ADVENTURES IN RADIO

I first began working part time in Radio at CJOB AM/FM in Winnipeg.  It was the spring of 1963.  I would be 18 in August.

God but I loved Radio back then.  The Personalities, The Music. And most of all The Theatre of The Mind.  Not just The Lone Ranger, The Shadow and all of that, but imagining what the D.J.s looked like and where they were.  Occasionally they gave us hints.  Like the time the CKY Jock did his whole show one summer afternoon from the CKY Pool at the top of the CKY Building near Portage and Main.  I actually believed it.  Certainly I wanted to.

In bed at night it was especially magical.  Doug Burrows on CKY was The Man About Midnight broadcasting live from The Paddock Restaurant.   Dick Biondi was the screaming D.J. on WLS Chicago selling Greasy Kid Stuff hair lotion.

It all seemed to sound better under the covers and through my pillow 

I didn't understand it then as I do now, but I grew up in a city with wonderful Radio.  CKY and CKRC were Top 40.  CJOB was Adult Middle of The Road.  And then there was the CBC producing much of the Radio Theatre for the network from Winnipeg.  From age 12 I performed on many of those CBC Radio Dramas…..but that's another story.

Now….thanks to my mother who brought home Job Applications, I was working part time weekends and summers at CJOB mostly typing file cards in the Record Library or helping out with promotions.  Over the next two years I started a Radio Station at my highschool using Rock Records that CJOB had no interest in, MCed dances at other highschools and Community Clubs, engineered the sound at Rainbow Stage, operated the board at CJOB-FM and became a weekend announcer/newscaster overnights at CJOB-AM.

I was taking Business Administration at Red River Community College in the spring of 1965 when CJOB-FM changed format to Country and offered me the afternoon show.  Goodbye College.  Hello Full-time Radio!

In January of 1966 I moved to Regina with 9 others, most of whom I'd met at CJOB-FM, to launch Regina's first FM station….CFMQ.  We put it together in a housetrailer at the back of The Northgate Mall.  And went on the air as a "storefront" in the mall itself.  I was the Production Manager, Afternoon Announcer, Sports Director and Traffic Manager.  Before the winter was over I had pneumonia and decided that my future was in producing commercials.

CJOB asked me to come back to work in the Production Department.  It was September 1966.  I now truly felt like I had a "career".

Today, it seems amazing to realize that the CJOB would have the best Creative Department of any Radio Station I would ever work for.  I'm not sure how it happened.  It was The Sun, The Moon, The Stars all coming together at the right time in the right way.  I don't think anyone planned it.  It just happened.  A somewhat eclectic mix of veterans and kids all of whom made each other better.

The Core were….Cliff Gardner (the best overall announcer I ever worked with), Pat Withrow and later Bill McDonald (the best writers I would ever work with), Rene Jamieson (the best female performer I would ever work with), and Dave MacLennon, Ronald J. Morey, Allan Willoughby, Peggy Robinson, George McCloy, Red Alix, Peter Grant, Neil East (the best engineer I would ever work with), Kirk Northcott,  Mike Kornfeld, Angie Kozub, John Harvard, Garry Robertson.  Sorry if I missed you.

I listen Today to the best of what we did in the three and a half years I was Production Manager and it is still Magic, rarely seems dated and certainly deserving of the many awards we won in competitions across Canada.

It came apart slowly.

Pat Withrow and Peg Robinson went to work for Ad Agencies.  Dave MacLennon left Radio.  Ron Morey went to Edmonton, then Regina, then Vancouver.  But when Mike Kornfeld went to CHUM Toronto as the Copy Chief in late 1969 and Bill McDonald followed him a month later….it was clear that The Magic at 'OB was coming to an end. 

I first heard CHUM in 1967.  Compared to Winnipeg Top 40….which was pretty much all I knew….CHUM sounded Old, Tired and Sloppy.  Across the street, CKFH was Tight, Fast and Exciting.   I wasn't informed enough to understand it then but, what was happening to CHUM was happening to many Heritage Top 40s throughout the U.S.  It was getting beaten up by an exciting new development in Top 40 Radio…..The Drake Format.

Top 40 Radio was growing up. 

Simply put….Bill Drake was a Radio Programmer/Consultant who revolutionized Rock and Roll Radio by creating a tight, high energy presentation using a short list of songs which made most “heritage” competitors sound sleepy .   "His" stations were quickly shooting to #1 most everywhere he launched.  And although he was not directly involved in the development of CKFH Toronto at least one of his disciples clearly was.

Shortly after I first listened to CHUM, I heard that a former CKY Winnipeg D.J. named J. Robert Wood had been brought into Toronto as "Program Supervisor" of CHUM.   After 'KY, JRW had programmed CHLO St. Thomas…near London Ontario…and quickly created success.  Then, as I mentioned earlier, 'OB Copy Chief Mike Kornfeld left us for CHUM and took my best friend Bill McDonald with him.  Hey Mike….what about me!

Mike arranged for Bob Wood to fly me in for an interview.  First Class.  Very "together" guy.  Very "up front" with me.  I had never worked in Top 40 Radio.  He had just hired someone else.  Maybe that someone else would give me a chance later.  I flew home devastated.

Then the phone rang.  He said he was Hughie Turnbull.  Someone told him I was The Best Production Man in Canada. Was I ready for a job at The Big 8?

Huh!?  What's The Big 8?

The BIG 8!!!???  Well…it's CKLW Windsor.  Number One in Detroit.  Number One in Cleveland.  Number One in Toledo.   No kidding.  Well…gee Hugh…could you send me an aircheck?  I've never heard The Big 8.

It was Monday.  Hughie would have the tape to me by Wednesday at 10:30.  He would call me at noon for my answer. 

Wow.

On the phone to Kornfeld.  Mike…you're not going to believe this but……

At 11:30 Wednesday, J. Robert Wood offered me the Production Job at CHUM.  Thanks anyway Hughie.

Later I discovered that Hughie Turnbull was the Production Manager Bob Wood thought he had hired.  And then told him about me.  So, Hughie went back to Windsor, probably negotiated a raise for himself and then tried to hire me before Wood did.

What a business!

CHUM wasn't at all like CJOB.  CHUM was a mess.  No….CHUM was a Disaster. 

Equipment?  The Main Production Studio had an old rotary pot Mixing Board that sat on kitchen table.   No kidding.  There was a remote start/stop but no fast forward/reverse.  The second Production Studio was the size of a postage stamp and had no remote buttons at all.  CHUM also had a "Trouble Report" that was distributed to Sales/Traffic/Engineering/Programming and Production.  It detailed all the "errors" from the previous day.  The missing commercials, scratchy records, broken equipment and various and sundry other "Troubles".   It was often 5 or 6 pages long.  To put this into context…..

CJOB had never had a Trouble Report in all the years I worked there. 

I sent a cassette tape to my parents in Winnipeg describing the conditions at CHUM.  I just listened to it today for the first time in thirty-five years.  I told them it was so disorganized that I might have to spend all my time figuring out how to organize it, and perhaps never produce a commercial.  It was that bad. 

Over the period of about 3 months, I instituted a series of procedures…many of them adapted from CJOB….which finally better co-coordinated communications between Sales, Traffic, Copy, Production and On-air.  Not everyone was pleased.  The Old Guard changed slowly or not at all.  I was "fired" once by the vice president of Sales.  J. Robert Wood stuck by me all the way. 

Meanwhile, although CHUM was sounding much better with an on-air staff of Jay Nelson, John Gilbert, Johnny Mitchell, J. Michael Wilson, Tom Rivers, Chuck McCoy, John Rode and Roger Ashby..... 

CKFH was not going away.

BEATING UP THE YANKEES – ROUND ONE

The History of Rock and Roll produced by RKO General Radio under the supervision of Bill Drake was the first Radio Documentary of its kind I had ever heard of.  In 1970 I think it was 30 something hours long.  What a Great Idea!  Guess who was going to broadcast it in Toronto?  Not CHUM.  NOW what do we do?

CHUM decided to produce The Story Of The Beatles. It was a brilliant move. Drake’s program was very good, however, The Beatles were Hot, not only because of their continued success, but because they were about to break up. The problem was that CHUM had to produce the program within a month in order to get it on the air before CKFH hit with The History. No one working at CHUM had ever written or produced a documentary.  .

Out of somewhere, (I’m not sure where and I don’t want to know) Bob Wood got some outstanding Beatle interviews, most of which sounded like they had been done 1964-65 while the band was still relatively accessible. We made plans to conduct our own interviews with everyone we could get to that could claim a Beatle connection from Little Richard, to WLS Chicago DJ Dick Biondi to Ed Sullivan.

In 1970, there really wasn’t much in the way of books about The Beatles to draw from, so we searched the library for newspaper clippings and, of course drew on the best resources of Capitol Records.

Over the next 6 weeks, we produced a 12 hour Beatle documentary. Somehow. It was on the air before it was finished. From a ratings standpoint, we wiped out CKFH and Bill Drake’s History of Rock and Roll.

CHUM then made the documentary available to any radio station in Canada or the United States who wanted it, for the cost of the tape (about $450 in those days). Over 50 stations took advantage of the offer. People were hearing about CHUM.

Syndicating The Story of The Beatles for cost of the tape was a decision that would both help and haunt CHUM 5 years later.

BEATING UP THE YANKEES – ROUND TWO

In 1971, Watermark Productions syndicated The Elvis Presley Story. It was a 12 hour documentary. CHUM bought it for their group of stations in Canada. In 1975, Watermark revised and updated the show and put it into syndication once again. CHUM exercised their right of first refusal.

Watermark placed The Elvis Presley Story with CKY in Winnipeg and CKLG in Vancouver both stations owned by competing Moffat Communications, despite CHUM’s right of first refusal. The excuse was that, CHUM had not owned radio stations in Winnipeg and Vancouver when the agreement had been made in 1971. The Real Story was that Watermark was pissed at CHUM for giving away the Beatle documentary at a time that they had planned to originally syndicate their Presley documentary.

Bob Wood called me into his office. We had a problem. Somehow, we had to put our own Elvis Presley documentary on the air in Winnipeg and Vancouver, and do it before Watermark’s program could clear customs.

As hard as it may be to believe today, in 1975, there was only one book written about Elvis Presley. It was by Jerry Hopkins. I bought two copies of the book, gave one to Bill McDonald who moved into a hotel and began writing, and took the other and copied every name of every person Jerry mentioned in his book. I then called information in both Memphis and Nashville to find out who might talk to us.

Everyone I called said that they would call me back, and everyone who called back agreed to be interviewed.

I booked a flight for my Production assistant Bob McMillan and me to Memphis on Wednesday and to Nashville from Memphis Thursday night, with a return to Toronto Saturday morning.

Then I got some good news and some bad news.

The bad news was from RCA Records Toronto. Earlier I had called them for help in lining up interviews. They told me that Elvis would not be available because he was in the hospital, but that someone living just outside of Toronto had worked for Elvis and might agree to be interviewed. Whoever that person was, declined the interview.

The good news came next.

I had been trying to reach Mae Axton, co-writer of Heartbreak Hotel at her home in Broken Bow Oklahoma. There was no answer. Incredibly, she turned up at CHUM on the very day we were leaving for Memphis! She was in Toronto promoting a TV special hosted by her son Hoyt Axton best known for having written Joy To The World for Three Dog Night. Mae was our first Elvis interview. She later sent us a tape of Elvis singing That’s All Right Mama on a TV show that Mae had hosted.

Incredible but true. And it gets better.

The first interview that Bob McMillan and I were scheduled to do in Memphis was with Alan Fortis who had grown up with Elvis and now worked at a Law Office. As we got off the elevator there was a sign with two arrows. The arrow pointing right was to the Law Office. The arrow pointing left was to The Memphis Southmen Football team.

In 1975, The Memphis Southmen were a franchise in The World Football League. Their coach was Leo Cahill. Leo was the former coach of The Toronto Argonauts of The Canadian Football League. When he was fired, we hired him as a sports commentator at CHUM. I trained him. Following the interview in the Law Office we dropped in on Leo.

He was wearing The Medallion.

Elvis fans will know that The Medallion was Solid Gold and shaped as a thunderbolt with the letters TCB written across it. It was a gift that Elvis gave to people who worked for him, or that he cared about. Cahill had it because Elvis was a football fan.

When we told Leo why we were in Memphis, he picked up the phone and called Richard Davis. Richard was an executive with Stax Records and, legend has it, the only person outside of family that Priscilla allowed to stay at Graceland after she and Elvis were married. Leo told Richard that we were friends of his and that "any favors Richard might afford us would be a favor to me".

We picked up four interviews with people who had not been mentioned in Jerry Hopkins book. The Elvis Door had opened wider.

Now my favorite part of The Elvis Experience.

From the beginning I had been trying to reach Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires. I still hadn’t connected with him by the time we got to Nashville. He called me at The Holiday Inn. I asked for the interview. He said the same thing that everyone else had said. He would have to call me back. He did, and offered to come to our hotel. Gordon walked into the room and said…."you’ve been getting the party line about Elvis. I’ll tell you the truth. All you gotta do is ask the right questions".

Then he said…do you know why you’ve been getting all this co-operation from the Elvis people? I said no…thinking that it had to do with CHUM’s influence in Canada. Then Stoker said something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Gordon Stoker said…."Elvis heard your Beatle Documentary and said to give you all the help you needed".

It’s the truth.

J.Robert Wood’s vision of getting The Beatle documentary widely distributed had paid off. WHBQ Memphis had aired our Beatle show and Elvis Presley had heard it!

Amazing.

CHUM’s The Elvis Presley Story went on the air at CFRW Winnipeg and CFUN Vancouver before Watermark’s Presley show cleared customs. CHUM later sold the show into syndication through TM in Dallas who later sold it to Wagontrain Productions in New Mexico. Wagontrain still syndicate it today under the title The Presley Years. The Narrator is Charlie Van Dyke.

BEATING UP THE YANKEES ROUND THREE

By 1972 CKFH gave up and changed format to Oldies.  But later that year, a far greater threat to CHUM’s dominance was launched.  CFTR.

CKFH was a weak signal at 1430.  At 680, CFTR was far stronger….not just in signal and dial position, but in ownership.  Unlike CKFH’s Foster Hewitt, CFTR’s Ted Rogers would spend whatever it took to build a Winner.  His first move was brilliant.  Hire George Johns from CHUM owned CFRA in Ottawa and turn him loose. 

George Johns and J. Robert Wood had worked together at CKY Winnipeg under P.D. Jim Hilliard.  But that’s where the similarity ended.  Temperamentally they were polar opposites.  Bob was Cool.  George was Hot.  Bob was Eisenhower, George was Patton. 

The Hot Contest in U.S. Radio at the time was “The Last Contest”.  Launched at KCBQ San Diego by programmer Jack McCoy, it simply overwhelmed the competition with a seemingly endless stream of highly produced promos promising prizes from new houses and exotic vacations to high end automobiles.   It truly was a spectacular contest.  I’d never heard anything like it. 

But we were not intimidated.  We were challenged.

The “downside” of The Last Contest was that Canadian Radio was limited to give- aways totaling $5000.00 in cash and prizes per month.   There wouldn’t be many winners at CFTR.

So CHUM countered with “When Your Phone Rings Don’t Say Hello…Say…I Listen to CHUM".  Contestants won $1000 cash if they answered their phone correctly.  We would have five winners a month.   Through Promo Production we made it sound like 500.

Advantage CHUM 

The Voice of The Last Contest was Jack McCoy sounding very much like Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone.

As The Voice of Don’t Say Hello, I chose Ronald J. Morey, an old friend from CJOB who was now a D.J. in Hamilton with ambitions of being a voiceover announcer in Toronto.  His Heavy voice and presentation was so stylized and distinctive that CHUM Jock Duke Roberts would not go on the air immediately after a Morey promo.

At worst….a tie for CHUM.

We aired “Don’t Say Hello” for over a year.  People as far away as Ottawa were answering their phone “I Listen To CHUM”.  The Psychology Department at the University of Toronto actually conducted a “study” exploring the phenomenon.

And, of course, Radio Stations throughout Canada including most CHUM Stations quickly created their own Don’t Say Hello Contests.

George Johns left CFTR to join Jim Hilliard at WIBC Indianapolis.  Apparently it was what he was planning all along.  It just took a while for The Green Card.  Right.

Goodbye George.

BEATING UP THE YANKEES – ROUND FOUR

The next CFTR Program Director of note was Chuck Camroux.   He too brought in a Big Contest from U.S. Radio.  This time it was The Fifty Thousand Dollar Button from WABC New York.  Simply put….wear The CFTR $50,000 button and win your share of $50,000 in cash and prizes.  I think you had to listen to the radio to know where their prize spotters were going to be.

Someone at CHUM….and one day I must find out who…..came up with the brilliant idea of a CHUM Button that would be personalized to the wearer’s sign of the Zodiac.

We called it The CHUM Starsign.  

Where we took it to The Next Level was….distribution.  Using a local modeling agency, we created teams of CHUM Chicks in very attractive outfits, “pinning” listeners and potential listeners from displays in virtually every shopping mall in Toronto.  CHUM Jocks would then fan throughout the mall awarding cash and prizes to Starsign wearers.

To launch the promos for the contest, I went to a CHUM Sockhop at a local highschool and asked for volunteers to help us research the next CHUM Contest.  Of course just about every kid wanted to help.  I took a half dozen of the most excitable girls to a quiet part of the school where I interviewed them individually while the others waited in the hall.  I showed each girl her Starsign and explained that the manufacturers had told us that the most sensitive young people would experience a pleasant sensation upon rubbing the Starsign on an exposed part of their body.  Would she give it a try?  Of course every girl did and every girl responded rapturously.  In fact one was rolling around the floor of the classroom.  Really. It made for great promos.

But what REALLY put The CHUM Starsign over the top were The Winner Promos. 

Each night I took the bus home with never less than $500 cash in my pocket.  It was an hour and a half bus ride with many people coming and going.  Each time someone got on the bus wearing a Starsign, I took out my Cassette Machine and awarded them $100.  Needless to say it got quite a reaction on the bus and on the air.

CFTR’s $50,000 Button just couldn’t compete.  Whatever Template that WABC gave them on how to make it work....didn't. 

BEATING UP THE YANKEES – ROUND FIVE

I came back from holiday at the end of May 1977 to discover that CHUM-FM Program Director Duff Roman had resigned and Bob Wood wanted me to take over.

So…my first Programming Job was Programming the #1 FM in Toronto.

What was to make it most challenging though, was that Q-107 had just signed on the air and CFNY Brampton was soon to debut with a new 100,000 watt transmitter on a hill overlooking Toronto.   Both were new FMs.  Both were targeting CHUM-FM.

Q-107 were staffed with CHUM Alumni beginning with owner Allan Slaight….the man most credited with programming CHUM to success in the early to mid-60s.   Program Director Dave Charles had worked as a Jock at CHUM for a year or two.  With him he brought ex-CHUMers John Rode, Mary Anne Pervin, Mark Dailey and Bill Anderson.  

Meanwhile, over in Brampton, CFNY would be programmed by ex-CHUM-FM all night legend David Pritchard.

Like quite a few other FMs in North America, CHUM-FM had evolved from programming to High End Adults in the early 60s with Classical and Light Pop Music to The Progressive Rock FM for Toronto in 1968.  Gary Ferrier, then Bob Laine, then Duff Roman had evolved the station…..sometimes painfully….. from Bizarre, to Too Hip for the Room to Almost Too Much Mainstream.  Of course that’s the way The Music had gone as well.  By 1977, FM Rock Radio had been Breaking the Hits for AM Top 40 Radio for quite some time. Listeners to AM Radio were beginning to figure it out.  Three FMs playing many Flavours of Rock were going to make sure they did.

On First Listen it seemed that Q-107 was going to try to sound more like CHUM-FM than CHUM-FM.  Fine with me.  CFNY, meanwhile, seemed to believe that their success would come from trying to sound like the Old CHUM-FM of the early ‘70s.  Fine with me.  What complicated things though, was yet another Yankee Programmer invading Toronto. 

Lee Abrams had created an FM Rock Format he called The Superstar Format, and much like Bill Drake before him laid waste to most any Heritage Progressive Rock FM in his path.  CHUM-FM was to be his latest Victim.

Oh Jeez….here we go again.   

One of Abram’s Flagship Stations for Superstars was WWWW-FM (W-4) Detroit.  It seemed like whatever they did in the way of Promotions and Stunts would be done a few days or weeks later at Q-107.  Detroit was a 4 hour drive for me.  Lee also had a Newsletter he mailed to Superstar Affiliates with an overview of his thoughts on Radio, The Format and his successes.   Somehow, JRW got a “subscription”.  But what really made a difference was a Programming Philosophy that would become a Major Tool in my Arsenal in every battle I would later fight in New York, London and Windsor/Detroit.

Simply put….it was to find Great Hit Records that, for whatever reason, The Competition were not playing.

The Radio Industry and The Music Industry have essentially had a marriage based on Music releasing a hundred records a week and then developing Marketing Plans to get 50 of them played on Radio.  Yes I know what I’m saying is too simplistic, but basically that’s it. 

What I discovered was, in 1977, as many as 30 of those 100 records each week could likely qualify as a record that might be played within the FM Rock Format, but The Music Industry collectively had Marketing Plans for perhaps 15 or fewer.  Meanwhile, The Music Trade Magazines such as Billboard and Radio & Records would let us know which of the 30 were being played by other stations in other markets.  Chances were that it was only a few of the 15.  But of those 15, many were established Recording Artists and because Conventional Thinking in Radio was that it was wise to add only a few records each week, New Artists had a tough time getting added.

There was a certain Irony in the fact that it was The Music Industry’s job to get us all to play the same records.  Records that were part of their Marketing Plan.  Was it any wonder, therefore, that CHUM-FM and Q-107 could end up sounding very much the alike?

Yes…we would each try to be “defined” by other things.  For example, CHUM-FM took “the live concert hill” by establishing a regular series of live concert broadcasts of New Music from The El Mocambo and forging a relationship with Concert Promoter CPI to “present” all the major concerts that came to Toronto.

But what really Turned the Page for me was when a Record Promoter from CBS/Epic dropped off an album in my office that he thought I might enjoy because he had heard I idolized producer Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.  I didn’t think much about it at the time….but when I finally got to listen to the album over Christmas 1977 it absolutely blew me away.  It was unlike anything I had ever heard.  It wasn’t Phil Spector, but it was taking Phil Spector’s influence and his obsession with Wagner to a whole new level in Rock.

I checked Billboard and Radio & Records.

R&R listed WNEW-FM in New York and WMMS-FM playing it in “light” rotation.  Billboard showed the album “Bubbling Under” the Top 100 in Sales.  But wait a minute.  Didn’t I read something about the record in one of Lee Abram’s Newsletters?  Yes…there it is.  Lee is telling “his” stations NOT to play it. 

Fantastic!

First I put it on loud in my office.  Then after everyone came in to see what the hell it was, we put it in Heavy Rotation on the air.  The phones lit up immediately.  WHAT is that?!  WHO is that?!

Then MY phone rang. 

Someone named David Sonenberg was calling from New York.  Said he managed the band.  Wanted to thank me for playing it.  Hey David, bring them up to Canada.  We’ll do a Live Broadcast from The El Mocambo.  And he did.

By the end of 1978, Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf was the largest selling album in Canada…EVER!

A year following the debut of Q-107 and CFNY and a year after my appointment as PD…..CHUM-FM went from the #1 FM in Toronto to the #1 FM in Canada.   And another imported Consultant bit the dust. 

The Real Irony though was....a few years later after J. Robert Wood left.....it would be Imported Consultants hired by CHUM that would be their Undoing.