Memories of CFAC Calgary

[albertaboy4life]

Posted a bit about CKXL a while ago so here's a bit on CFAC -

Bit by the Radio Bug: Clarence Mack a big part of CFAC legacy; [FINAL Edition]
Brian Brennan, Herald Columnist. Calgary Herald. Calgary, Alta.: Aug 5, 1997. pg. B.8

(Copyright The Calgary Herald)

A recent Tribute column about Byron MacGregor, the Calgary-born newscaster who hit the big time in Detroit during the 1970s, has unleashed a flood of memories for freelance QR77 sportscaster Arnie Jackson, known around these parts as the rodeo voice of radio.

Jackson tells me that he and MacGregor, real name Gary Mack, started in radio together at CFAC in 1962.

The country station is Calgary's oldest broadcaster, seven years older than CKUA, 14 years older than the CBC, and just three years younger than Canada's first radio station, the Marconi Company of Montreal, which went on the air in 1919.

CFAC was celebrating its 50th birthday in 1962, and rated the top station in the local market, when Jackson and Mack signed on as student announcers. Both were attending Western Canada High.

A third Western Canada senior, Jimmy Hughes, also caught the radio bug during that time. He joined CFAC in 1969, and remains on-air with the station today as its congenial morning show host.

Jackson remembers a CFAC on-air gang teeming with broadcast talent:

``Clarence Mack (MacGregor's late father) did Toast and Marmalade, a breakfast-radio staple in southern Alberta. Jim Kunkel, the longtime program director at AC, was mid-morning man.

Claude Burrows, who later hosted CFCN Television's supper news run, was early afternoon. Dennis Corrie, who is still around Calgary selling advertising, was the swing guy, possibly the greatest DJ to ever work the Calgary market. Don Lamb did the drive-home show. Bernie ``Barnyard'' Bishop was the early-evening jock. A crude and unruly guy by the name of Cal ``Coffee-head'' Coleman took you up to midnight. Then the easygoing Cam McCubbin rode shotgun on the all-night show, called Craven A Music, until dawn.''

Jackson also remembers a news team second to none in the local market, including Dale O'Hara, Ed Whalen, John Pierce, Fred Skelton, Don Fox, Ted Arnold, John Baswick, Ralph Nelson and Pete LaValley, ``possibly Calgary's most dignified and accurate and trustworthy news reader.''

``Can you imagine a Calgary station that strong today?'' asks Jackson.

``It would blow anything we have in the market right out of the manure patch. Great jocks, great personalities, strong news readers, a station to die for. Little wonder CFAC was known as Radio One. It served everyone's needs in some way or another.''

CFAC never reached quite the same heights after that. Aggressive competition during the mid-1960s from stations CFCN, CHQR and CKXL shattered CFAC's confidence and left the station with an identity crisis.

A disastrous flirtation with talk-show radio, and an equally calamitous fling with rock music programming, sent CFAC's ratings plunging.

By the end of the '60s, as former program director Jim Kunkel joked, ``we were fifth in a four-station market.''

CFAC did regain much of its former glory during the '70s and '80s when it established itself as Calgary's country station.

By 1990, however, it was in the doldrums again, losing close to $1 million a year, and filling most of its airtime, aside from the ever-popular morning show hosted by old reliable Jimmy Hughes, with canned programming fed by satellite from other cities.

CFAC observed its 75th birthday in May, quietly. The celebration was muted because the station has been languishing again in the ratings cellar of late.

However with its recent return to the true vine -- to the traditional country sounds of Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker and Kenny Rogers -- and an increased local on-air presence following the hiring of new announcers, the station's staffers hope to be popping the champagne corks by the end of the year.

It has been far too long since CFAC was able to boast in full-page newspaper ads: ``Still the leader in the Calgary market.''

[CubbyCam]

Ah yes.... It all went down hill after I left. LOL. Thanks for posting this. It brought back many many great memories. There were several other broadcasters from that day who went on to careers elsewhere... Like Terry David Mulligan, J. Paul McConnell, Lorne Ball, Ralph Field, Fred Khazakoff, Harry Berisoff, Bob Robertson and others. I was there from the fall of 1963 to the fall of 1966... and often think back to those fun days... Thanks for reminding me.

Cam McCubbin (now retired and living in White Rock, BC.

[DebCarlson]

Back in the 1930’s my grandmother worked at a radio station in Calgary. People would call in and make requests and she would play piano live on air. I believe the show was called “Bobbi’s Melodies”. Would you happen to know if this was the station she worked at?

[jon]

In a search of newspapers, nothing comes up as a radio program with that name. "Twilight Melodies" and "Morning Melodies" were program names on CJCJ, and "Melody Makers" was a network program in the 1930s.