TheWiz wrote:

Storm wrote:

I am wondering if the Hamilton management positions will be taken over by someone else, or do they also fall under the umbrella of the "Kitchener/Guelph Cluster".

I've heard rumblings that the Hamilton cluster will be shut down. 95.3 will be run out of Toronto and 107.9 is moving to London.

Storm wrote:

And last, what happened to Scott Fox?

According to the last sentence of this article, he was let go: https://nwbroadcasters.com/2024/12/19/corus-making-changes-within-ontario-radio/

The last paragraph in this article was not in the one I read yesterday. I wonder why Scott Fox was let go? Scott & Kat have been together for several years and left Z103.5 for the Beat where their show seemed to be a hit and they were simulcast on Energy 95.3 plus they were also on other Corus CHR stations. Dave Blezard did a great job filling in while Fox was off and he and Kat seemed to have a great rapport. Maybe Corus decided he could handle co-hosting the morning show along with his PD responsibilities which would eliminate one paycheck and save Corus some money.

If you go way back, Scott Fox and Dave Blezard co-hosted the morning show on Z103.5 along with Melanie Martin and later Josie Fenech (Guerra) and then Ashley Greco. 

Magic 106 and Energy 95.3 have the exact same playlist, including past hits, except during the morning show and right now while Magic is all Christmas music. 

I don't think the morning show on Virgin 105.3 is close to the Beat and I don't think Dave Blezard replacing Scott Fox will make a difference.  Virgin 105.3 and Virgin 97.5 London are the same station. Same hosts - same music - round the clock. The morning show is hosted from London and PM drive in Kitchener. The rest of the programing is from Toronto.

 

Does Chum-FM even play Kendrick Lamar? 

My wife watches Cooking Channel & Food Network Canada and we both watch HGTV, so if Rogers dumps them we won't be happy. I understand they are planning their own "Food" channel and "Home & Garden" channel with some, but not all, of the programs being carried on the proposed to be cancelled channels. This after increasing our monthly tv charge by $7 - yes, we are one of them. However, we are month to month so I suppose we can leave anytime.

RadioActive wrote:

It's totally baffling to me why anyone would want to watch a station dedicated to cooking and eating, but it's a popular station in North America. I just have no idea why. I cannot think of anything more boring. 

Not boring at all. My wife and I have been watching it regularly (but not exclusively) for years. If you are into food and food preparation, it is both fun and interesting to watch. There are too many reality and competition shows on now, but the actual cooking shows are great and educational to someone who is cooking challenged (me - not my wife).
 

I noticed that this morning as well, but here their volume was much louder than it has been and much louder than the other two AM music stations I listen to: CJOY and AM740

mojo55 wrote:

As ffar back as 1954, I recall that WKBW 1520  was playing rock and roll (mostly R&B) each night at 8:00PM with The Hound  George Lorenz.  I used to listen to The Lone Ranger on Mon Wed & Fri at 7:30PM and immediately afterwards you would hear the sound of a hound  thereby signaling the start of George's show. It was definitely ahead of its time.

There was also a guy known as Lucky Pierre on a Buffalo radio station (I don't remember which one) who was on week nights at 8PM for an hour who played new pop music. That would be late 1956 early 1957.

I was very disappointed this morning when I turned on Kitchener's City News 570 to find that the regular weekend morning news cycle (6AM - Noon) was replaced by re-runs of a weekday talk show. WTF! No weekend news on Kitchener TV and now no weekend news on Kitchener radio also? Hopefully this was just a one off as a result of the Microsoft outage yesterday.

Kevin Kelly and Ron Fitzpatrick were on the air almost non-stop during the power failure. Magic and CJOY may have been simulcasting. Listeners were also bringing gas for the generator. 

Lots of duplication in local area radio stations - much less variety or local input and imagination. 

Bounce Hamilton and Bounce Kitchener play the same music almost simultaneously.
Likewise Guelph's Magic 106 and Hamilton's Energy 95.3.
Virgin Radio Kitchener and Virgin Radio London are now one station with all the same on-air staff and the exact same music - the same playlist as Virgin radio Toronto.
Hamilton's Y108 and London's FM96 also use the same playlist.

Probably most people don't do as much radio surfing as I do so won't notice how little real variety there is today. And because of the internet and streaming today there isn't as much market isolation as there was back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

I have always been a predominantly Top 40/CHR listener and I got more variety back when there were only three stations I would listen to: CHUM-CKEY-CKOC; CHUM-CKFH-CKOC; CHUM-CFTR-CKOC. Today half of the Top 40/CHR stations in Canada are Virgin all playing basically the same playlist. Don't know why each station has its own designated Music Director when the music seems to be controlled by "head office" (probably Toronto).  

Does anybody know what is going on at CJOY Guelph? I do my radio listening only in the early morning, so I don't know what happens in the afternoon, but CJOY appears to have gone announcerless. Just music and commercials and id's. There is still news weekday mornings but nothing on the weekend - no longer Guelph's news leader. Mike Devine had been doing the morning show but he has vanished. He had also covered the mid-day slot on Dave-FM - been there for years, but he is gone from there too. CJOY had a diverse oldies playlist often playing great songs that other oldies formatted stations never played and they would even include some from the 50s and 60s. The music now has become bland and boring. Really sucks.

Wish the ratings were available to the interested public (like me who is not in broadcasting so don't have access). They used to be - not in complete detail - but usually 12+ and the prime adult category. I really miss that.

I was 15 in May 27, 1957. I had never heard of CHUM so I have no idea what it was like before that day. In fact it was early in June on a Saturday afternoon that discovered CHUM. I was going up and down the radio dial trying to find some of the music that I liked - that new stuff that wasn't just draggy ballads that my parents listened to. We used to listen to a couple of Top 10 hit parade shows, both on Hamilton radio stations - CHML and CKOC - every week and some pretty cool songs were finding their way into the Top 10. But hearing them once a week was not satisfactory. I landed on 1050 and it was playing one of those cool songs. When the song ended, the announcer said what it was and that it was # something - I forget the number but it was in the teens or 20s. Wow! That was different. I didn't realize there were songs with numbers below10. Then they played another cool song and I eventually found out they were playing the Top 50 - could you believe that??? - the TOP FIFTY!!!!! and they were playing them all the time. (actually not really all the time). I was in teenage heaven! I don't remember a whole lot about what the jocks said but I don't recall they talked a whole lot between songs. They had good dee jays. I particularly liked Phil Stone. Loved his voice and his humour. 

Could somebody in the know clue me in. If Evanov, and Z103.5 in particular is such a bad place to work and employees are underpaid, why have all the Z103.5 on air staff been there so long? I think Sandra is the newest, but Tony Monaco and Matt Wreggitt have been there for years (since the 1990s I think) and Jimmy T, who is also a long timer, has been there twice.  I know radio is fragile at the moment and there are not many opportunities for on-air people, but it has certainly not always been like that and if a place is really that bad to work at, why have they stayed?

I first heard Dick Biondi on WKBW Buffalo in 1959 or 1960 while visiting my grandmother who lived in Orono (east of Oshawa). He was something else. I never could get KB where I lived at the time, but I could get WLS and heard him again when he was there (9-midnight). Art Roberts, who replaced him, was really tame in comparison. Later on Biondi showed up at WCFL doing the 4-7 PM (Chicago time) show, It came in clear despite being right next door to CFRB on the AM dial. We were about 60 miles west of Toronto. I guess all that makes me old.

This is a couple of days late, but January 31st marked the 20th anniversary of 91.5 The Beat. Originally an R&B leaning Top 40 station, it morphed into a mainstream CHR a few years later and, after being taken over by Corus who put Scot Turner in as PD, for quite a while was the #2 or #3 station in the K-W Cambridge market (Chym was always 1st). Until 2016 The Beat was the only CHR in the market, but early in 2016 CFCA switched to a CHR format, now as 105.3 Virgin Radio, which split the CHR audience. Despite CFCA having the much better signal and the benefit of non-stop promotion on CTV Kitchener, The Beat was able to maintain a slim lead in audience share. Radio ratings are no longer available to the general public, so I don't know what the rankings have been the past few years. However, it is by far the better CHR station with great on air people. Admittedly I do listen around, but it is my go to CHR station. I have been a listener from the beginning - actually before that, as I listened during the testing period before they went on the air officially.