Broadcast History - November 30

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In 1983, CHQM AM & FM Starlight Concert co-host John Henry Patrick Avison died in Vancouver. He was the founding director of the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, from 1938 to 1980. And was awarded the Order of Canada in 1978. Although not confirmed, a well-known story about him says that he reached up while conducting during a CBC broadcast, cutting off the tip of his finger on a ceiling fan in the studio. But continued until the broadcast ended, fainting at the top of the hour. The story going around CHQM about him was that he had once disagreed, on-air, with co-host Maurice Foisy as he said the name of composer Johann Joseph Fux: "That's not how you say it." "It is on CHQM." Avison was born in Vancouver on April 25, 1915.



In 2001, the big Regina AM shuffle occurred. CKCK was replaced on 620 KHz by CKRM, using CKCK's transmitter. CJME replaced CKRM on 980 KHz, using CKRM's transmitter. The end result was that 1300 KHz went silent. And the CKCK call letters disappeared. Nonetheless, more than 200 former CKCK staff descended on the Hotel Saskatchewan on July 27, 2002, on what would have been CKCK's 80th anniversary.

In 2004, Pierre Berton died of heart failure. He had been born in Whitehorse, on July 12, 1920. While attending UBC in 1940, he was chief announcer at UBC Radio. After four years in the Army during World War II, Berton spent the remainder of his career as a newspaper and magazine editor, author of popular Canadian history books, and in television, both behind the camera, seeing some of his books become CBC mini-series, and in front of the camera, most notably on Front Page Challenge.