Broadcast History - June 3

Broadcast History - June 3

Postby jon » Fri Jun 02, 2023 9:14 pm

In 1900, Gordon Sinclair was born, passing away on May 17, 1984, from a heart attack suffered two days earlier. He is best known to Canadians for his years on CFRB-1010 Toronto and as a panelist on CBC Television's long lived (1957-95) panel quiz show Front Page Challenge. His approval rating is much higher in the U.S., thanks to his 1973 spoken word recording "The Americans", hitting Billboard charts in 1974 with versions by CKLW News Director Byron MacGregor, Country singer Tex Ritter and Gordon himself. Additional background can be found at http://broadcasting-history.ca/in-depth/americans

Gordon was a Toronto Daily Star reporter in 1922, but it wasn't until he became Women's Editor in 1926 that he got noticed for a series of articles on hoboes. He was sent around the world four times as a wandering reporter, also finding time to write four books about his adventures. When World War II began in 1939, he was soon banned as a war correspondent after annoying senior military personnel. The day after the raid on Dieppe, August 20, 1942, he was asked by CFRB Toronto for bios of leaders of the raid, and they were so good that five of them were fed to a network. And Gordon instantly had a mid-day personality series called Let's Be Personal on CFRB, which were aired daily until his death. The following January, the Star made him choose between the newspaper and radio, and Gordon chose radio. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he joined the CFRB News Department, with daily newscasts and features that attracted a huge audience. More details on his life can be found at http://broadcasting-history.ca/personal ... air-gordon

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In 1953 at roughly 9 p.m., CHCH-TV Hamilton (Ontario) did its first test transmissions. A test pattern displayed call letters with a background of recorded music. Four days later, the station was on the air full-time, broadcasting programs from the CBC, NBC, ABC and Dumont networks. CHML-AM owner Ken Soble was the CHCH-TV station manager and the force behind getting the station on the air. He had been turned down for a Hamilton station in 1948 and 1949 because the CBC, which also licensed radio and television stations at the time, had reserved for itself the only channel allocated to Hamilton, despite having no plans to put a television station on the air there. In 1952, the federal government announced that private stations would be allowed in cities where the CBC had no stations of its own, and CHCH-TV was licensed. But the huge demand of television transmitters at the time led to a two year delay in actually putting the station on the air.

In 1968, CJRC-1150 Hull (Quebec) signed on for the first time, with studios in Ottawa. It was owned by CJMS Montreal, broadcasting a very similar Top 40 format. CJRC was my favourite station in 1973 when I spent 4 months working in Ottawa/Hull. Because CFRA played so many commercials, CJRC actually played more English Top 40 songs each hour. The CRTC later outlawed such formats, where the majority of music was sung in English, and all of the announcing was in French.

In 1992, the CRTC approved CHUM-owned CFRA-AM Ottawa's transmitter relocation, because its current towers were located right in the middle of a planned extension to Highway 416. CFRA-AM first signed on May 3, 1947, and CFRA-FM in 1948.

In 1993, the CRTC first allowed applications for Canadian radio stations to broadcast religious programming full-time.

In 1996, CKIS-FM ("Kiss-FM") Calgary debuted at 1 p.m., as an AM to FM switch that had been approved two years previously for what had once been the legendary Top 40 CKXL. In many ways, the station's new format sounded like what Jack-FM would become a decade later, or what Top 40 had been three decades earlier: mostly current hits across a broad range of musical genres. The station can trace its roots back to 1927, when the Calgary Albertan newspaper first started CJCJ-AM with 250 watts, sharing its 690 KHz frequency with four other Calgary radio stations: CFAC, CFCN, CHCA and CNRC. The call letters changed to CKXL in 1948, having moved to 1140 KHz the year before, then to CISS in 1987, CFXX in 1991, CFXL in 1992. CHRB-1280 High River would soon take over the 1140 KHz frequency, transmitter and tower, but what happened on this day in 1996 on 1140 is described in a Calgary Herald article: http://www.radiowest.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7642

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CKIS FM launch Click Here
Thank you to albertaboyforlife for sharing this aircheck.
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