Source : Globe & Mail

His CBC show winds up tonight, the victim of falling ratings. Wayne Rostad says he'll miss being a whole country's neighbour

Wayne Rostad says he's not at the end of the road.

It's true that after 20 years on CBC Television, his show, On the Road Again, will soon be off the air -- the last broadcast is 7:30 tonight.

But the folksy travelling troubadour with a boundless love of the Ottawa Valley and Canada is philosophical about the demise of the long-running show he carved into a signature program.

"I can't say I'm bitter about anything because I'm not. I'm sad for the people of the country whose stories will not be told," said Mr. Rostad, 59, yesterday from his farm in Pakenham, which he shares with his wife, Leanne Cusack, a CTV Ottawa host.

He said he'd seen signs that the show was on its last legs after 20 seasons, a casualty of declining ratings and an unwillingness by CBC brass to provide a budget for another new season. The CBC has been moving to attract younger viewers and a show that featured stories about average Canadians was not seen as attractive to fragmented TV audiences.

At its heyday, the show attracted upwards of one million viewers, but now, in the multi-channel universe, the show averages 300,000 viewers, impressive enough numbers for a show that was often bounced around to different nights.

"We still see the show as an essential part of Canadian viewing because it was providing a special window for Canadians to have their stories told. Now that window will be gone for many, many people," Mr. Rostad said.

Mr. Rostad said network brass have mentioned the possibility of him doing a series of TV specials patterned on the successful On The Road Again formula.

He said the TV specials have some appeal, but he's been given few details on the "mechanics" of producing such a venture.

Despite the cancellation of the TV show, his career is in high gear, including a sold-out show Saturday night in Athens, Ont., and other concert dates coming up. He's just signed with a Toronto-based speakers' bureau, and a book on the final years of the TV show is a possibility, he added.

And he's looking forward to hitting the road again.

"I'm going to be able now to do the concerts across the country that I've had to say no to over the years," he said.

CBC spokesman Jeff Keay praised Mr. Rostad for bringing Canadian stories to the forefront, but he said ultimately there was no place for the show as the network reviews its regional programming strategy.

"We're re-evaluating our regional programming and part of that includes developing regional programming that's actually arising from, developed by, and for the regions," he said.

"It's not a knock against the program, but we're in the process of rethinking how we represent the regions of the country to our various audiences."

Mr. Rostad never had a problem relating Canadian stories to other Canadians and in the course of a 20-year run, he's profiled hundreds of Canadians, from a man out west who built a submarine, to Inuit children playing golf in Nunavut.

He said his show was essentially about "dropping in" to visit neighbours from every corner of the country, hearing their stories and spending quality time with them in an unhurried manner.

"We dropped in, sat down and we yammered. That was the magic of the show and that's what I'm going to miss most, touching all parts of the country that we have."

© Ottawa Citizen