He spontaneously announced that players with a straight bingo - a vertical or horizontal line - would be treated to a free bucket of chicken. Nevertheless, the move paid dividends and most likely rescued the program from cancellation - until now.īingo players are notorious for taking their game seriously, but that doesn't mean Rotary Radio Bingo hasn't been without humour and the occasional goof-up over the years.ĭuring one broadcast, after just four numbers had been called, Fraser attempted to liven things up. Though the prizes went up dramatically - one jackpot awarded in 2004 totaled $94,000 - the odds of winning were no longer as great as they once were. The $10,000 prize cap was abolished, replaced with a system that saw the jackpot rise by $1,000 each week until it was won. In a desperate move, the club introduced a new prize structure. "Sales had dropped to the point where there was one run where we went half a year and lost money on every game, and you just can't run a business that way." "We came extremely close to shutting it down," said Fraser.
Indeed competition from growing gaming opportunities very nearly spelled a permanent blackout for Rotary Radio Bingo around 2000. Yet even before the Rotarians' recent decision, the faithfulness of core players wasn't always enough to keep the bingo in the black. "A lot of people have been playing this bingo for 30 or 40 years, and they like their Saturday morning with coffee and bingo," said Fraser, who has chaired the fundraiser for nearly a quarter-century.
Broadcast live from CFAR by Rotary members, it didn't take long for the program to establish a loyal base of listeners. The success was surprising, prompting Gordon to recommend that his club, eager for a new revenue stream, host its own radio bingo program each week. Less than two years later, the ballet company, dissatisfied with revenues from the fundraiser, turned it over to the Rotary Clubs of Manitoba, which only kept the program for about six months.Ī few months went by before Flin Flon Rotarian Jack Gordon purchased time on CFAR to hold his own bingo to raise money for his daughter's run at the Queen Mermaid crown. The radio bingo tradition began in 1974 when the Rotary Club borrowed the concept from two previous organizing groups.įlin Flonners first played bingo over the airwaves two years earlier, in 1972, when CFAR became the only station outside Winnipeg to pick up the Royal Winnipeg Ballet radio bingo. "I know it will be missed a lot in the community." It's a disappointment," said the long-time Flin Flonner. It passed unanimously.Īs someone who has faithfully dabbed cards in front of her radio for 28 years, Joanne Skeavington was caught off guard by the decision. With the writing on the wall, he recently made a motion that the club shut down the bingo once its current stock of cards runs out around late March. Whereas the Rotary Club had been selling some 6,000 bingo cards per week a decade ago, fewer than 600 are now being purchased.įraser chalks that up to a host of factors, including a competing radio bingo on NCI, the availability of other forms of gambling and the apparent lack of young people picking up dabbers. "It's been at least four or five years that we've been cutting the meat off the bone and now we're down to the bone," he said. "We're down right now to probably half of what we were three or four years ago, and we're just not making money anymore."įraser said the bingo - heard on the Arctic Radio Network of CFAR-590 in Flin Flon, CJ-1240 in The Pas and 610-CHTM in Thompson - has struggled in recent years even as expenses were slashed. "(Card) sales have just dropped so much," said Wayne Fraser, chair of the Rotary Club of Flin Flon fundraiser. Rotary Radio Bingo will broadcast its final game March 31 as a financial crunch forces the demise of a nearly four-decade-old institution. Saturday mornings in Northern Manitoba just won't be the same without the rumble of bingo balls and numbered squares neatly spread out on the kitchen table.
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