Up and down the radio dial
I can remember listening to the radio since back — way back — in the early to mid 1960s when I was still in elementary school.
I would listen to the sportscasts in the morning — flipping from CJIC 1050 to CKCY 920 — to get the latest scores and details from the night before. Once I got into high school, radio became both sports and music for me. (I didn’t care much for the news back then.)
Sportscasters and disc jockeys were my idols starting in the early 1970s, which was a few years before I got into radio myself, in October of 1975. Those who I remember with distinction were sportscasters Harry Wolfe, Steve Cooney and Paul Leonard from CKCY, and George Jonescu and Greg Stephens from CJIC. As for the DJs, I couldn’t get enough of listening to CKCY “playing the best music” via the likes of Dick Peplow, Ronald Thomas Robinson and Steve Jackson, who were my three favourites.
Later, when I got into the radio industry as a part time sportscaster at CKCY, my first boss was the aforementioned Paul Leonard. I got to work weekends alongside my part time news buddy Joe Petrolo, where we would fantasize of leaving the $3 an hour riches of CKCY for the fame of the Big 8 CKLW in Windsor. And of the DJs who were like rock stars, the coolest one was Robert E. Lee, who did the 7 p.m. to midnight show on CKCY — and where no less than four telephone lines all hooked to 254-7111 would light up continuously for five straight hours.
Off and on, I have spent parts of six decades in the radio industry. But compared to an original oldie like ageless wonder Lou Turco — who still hosts a popular Saturday morning show on Oldies 93.9 — I am still a neophyte.
Besides CKCY, I have done occasional radio work over the years for 101-FM (now Rock 101), YES-FM (back when crackerjack program director and morning announcer Jerry Noble made 99.5 the far and away best radio station in the Twin Saults), AM 1400 and Eagle 95.1 (whose moniker recently changed to Bridge 95.1.)
I don’t listen to radio for sports much any more. Rather, it is an “everything classic” music station like Bridge 95.1 — which besides an amazing library of classic hits, features the personality-plus husband and wife duo of Tim Ellis and Lindsay Ellis as morning drive and mid day announcers, respectively. Tim and Lindsay represent a true family owned radio station with an ownership that is unique to any other that I know of.
I keep hearing that “no one listens to the radio anymore.” But that can’t be true, judging alone by the number of radio stations that are based in the Twin Saults.