
morning,' " a friend recalled.
The son of Scottish immigrants, he grew up in Toronto. He worked as a
copy boy at The Globe and Mail while still at high school, and later
studied broadcasting at what was then Ryerson Polytechnic. He then
followed the usual pattern of working in small radio stations before
landing a job at CBC Montreal.
At one stage he started a program called RPM, a show that specialized
in cars. It gave him a chance to test cars he would otherwise never
drive. One of them was a Rolls.
"Bob had the Rolls for a road test. But we drove it to Watkins Glen
[N.Y.] for one of their Grand Prix races," said his friend Lionel
Birnbom. "Rolls Royce was more than a little surprised to find more
than 1,000 miles on the brand-new car after three days."
As a re****ter, he covered a number of news events around Montreal,
including Expo 67, for which he was awarded a Centennial Medal. He
also re****ted on many elections for CBC radio and served as a
commentator on the 1973 election in which Quebec Liberal leader Robert
Bourassa won a landslide victory. Along the way, Mr. MacGregor came up
with the idea for the Quebec Community network, broadcasting to
smaller, sometimes isolated, English-speaking communities in Quebec.
The network still exists.
By that time he had left the CBC and started a company which did
everything from publish a magazine called Canadian Motors****t Bulletin
to produce radio programs which specialized in cars and racing. To
help make ends meet, he did voice-over work and acted in a few movies.
Mr. McGregor returned to the CBC more than once. In the late
seventies, he was rehired as a public-relations manager and then gave
up the job only to rejoin the CBC about 10 years later - again in PR.
Although Mr. MacGregor was a hard worker, there were aspects of PR
life he didn't like. His son, Alex MacGregor, said he remembered his
father complaining that he had to spend a day looking after pop star
René Simard and then spend that night drinking with Al Waxman, the
star of the show King of Kensington.
In 1996, Mr. MacGregor retired from his publicity job at the CBC. He
soon became bored and asked if he could read the overnight news.
Because of the hours - 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekends - it was a job few
wanted. He usually arrived a early to write his newscasts. "He was a
stickler for grammar and language," said his son Alex. "He loved
Canada, and he loved the CBC, and reading those newscasts gave him a
window on the country."
BOB MACGREGOR
Robert Bertram MacGregor was born Aug. 16, 1933, in Toronto. He died
May 31, 2008, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. He was 74. He is survived
by his sons, Alex and William.
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