Year Born: 1923
Year Died: 2000
Year of Induction: 1990
Pioneer – Member of CAB Hall of Fame
Hesketh, Robert “Bob” (1923-2000)
A writer and broadcaster, Bob Hesketh’s career included experience in all three arms of the media, and spanned more than 50 years.
After discharge from the RCAF, he landed a cub reporter’s job with the Toronto Telegram and was assigned to cover Police Courts and Osgoode Hall. In 1948, Bob applied for and won a job as a junior in the sports department where he sorted mail and went for coffee. His first byline followed about a year later. He covered the Toronto Maple Leafs and the boxing beat. He graduated to a sports column “news on sports”.
Bob was the winner of the first National Newspaper Award for Sports Writing, a new category created in 1957. Left the Telegram for a public relations job and was director of publicity for the Whitby Dunlops when that team won the World Hockey Championship in Oslo in 1957.
Over the years Bob worked freelance in radio, and was a sub-host on the late night sports on CBLT-TV.
In 1958, he was hired to replace Gordon Sinclair on CFRB’s feature newscasts when Sinclair was on holidays or otherwise absent. Bob was a regular on CFRB for over 30 years, with his own feature newscasts.
Bob wrote and produced the feature “The Way I See It”, which was syndicated by Standard Broadcast Productions across the country and which became particularly familiar to listeners in Ontario, Alberta & British Columbia and the Maritimes. Over more than 20 years, it became the longest running, most successful syndicated program in the history of private radio in Canada.
Hesketh was a regular panelist on the long running CFRB public affairs program “Let’s Discuss It” and for two seasons was a freelance panelist on the public affairs program “What Is Truth” on CHCH-TV, Hamilton.
After his early retirement from CFRB in 1988, he continued to contribute “The Way I See It” to the station’s programming until 1993. Bob was a contributing editor to CARP News (Canadian Association of Retired Persons) and continued to be involved in other freelance projects.
In the commercial field Hesketh wrote and voiced radio spots for a number of clients, and was winner of a Radio Bureau of Canada Soundcraft Award for Creative Excellence, and an International Radio Festival of New York award.
Bob Hesketh died February 25th, 2000 after a short illness.
Bob Hesketh was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1990.
Written by J. Lyman Potts – November, 1997