MONTREAL - After 26 years tickling funnybones, mocking the powerful and being an icon of Montreal's radio airwaves, local radio morning man Aaron Rand is moving on.
The radio rascal does his final program on the Q Thursday morning.
He has brought his well-loved former co-host Paul Zakaib in for his last week of work.
Rand's tenure ends as radio undergoes a different approach, which not all appreciate.
"It's a different business now," Rand tells CTV Montreal. "Management used to encourage creativity now they stifle it. It's now about playing more music."
Spinning tunes might please some but it doesn't feed the appetite for news, according to Rand.
"Radio has always been a local medium," he says. "You wake up and want to know what's going on in the city that you live in."
Weather, sports scores and reports on world-shaking breaking events cannot be conveyed through the latest Black Eyed Peas hit, he notes.
"You can't get that from listening to your CD or Ipod, so I think it will become more important again."
Rand says that he hopes to make an announcement concerning his future plans within six weeks.
