One of Halifax’s best known broadcasters from the 1960s died in Bedford last month, and today a longer obituary for him appears in the Globe and Mail.

Bill Ozard took a post in Halifax with the radio station CJCH in 1960. “He soon became one of the best-known broadcasters in Nova Scotia, hosting a hotline radio program and anchoring election night coverage on the sister television station launched the year after he moved east.”

(CJCH’s Hotline show was resurrected in the '90s and hosted by Rick Howe until it was ultimately cancelled.)

From the Globe article:

“Ozard was diagnosed with colorectal cancer five years ago. He died from the disease, or, as his family stated in a paid obituary notice, “signed off the air,” on Nov. 25 at Bedford, N.S. He leaves a son, four daughters, three grandsons, and a sister.”

(his full obituary as commissioned by the family is reprinted here on the Radio West message board)

Bill Ozard wrote once in the Halifax newspaper The 4th Estate about the community importance of an open line call-in radio programme, to combat apathy (the modern day equivalent, I suppose, would be the show offered by News 95.7’s Jordi Morgan). “Open line programs fill a need in the community provided they are not allowed to become whipping posts or programs run by hosts that have nothing to say … there must be true dialogue, richly laced with controversy and opinion. Open line hosts must take stands on issues, they must be crusaders.” God saves us from the members of the media who think the status quo is acceptable, he wrote boldly.

One of the biggest changes in Halifax he associated his name with, during a brief break from radio, was the Scotia Square development. In 1969 he left he CJCH Phone Forum (the Hotline precursor) to work on the Scotia Square development as a publicist.

(Ozard was only with Scotia Square briefly, but his sojourn there prompted an interesting look at the downtown development on a radio fan blog, Bevboy’s. The author writes: “Scotia Square was meant to galvanize the downtown 40 years ago. It did this by razing, destroying, wiping out of existence, an entire neighbourhood. Streets like Hurd's Lane, Buckingham Street, Jacob Street, ceased to be.” A photo of the contrast can be found here.)

Ozard went back to CJCH as station manager after his brief break with Scotia Square. He worked in radio until 1974. He then ran for the Liberals in Halifax-East Hants, but lost. After the campaign, he was absorbed in the Department of Tourism, eventually becoming Nova Scotia’s deputy minister. He left the province for a similar job in B.C., which he was fired from on his first day for writing a thank you to his employers in the local newspaper. The Globe article delves into that Western Canada part of his life in a bit more detail.

Blog photo from the 4th Estate, as archived by the NS Archives.