The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » When WBEN-FM's Rock 102 Was Excluded From Canadian Ratings

RadioActive · June 20, 2021 1:17 pm

Many here remember with some fondness the years of automated Rock 102, aka WBEN-FM, the superpowered FM station from across the border that began to eat into the audience in Southern Ontario for a while. While scouring some old trade industry magazines, I came across this rather interesting letter from an executive at the place, who claims his station was being shut out of the BBMs here in Canada so it wouldn't make local outlets look so bad.

I don't remember ever hearing about this before, but nothing would surprise me. Another lost bit of local radio history.

And by the way, I can't help but wonder what those three Canadian stations that showed up in the Buffalo ratings were.

mace · June 20, 2021 7:14 pm

This is pre CN Tower so my guess would be CHFI, CKFM and CHUM FM. I think back then all three were well over 100,000 watts and could easily be received in Western New York.

RadioActive · June 20, 2021 7:38 pm

I think CHUM-AM came in OK in Buffalo. Maybe they were on the list?

darcyh · June 21, 2021 12:17 pm

Rock 102 was easily received in Kitchener and with my dad's permission I picked up an FM tuner / convertor for his vehicle at Consumers Distributing. This was a unique device about the size of an 8 track tape that mounted under the dash. It tuned the FM band and converted it to an AM signal that could be received on the cars built in AM radio. The sensitivity of the tuner was pretty good as was the sound quality given the limitations of the car's AM radio. I could listen to Rock 102 in the car! Mono of course.

MJ Vancouver · June 21, 2021 1:16 pm

Interesting this article mentions KISM in Bellingham being a BBM member back then. I sometimes listen to KISM, but I've never seen it appear in the Vancouver ratings - even though they air some Canadian ads and include some Canadian events info. The only US station that appears there is KWPZ in Lynden.

KISM is a rock station and I'd be interested in knowing how it performs up against CFOX, Rock 101, and 102.7 The Peak.

RadioActive · June 21, 2021 1:24 pm

Remember this was 1975. I don't know the Vancouver market well, but I suspect times have changed and there are a lot more stations in the mix now than there were then.

I don't think WBEN-FM - now known as WTSS-FM - makes much of a dent in the Toronto numbers anymore. But boy, did they put a scare in the local stations as the only stereo Top 40 FM outlet around in those days.

RadioActive · June 21, 2021 1:35 pm

MJ Vancouver wrote:
Interesting this article mentions KISM in Bellingham being a BBM member back then. I sometimes listen to KISM, but I've never seen it appear in the Vancouver ratings - even though they air some Canadian ads and include some Canadian events info. The only US station that appears there is KWPZ in Lynden.

KISM is a rock station and I'd be interested in knowing how it performs up against CFOX, Rock 101, and 102.7 The Peak.

By the way, this might interest you and others here, remembering a time when American FM on Cdn. cable was a much bigger deal than it is today.

From Nov. 1976:

paterson1 · June 21, 2021 3:17 pm

That is quite true that US stations on cable was a big deal back decades ago. Living in Owen Sound in the early 80's everyone had cable TV. If you didn't have cable, the only TV you could get would be CKNX TV, CKCO from Wiarton and maybe CBC and that was it. No Toronto, Hamilton or Buffalo channels. So everyone had cable for TV, and everyone either paid for FM cable or had a splitter to receive the Toronto, Kitchener, London and Buffalo radio stations that Maclean-Hunter and later Rogers offered. Cable was also available in many rural areas in Grey and Bruce as well.

However, twice going to BBM to read the ballots, Buffalo radio was not showing up particularly well in the ratings. Rock 102, WYRK and one or two other Buffalo stations, were offered on cable FM. In 1982 and 83, reading the BBM ballots WBEN FM had very few ballots filled out. WYRK, the country station was more popular. CHUM FM, Q107, CKFM, FM 96, CFCA and CFNY were by far the most popular FM stations in Owen Sound and area through cable FM. You couldn't pull in any of these stations clearly or consistently off air.

Rumours circulated that WBEN FM had cracked the top ten in Toronto a few times but I don't really know if that was true or not. To me most of it's early popularity in Southern Ontario was partially because of them playing the hits on FM which was new, but just as important, that they were an easy station to pirate music off of since they had dead air between songs, and no announcers, so you could record the whole song off air easily, or even music sets with no announcer or interruption, and many did.

To me for many years, Rock 102 was just a juke box that played music with not many commercials. In 1975 AM still ruled the airwaves and most people that I knew looking for rock wanted the album rock, or as we called it "head music" that was offered on most other FM stations. WBEN became better into the 80's with more live programming, announcers and actually sounded more like a radio station. I think they potentially were a threat in the ratings in the GTA. But I don't really know how much of their popularity was a myth or real. Judging by what I saw twice at BBM, they weren't as popular as many thought.

RadioActive · June 21, 2021 4:31 pm

The real issue was the ad dollars they were siphoning off from Canadian stations. There were a number of sponsors from this side of the border that were airing commercials on Rock 102 because they knew they had the ears of some Toronto and area listeners. So that's why the local broadcasters here were bitterly complaining about the place. Eventually, legislation was passed changing the laws making it economically untenable to advertise on cross border stations, and the problem - and eventually Rock 102 itself - went away.

But it sure was fun while it lasted. And that signal! A grandfathered 110,000 watts, unheard of today, and one of the strongest FM signals in the Northeastern U.S. It still comes in here very clearly when most other Buffalo stations have long since disappeared into the noise of a much more crowded FM dial.

And I think you're right - the novelty of hits on FM - in stereo no less - was hard to resist. The restricted hits on FM rule that lasted way too long was another stupid and misguided CRTC idea.

The one thing that stays in my mind about WBEN-FM is a real oddity. They used to have Ringo Star's "Photograph" in heavy rotation back when it was still a popular and relatively new hit. I know WBEN's system was a series of automated reel-to-reel tapes, but whoever had recorded this particular song didn't notice that there was a skip in the verse where Ringo sings, "when we grow old and grey."

It was a slight flaw, sounding like "when grow old gray," but once it was in the rotation, no one noticed and it was repeated endlessly on the station every single time it aired. Which was a lot. It worked its way into my already addled brain (even back then!) so much so that to this day, whenever I hear that song, I expect to also hear the tiny skip in the record.

Funny how strange little things like that stay with you. But that's my lasting memory of Rock 102.

MJ Vancouver · June 21, 2021 5:14 pm

RadioActive wrote:
The real issue was the ad dollars they were siphoning off from Canadian stations. There were a number of sponsors from this side of the border that were airing commercials on Rock 102 because they knew they had the ears of some Toronto and area listeners. So that's why the local broadcasters here were bitterly complaining about the place. Eventually, legislation was passed changing the laws making it economically untenable to advertise on cross border stations, and the problem - and eventually Rock 102 itself - went away.

Still an issue on television to some extent. When I still lived in Toronto three years ago, I recall seeing Canadian ads on WUTV during its 10pm airings of Seinfeld. And where I now live, Leon's advertises on Seattle's CW affiliate - also during nightly Seinfeld reruns. This stuff happens a lot less than it did years ago; there was a time the CBS affiliate in Erie, PA showed commercials for Big V, the former pharmacy chain in the London area.

Those advertising expenses are not tax-deductible, but I suspect that for the businesses that advertise on US TV, it's economical enough for them to forego the tax deduction.

Peter the K · June 21, 2021 5:46 pm

RadioActive wrote:
The one thing that stays in my mind about WBEN-FM is a real oddity. They used to have Ringo Star's "Photograph" in heavy rotation back when it was still a popular and relatively new hit. I know WBEN's system was a series of automated reel-to-reel tapes, but whoever had recorded this particular song didn't notice that there was a skip in the verse where Ringo sings, "when we grow old and grey."

It was a slight flaw, sounding like "when grow old gray," but once it was in the rotation, no one noticed and it was repeated endlessly on the station every single time it aired. Which was a lot. It worked its way into my already addled brain (even back then!) so much so that to this day, whenever I hear that song, I expect to also hear the tiny skip in the record.

Funny how strange little things like that stay with you. But that's my lasting memory of Rock 102.

I remember hearing the exact same skip at the exact same time on what was then AM 1490 CHYM in Kitchener. Maybe it was a pressing problem and nobody seemed to care.

paterson1 · June 21, 2021 7:05 pm

MJ Vancouver wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
The real issue was the ad dollars they were siphoning off from Canadian stations. There were a number of sponsors from this side of the border that were airing commercials on Rock 102 because they knew they had the ears of some Toronto and area listeners. So that's why the local broadcasters here were bitterly complaining about the place. Eventually, legislation was passed changing the laws making it economically untenable to advertise on cross border stations, and the problem - and eventually Rock 102 itself - went away.
Still an issue on television to some extent. When I still lived in Toronto three years ago, I recall seeing Canadian ads on WUTV during its 10pm airings of Seinfeld. And where I now live, Leon's advertises on Seattle's CW affiliate - also during nightly Seinfeld reruns. This stuff happens a lot less than it did years ago; there was a time the CBS affiliate in Erie, PA showed commercials for Big V, the former pharmacy chain in the London area.

Those advertising expenses are not tax-deductible, but I suspect that for the businesses that advertise on US TV, it's economical enough for them to forego the tax deduction.

On Detroit US TV which I receive there is no Canadian advertising that I have come across. Not surprising since Windsor/Essex is pretty small compared to Metro Detroit. It would be interesting to see how CTV, CBC local newscasts do in Windsor, their newscasts are more like something you would see on cable as compared to Detroit, which is very slick. Detroit more or less ignores Windsor/Essex, and that isn't surprising since they don't get any revenue from the area. I don't believe the Windsor stations signals really get into Detroit and area that well because of program rights and a few other things. Windsor is considered part of the Detroit market for TV and their local channels have always been a bit of a challenge.

I know I am always defending the CRTC (no I have never worked for them), but the non hit ruling was actually there to preserve AM and broadcast companies initially weren't opposed, even wanted FM to be different. Mid 70's CHUM AM was making money hand over fist and was right behind CFRB in ratings. CHUM FM and CKFM were popular and really starting to get traction of course, but it was the AM stations that brought in the big revenue. I don't think CHUM FM would have been keen to move to a top 40 format similar to the AM operation.

Canadians were slower to get into the habit of listening to FM, which had been around since the1940's but wasn't popular for decades. Also in places like Toronto, listeners had a very strong loyalty to their station, and it was hard to get people to move or out of the habit of listening to CFRB, CHUM, CFTR or CKEY. It took CFTR 12 years of slogging to unseat CHUM and this was with the supposed "fickle" young audience.

You are right RA the hit/non hit likely did last longer than it should, but the only market it really hurt would have been with CKLW FM which couldn't really meet the Detroit FM competition head on. In the rest of the country it wasn't as big a deal. In fact years before the ruling was changed in 1991, FM had already taken over musically from AM in major markets, and the CRTC had been licensing a lot more FM stations. By the mid to late 80's FM was matching and surpassing the revenue of the sister AM stations in many cases.

Jody Thornton · June 21, 2021 10:46 pm

RadioActive wrote:
But it sure was fun while it lasted. And that signal! A grandfathered 110,000 watts, unheard of today, and one of the strongest FM signals in the Northeastern U.S. It still comes in here very clearly when most other Buffalo stations have long since disappeared into the noise of a much more crowded FM dial.

And I think you're right - the novelty of hits on FM - in stereo no less - was hard to resist. The restricted hits on FM rule that lasted way too long was another stupid and misguided CRTC idea.

The one thing that stays in my mind about WBEN-FM is a real oddity. They used to have Ringo Star's "Photograph" in heavy rotation back when it was still a popular and relatively new hit. I know WBEN's system was a series of automated reel-to-reel tapes, but whoever had recorded this particular song didn't notice that there was a skip in the verse where Ringo sings, "when we grow old and grey."

It was a slight flaw, sounding like "when grow old gray," but once it was in the rotation, no one noticed and it was repeated endlessly on the station every single time it aired. Which was a lot. It worked its way into my already addled brain (even back then!) so much so that to this day, whenever I hear that song, I expect to also hear the tiny skip in the record.

Funny how strange little things like that stay with you. But that's my lasting memory of Rock 102.

I recall other strange things on Rock 102. Whenever "Heartbreaker" by Dionne Warwick was played. There was a wow start on the "hits" reel for a few weeks. Sounded awful.

There were some unique edits on Rock 102 as well. Most of the music programming was supplied by TM Stereo Rock but Buffalo added a few CanCon songs worth noting.

When Men's Room out of Brampton released "Sign of the Times", Rock 102 played the Belle Stars version. I'm not sure if that was in error, or that they felt it would be better known. When the Rovers released "Wasn't That a Party, both Rock 102 and WBEN 930 played a version that sounded more reverberated but that also had the siren removed during the last verse. To this day, I have never found where that version came from.

Rock 102 also added "Fight the Good Fight" by Triumph on to their own "Gold" reel. You'd notice at the beginning that there was a mild snap repeatedly during the opening, which I'm sure was an LP scratch. That's significant because if you'll remember, there were NEVER EVER any record noises heard on Stereo Rock automation affiliates and I mean EVER EVER.

I also mentioned once that on John Lennon's "Starting Over", the returning drums at the end were layered over top of the sustained "Somewhere...", instead of there being silenece between. Also on "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police, the instrumental break towards the end was reduced to three repeats rather than four, so the final chorus returned four measures earlier.

Sigh! Nerdy stuff, I know.

MJ Vancouver · June 21, 2021 11:44 pm

paterson1 wrote:
MJ Vancouver wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
The real issue was the ad dollars they were siphoning off from Canadian stations. There were a number of sponsors from this side of the border that were airing commercials on Rock 102 because they knew they had the ears of some Toronto and area listeners. So that's why the local broadcasters here were bitterly complaining about the place. Eventually, legislation was passed changing the laws making it economically untenable to advertise on cross border stations, and the problem - and eventually Rock 102 itself - went away.
Still an issue on television to some extent. When I still lived in Toronto three years ago, I recall seeing Canadian ads on WUTV during its 10pm airings of Seinfeld. And where I now live, Leon's advertises on Seattle's CW affiliate - also during nightly Seinfeld reruns. This stuff happens a lot less than it did years ago; there was a time the CBS affiliate in Erie, PA showed commercials for Big V, the former pharmacy chain in the London area.

Those advertising expenses are not tax-deductible, but I suspect that for the businesses that advertise on US TV, it's economical enough for them to forego the tax deduction.
On Detroit US TV which I receive there is no Canadian advertising that I have come across. Not surprising since Windsor/Essex is pretty small compared to Metro Detroit. It would be interesting to see how CTV, CBC local newscasts do in Windsor, their newscasts are more like something you would see on cable as compared to Detroit, which is very slick. Detroit more or less ignores Windsor/Essex, and that isn't surprising since they don't get any revenue from the area. I don't believe the Windsor stations signals really get into Detroit and area that well because of program rights and a few other things. Windsor is considered part of the Detroit market for TV and their local channels have always been a bit of a challenge.

I haven’t seen recent ratings, but I did see some Windsor ratings back in 2005 when I was browsing the library at Ryerson. As I recall both CHWI and CBET had decent ratings at 6pm and both beat all the Detroit stations in that time slot. I don’t recall which of the two had higher ratings but I believe they were very close.

One thing I do remember is that WDIV was #1 at 5pm there at the time.

CBET is carried on Comcast cable 99 in Detroit, but that is the only Canadian station carried on cable there - although Global is carried in Port Huron to the north.

Last edited by MJ Vancouver (June 21, 2021 11:52 pm)

Marsden · June 22, 2021 1:03 am

While I was not part of the original application - CFNY won their license due to their frequency at 102.1. And it is probably no coincidence that N and Y became part of the call sign.

When I did arrive at the station - while one day while digging around in a closet I found thousands, boxes and boxes stacked high of the New York bumper stickers that read - I ) NY.

Last edited by Marsden (June 22, 2021 1:06 am)

Fitz · June 22, 2021 6:33 am

That is very interesting about the New York angle for the CFNY call letters and a perhaps a possible connection to the success of Rock 102.

102.1 was CHIC FM with very low power and could only be heard in the west end. That predated the automated rock format for WBEN FM. CHIC FM began as a progressive rocker playing album sides but I remember when they changed to playing regular sets of progressive rock but before their power increase and change of call letters. I used to listen to them on cable FM. Shame that I don't have any recordings of that. What I do have is a very brief recording of the CHIC album sides era on the first clip at the link below. Always wondered if the announcer on the station ID was [perhaps James Scott:

CHIC FM 102.1 Maybe 1972

mace · June 22, 2021 8:04 am

RA mentioned that grandfathered 110000 watt signal. When driving to Montreal in 1980, ROCK102 had a very listenable signal in the Kingston area. In fact, It lasted almost to Cornwall where it disappeared behind the Radio Canada affilliate from Ottawa. Before the CBC put a transmitter in Shelburne, I could hear the station south of Sudbury in the French River area, at least in higher elevations.

Lorne · June 22, 2021 11:47 am

Jody Thornton wrote:
When Men's Room out of Brampton released "Sign of the Times", Rock 102 played the Belle Stars version. I'm not sure if that was in error, or that they felt it would be better known.

The Belle Stars' original version of Sign Of The Times got to #75 on Billboard. Mens Room's cover didn't chart there, and going by the info at http://www.45cat.com/artist/mens-room-canada their singles may not have ever been released in the US.

Paul Jeffries · June 22, 2021 11:54 am

Jody Thornton wrote:
When Men's Room out of Brampton released "Sign of the Times", Rock 102 played the Belle Stars version. I'm not sure if that was in error, or that they felt it would be better known. When the Rovers released "Wasn't That a Party, both Rock 102 and WBEN 930 played a version that sounded more reverberated but that also had the siren removed during the last verse. To this day, I have never found where that version came from.

Rock 102 also added "Fight the Good Fight" by Triumph on to their own "Gold" reel. You'd notice at the beginning that there was a mild snap repeatedly during the opening, which I'm sure was an LP scratch. That's significant because if you'll remember, there were NEVER EVER any record noises heard on Stereo Rock automation affiliates and I mean EVER EVER.

Perhaps the Mens Room version of "Sign of the Times" wasn't easily available in the U.S. and The Belle Stars version was? The Mens Room album came out on Solid Gold Records, which was distributed by A&M Records here in Canada at the time, but I don't think they had a branch south of the border. Both versions sound quite a bit alike, too, so it may have just been easier for Rock 102 to play The Belle Stars version. Plus, there was a video for their version, which I remember got a lot of play on Citytv's City Limits, and no doubt probably got a fair bit of play on MTV in the U.S.. If memory serves, I don't think there was a video for the Mens Room version.

Chilliwack had some releases on the Solid Gold label in the 80's as well, but I think only two of those albums, Wanna Be a Star and Opus X were released in the U.S., and that was on Millennium Records.

Triumph's records were probably pretty easy to come by, as most of their Attic Records output were released on RCA Records in the U.S.

PJ

Lorne · June 22, 2021 1:21 pm

Did a bit more checking and found that the Mens Room version entered the CHUM Chart on May 28, whereas the Belle Stars' version had already started its Billboard chart run on May 7. I think it was also on this forum many years ago that someone made a comment about this being one of the last, if not the last, examples of a Canadian artist quickly covering a song that was on the charts elsewhere, and having the hit here with it because their version qualified as Cancon. It would have also helped in this case that the Belle Stars' version only got to #75 in the US.

Fitz · June 23, 2021 10:03 am

The discussion about the Belle Stars reminded me that I have the single. Had to make a old fashioned mix tape on the newly acquired tape deck I spoke about on the recent cassette thread. The content consists of mostly 80's singles and many would be classified as new wave or alternative but there's also some pop/rock. Not many are now played on the radio though.

The Mix Tape

Belle Stars plus

Last edited by Fitz (June 23, 2021 10:05 am)

ckg927 · June 23, 2021 6:00 pm

Marsden wrote:
While I was not part of the original application - CFNY won their license due to their frequency at 102.1. And it is probably no coincidence that N and Y became part of the call sign.

When I did arrive at the station - while one day while digging around in a closet I found thousands, boxes and boxes stacked high of the New York bumper stickers that read - I ) NY.

CFNY got a bit more notice in the area right around the time that 103.3 in Buffalo flipped for AOR 103.3 the Fox to alternative 103.3 the Edge. There was a bit of a legal dustup regarding the use of the "Edge" positioner; CFNY put together one of the more creative TV spots for a radio station I've seen; they used their logo with the word Edge covered up and near the end, the VO said "102.1 the (BLEEP)." That made me laugh heartily; even today I still chuckle about it.