The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Some Amazing Shots Of T.O. Radio Personalities Of The Past

RadioActive · July 10, 2022 9:00 pm

It’s an unusual look at history from this city's radio’s past – an archive from the Toronto Star’s pages of photographs from T.O. radio. The stories aren’t available, but the pictures are. They’re stored on the Toronto Public Library Archives and are available online.

There are 571 of them and not all of them are strictly about local broadcasters, and there are way too many of Peter Gzowski for my taste! If you don’t want to sort through all of them (and if you do, you can find them all here) I’ve selected a few of the ones I found the most interesting.

They’re copyrighted by the Toronto Star, so instead of reproducing them on the site I’ve linked to them directly. Scroll down each page for more info on the specific pics.

A glimpse into some names and faces behind the mics. that you may have never seen.

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Two legendary morning men who rocked the city for years from the FM side of 104.5.

From 1976:

Lord knows what there is to laugh about at the unearthly hour of 7 o'clock in the morning, but CHUM-FM radio's Peter Griffin (left) and Geets Romo

Twelve years later, they were still at it, older but not necessarily wiser!

Pete & Geets, 1986

Here’s one from 1971, when this was still a major technological “wow.” Little did they know then that we can now run an entire radio station from a small computer.

Complex equipment can keep Ryerson's CJRT-FM radio station on the air for more than nine hours without anyone around

He’d left CHUM by then, but in 1976 Bob McAdorey proved he was quite comfortable in the country.

Witty disc jockey Bob McAdorey enjoys what he calls the comfortable atmosphere of country radio at CFGM in Richmond Hill.

Kind of a sad comedown for a guy who was once the toast of the town. I had no idea the legendary Al Boliska once worked at CHIN. This pic is from 1966.

Most people collect china, antiques, coins or stamps, but radio and television personality Al Boliska collects jokes

From 1969. Did they really have a lot of "computers" back then? The headline suggests they did.

Phil MacKellar has liberated himself from CKEY's computer and now selects his own records on CKFM

The aftermath of that infamous downing of the CHUM tower on the roof of 1331 Yonge St. It was 1986.

Cleaning Up CHUM Tower Sabotage

Here's what the Q107 newsroom looked like before they moved downtown.

News room at Q107's new headquarters looks out over North York. Sister station AM640's original license was in Richmond Hill, resulting in the stations' move north.

CHOO no longer exists, but it was a just slightly out-of-town radio station at 1390 on the AM dial from nearby Ajax when it did.

Rare Shot Of CHOO Ajax Control Room, 1975

I remember the name well – a pioneer in the sky. From 1955:

Hartley Hubbs: Chum in the Sky: Airborne high-preist of jam (traffic that is)

They worked at several stations over the years and look impossibly young in this shot from 1986. It’s Humble & Fred, still going strong but now in podcast form.

Humble and Fred

Doug Thompson · July 10, 2022 9:08 pm

Bob McAdorey was only one of a bunch of us former CHUM staffers who went to work former CHUM Program Director and General Manager Allan Slaight (who owned CFGM). Dave Johnson went there in the fall of 1965 and was still there when Slaight took over. Newsmen Ron Knight, Mac Lipson and Peter Dickens also went to CFGM from CHUM. Allan Slaight hired me as co-Creative Director at CFGM in 1972. Then when Slaight launched Q-107, many former CHUMmers were there at the beginning. Some of those include Mark Dailey, John Rode, Geets Romo and John Donabie.

Last edited by Doug Thompson (July 11, 2022 10:34 pm)

RadioActive · July 10, 2022 9:15 pm

As I recall, CFGM never was a blockbuster station in the ratings, moving from 1310 to 1320. But it certainly had an impressive line-up. It was the only really successful Toronto-located country station I can remember. Those who argue country can work here can certainly point to the old 'GM (which eventually moved to 640 and is now CFIQ) as proof that there was an audience for it once. Even on AM.

I'd heard over the years that it was located over a restaurant in Richmond Hill. True or false?

Doug Thompson · July 10, 2022 10:00 pm

Nope, a drug store.

RadioActive · July 10, 2022 11:05 pm

Handy if the ratings gave you a headache!

mace · July 11, 2022 7:31 am

When I was growing up in the mid 1960's, the listening habits of the majority of Torontonians could be broken down as follows: Parents-CFRB/CKEY. Teens-CHUM. Farmers and Truckers-CFGM. Regarding Pete & Geets, Have any of you heard the LP they recorded? I believe it was entitled "Once Again" Absolutely hilarious. I have a copy somewhere in my vinyl collection.

paterson1 · July 11, 2022 4:03 pm

Notice how the photos into the 90's are mostly credited to the Toronto Star and a few from the Toronto Sun. Back in the days when the local papers actually covered local radio and the personalities with feature articles. Even the Globe and Mail would do this from time to time, and not necessarily about the business of radio but feature stories.

Odd that today Toronto has many more stations and almost never any articles on the local radio scene, personalities or television for that matter. But we get to read every day what kind of dress Dui Lipa was wearing last Friday or all about Machine Gun Kelly's latest bout with drugs.

All of the stuff that has already been covered on The Star and Sun websites, entertainment TV shows and social media days earlier. Does the average Toronto Star print reader really care about these people?

Note that the Buffalo News regularly has articles about local radio, TV and personalities. They even print local radio and TV ratings. Odd why this is of interest to Buffalo readers of the paper, but the Star and the Sun seem to think nobody here would be interested to read about local Toronto media. Why is that?

I remember when two of Bell's stations in Windsor changed formats suddenly a few years back with 89X dropping alternative music and The River moving to Virgin. This was big news in Detroit with the Free Press giving the format changes a lot of press. This impacted one of Detroit radio stations that abruptly flipped from Christmas music to alternative the moment that 89X moved to Pure Country.

Detroit's TV news covered all of the local radio format changes on their evening newscasts. Windsor media?? The Windsor Star picked up on it three days later. CTV Windsor was quicker but it was really interesting to see the amount of coverage this had across in Detroit on TV. Normally the newscasts in Detroit don't cover much at all from Windsor.

RadioActive · July 11, 2022 4:24 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Odd that today Toronto has many more stations and almost never any articles on the local radio scene, personalities or television for that matter. But we get to read every day what kind of dress Dui Lipa was wearing last Friday or all about Machine Gun Kelly's latest bout with drugs.

All of the stuff that has already been covered on The Star and Sun websites, entertainment TV shows and social media days earlier. Does the average Toronto Star print reader really care about these people?

Note that the Buffalo News regularly has articles about local radio, TV and personalities. They even print local radio and TV ratings. Odd why this is of interest to Buffalo readers of the paper, but the Star and the Sun seem to think nobody here would be interested to read about local Toronto media. Why is that?

The answer is sad but obvious. They simply don't have the reporters or writers to do any stories that might come up. The Toronto Star's Entertainment section is no more, now replaced by a catch-all called "Culture," which incorporates a few local stories, mostly from freelancers, who tend to focus on theatre, music or streaming shows. The rest is Horoscopes, dating advice and what used to go into what in the old days was called the "Women's Section." (Sexist, yes, but there really WAS such a section in the old days.)

Much of what you see is from non-local sources, like the New York Times, The Associated Press or entertainment services like WENN. It's easier for the Star or the Sun to pay for this pre-made content, without having to bear the burden of hiring an actual employee, who would have to be paid a salary and benefits. And radio no longer has the profile it once did.

So unless it's a Derringer type story (and the Star especially loves stories involving men abusing their positions when it comes to women) it almost never makes the paper.

As for the Buffalo News, they have several local reporters who handle the radio and TV beat, including Jeff Simon and Alan Pergament. I frequently read them both and wish we had even one of them on any newspaper in Toronto. But those days are gone.

paterson1 · July 11, 2022 8:57 pm

RadioActive wrote:
paterson1 wrote:
Odd that today Toronto has many more stations and almost never any articles on the local radio scene, personalities or television for that matter. But we get to read every day what kind of dress Dui Lipa was wearing last Friday or all about Machine Gun Kelly's latest bout with drugs.

All of the stuff that has already been covered on The Star and Sun websites, entertainment TV shows and social media days earlier. Does the average Toronto Star print reader really care about these people?

Note that the Buffalo News regularly has articles about local radio, TV and personalities. They even print local radio and TV ratings. Odd why this is of interest to Buffalo readers of the paper, but the Star and the Sun seem to think nobody here would be interested to read about local Toronto media. Why is that?
The answer is sad but obvious. They simply don't have the reporters or writers to do any stories that might come up. The Toronto Star's Entertainment section is no more, now replaced by a catch-all called "Culture," which incorporates a few local stories, mostly from freelancers, who tend to focus on theatre, music or streaming shows. The rest is Horoscopes, dating advice and what used to go into what in the old days was called the "Women's Section." (Sexist, yes, but there really WAS such a section in the old days.)

Much of what you see is from non-local sources, like the New York Times, The Associated Press or entertainment services like WENN. It's easier for the Star or the Sun to pay for this pre-made content, without having to bear the burden of hiring an actual employee, who would have to be paid a salary and benefits. And radio no longer has the profile it once did.

So unless it's a Derringer type story (and the Star especially loves stories involving men abusing their positions when it comes to women) it almost never makes the paper.

As for the Buffalo News, they have several local reporters who handle the radio and TV beat, including Jeff Simon and Alan Pergament. I frequently read them both and wish we had even one of them on any newspaper in Toronto. But those days are gone.

Well, I am not so sure. It really comes down to priorities, and for both the Star and Sun local media is not a priority. I am not talking about media news stories, that is something else altogether- Derringer, Jian Ghomeshi, Rogers buying Shaw etc.

Looking at these old photos, most were feature stories, more about the personalities. Why not an interview or profile with Toronto's most popular afternoon radio host, or what does CHUM's morning co-host Jamar think about living in Toronto...etc. Lighter stories that people enjoy reading about. Maybe a story posing the question, Is Toronto radio awful? Today Radio is a new station in Toronto...why is nobody listening?? Anyone reading the paper would find a story like that interesting, no?

The Star and Sun do feature stories all the time, but almost never about local media. So they do have the staff. Toronto is a big media town but you would never know it judging by the poor local coverage.

It's not like it this needs to be daily, just occasionally on a Saturday or Sunday, even on a skinny news day like a Monday. Put the ratings in too, all of the papers used to. Even our hometown paper in Kitchener semi regularly has stories about local radio and TV media people. They have had a lot of stories about a host retiring, or raising money for a charity, even stations changing format, moving to a new location. If they can do it, so can the Star and Sun.

Last edited by paterson1 (July 11, 2022 9:05 pm)

RadioActive · July 11, 2022 9:37 pm

Trust me, it has a lot more to do with a) a lack of interest in radio and b) cost - i.e. a lack of reporters. Check out the Star's Saturday "Culture" section sometime. I'd say a good 95% of it is written by freelancers, whose info can be found at the bottom of each article. The Star long ago fired or retired all but a select few of their entertainment reporters (and William Littler, the high-brow opera, ballet and classical music critic who hated rock and roll just retired last week after about 5 decades with the paper. So now there's even one less reporter on the Ent. beat.)

They can get it from their syndicated services or a freelancer who doesn't cost them any regular salary or benefits or pension payments. That's why the entertainment sections of the Toronto papers ain't what they used to be.

(And by the way, even when the Star did an occasional honest-to-goodness radio story, it seemed it was ALWAYS about CBC radio, which used to infuriate me.)

But here's proof that the Toronto Star once did have an interest in radio. This is from 1958.

They also used to do local TV stories, written by no less than Gordon Sinclair. You'd never see this today, unless it was some mass firing or scandal. Regular news about a TV station? Wouldn't make the paper today.

paterson1 · July 11, 2022 10:19 pm

RA, as usual we are not connecting. Your examples above are not what I am talking about. Neither of these are feature stories. Who cares that the Star had radio listings in 1958? I don't care how many staff the entertainment section of the Star had back then. Please re read my post.

The Star and Sun do local feature stories all the time, and I am not talking syndicated material. So they either have the staff or access to freelancers to do this. They choose to do these feature stories on other things and not about local radio and TV. Whether the feature is written by staff or a freelancer is irrelevant to the reader.

Buffalo and Kitchener or London newspapers have had just as many cutbacks as the Star and Sun. They seem to manage to do a better job covering the local broadcast media scene. If they can, so can the Star and Sun. Again, I am not talking about broadcast news or business stories. That is something else. It's not that complicated.

RadioActive · July 11, 2022 11:41 pm

Even if you don't buy my lack of resources argument, which I believe is a big factor, the other answer is simple - unlike the old days (as per my posted examples from the glory days of newspapers) they don't care about radio any more. Worse, they believe their readers don't care about it. Maybe they're right and people like you and I are the odd men out. I disagree with that contention, but the evidence suggests that it's simply not worth their ebbing resources to tackle a generic story on the medium in Toronto, unless something major happens.

There's also this - there's a reason you don't read a lot about, say, CHFI in the news. The station is pretty stable, does not make a lot of changes and is more about the music than the personalities. Where is the story? 'FI's very stability in what it does would make for a very uninteresting tale. What would the angle be? A radio station plays music people like? How is that the basis for any real story? The Star and other papers have no reason to give them publicity when they haven't done anything to deserve it. The innate blandness and consistency of their format, the secret to their success, is ironically the very reason they don't inspire any coverage.

Talk about Catch-22.

It's also why a station like CHFI only gets mentioned on this board when it switches earlier and earlier to Christmas music every year. Now THAT'S a SOWNY tradition! (This year, I'm betting on the day after Labour Day!)

paterson1 · July 12, 2022 12:33 am

CHFI made a big change in January with Pooja and Gurdeep as hosts for a new morning show. Naturally Rogers played this up and the Sun did do an article when this was announced. As far as I am aware nothing in the Star or any other major local media. As I recall this was a big story here on SOWNY.
Yes I can hear the laughter already, but other markets will cover when a competitor makes big changes, so why not Toronto? Two popular hosts were lured away from Toronto's number one television morning show to a competitors struggling radio morning show and that is of no interest? I think you are wrong sir.

How about a follow up story in the Sun or Star? How are they adapting to radio as compared to television mornings. That is of no interest?? Even though thousands of Torontonians listen to them every morning, and the fact that CP24 mornings seem to be in a tail spin downward since they left?

Don't really understand the logic on this. There are a ton of stories regarding local media in Toronto and personalities. I do agree that newspapers seem to be of the take that it won't be of interest, or they don't care. I think it is more that they don't want to cover competing media unless it is something negative and the fact that local media, other than CBC don't spend money advertising in newspapers anymore. They do local feature stories all the time, just nothing about local radio and television. Hey their circulation numbers are tanking, why not try something different.

The readers of the Star and Sun have little difference to the readers of The Buffalo News or London Free Press or KW Record. These papers in much smaller markets seem to be able to cover local media much better and seem to feel it is of interest to their readers. What makes the readers in a large media centre like Toronto different?

Last edited by paterson1 (July 12, 2022 12:36 am)

RadioActive · July 12, 2022 9:12 am

What's really odd about this colloquy of ours (love that word) is that we don't really disagree. I would love to see more articles about local radio in the big four newspapers. On the rare occasions they appear, someone from SOWNY, including yours truly, will post the link here so everyone can read it.

It just doesn't happen that often. Editors at the papers don't care about radio. It's just a fact, because they're in the business of giving their audiences what they think they want. Take a look at the Star's online Entertainment index page. There's a generic "entertainment" catchall at the top, followed by "Casino" (Casino? Really? It's part of sponsored content, which explains it), Music, Books, Movies, Television, Stage and Visual Arts. No section for "Radio."

It's unfortunate, but unless something big happens, the day of that profile of the new morning team or an update on the afternoon guy or gal on Boom 97.3 just isn't going to happen. I guess we'll have to tune into Toronto Mike for this local news. He seems to have more articles on local radio than all of the major papers combined. That should tell you everything you need to know about the publishing priorities.

Doesn't make you wrong, per se, but it's not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Radiowiz · July 12, 2022 10:15 am

RadioActive wrote:
There's a generic "entertainment" catchall at the top, followed by "Casino" (Casino? Really? It's part of sponsored content, which explains it),

Long story short, a section for radio can be done as a paid ad these days...

paterson1 · July 12, 2022 10:42 am

It is a matter of priorities. And I am not just talking radio but Toronto media. Other markets give a priority to covering local television and radio with the OCCASIONAL feature story on a station, personality, format change etc...Toronto newspapers don't for whatever reason. Looking at those photos that you posted it was very evident that into the 90's The Star and Sun did regularly do feature stories or even news stories on Toronto media. Both papers also had very vibrant TV magazines with lots of ads.

The Globe and Post are less likely to do this since their focus is broader based and more national. However both could have broadcast features on stations or talent in other markets. Or the Globe could do a feature on the state of radio in Canada today.

CBC could do something like this as well. Years ago CBC did a lot of stories and reports on competing media. Remember CBC interviewing all of Toronto's top morning men years ago? I was surprised how quiet Jay Nelson was and Wally Crouter was more animated than I thought he would be.

Part also is advertising. The Shaw Festival, Mirvish, Stratford Theatre are all still regular advertisers with full page colour ads in the entertainment section, so they tend to get some press. When was the last time CTV or Global took out a full page ad in the Star? Radio stations don't advertise in the paper anymore, most because their formats don't line up with the readership. Still odd to me why a paper like the Buffalo News has so much local media coverage and the Toronto papers have zip.

RadioActive · July 12, 2022 11:02 am

paterson1 wrote:
It is a matter of priorities. And I am not just talking radio but Toronto media. Other markets give a priority to covering local television and radio with the OCCASIONAL feature story on a station, personality, format change etc...Toronto newspapers don't for whatever reason. Looking at those photos that you posted it was very evident that into the 90's The Star and Sun did regularly do feature stories or even news stories on Toronto media. Both papers also had very vibrant TV magazines with lots of ads.

I would welcome the return of such profiles but I just can't see a scenario where it might happen. It's more likely they'd jump on the streaming and podcast bandwagon than on old model broadcast radio. But hey, things go in cycles, so who knows? Remember it was radio that was one of the primary sources of info during the Rogers outage, the same role it plays in hydro blackouts and other times of emergency. People forget that until they need it. Still, as this weekend showed us, it's encouraging to know so many online-connected types actually own an old-fashioned transistor radio.

paterson1 wrote:
CBC could do something like this as well. Years ago CBC did a lot of stories and reports on competing media. Remember CBC interviewing all of Toronto's top morning men years ago? I was surprised how quiet Jay Nelson was and Wally Crouter was more animated than I thought he would be.

What really bugs me is that anytime there is a radio story in the papers, especially the Star, it's almost always about the CBC. That's one station in a market that has dozens of other stations. But apparently, the CBC is the only one actually broadcasting. Been a pet peeve of mine ever since Greg Quill was the Star's "Radio columnist" and every week, his Saturday column would be about something on what is now known as Radio One. I thought it was lazy and he wasn't doing his job.

paterson1 wrote:
Still odd to me why a paper like the Buffalo News has so much local media coverage and the Toronto papers have zip.

You stated it yourself - it's a matter of priorities. The Buffalo News (which has almost no real competition anymore) has a full time broadcast columnist in Alan Pergament. Our papers don't have even one between them. That's why there's no coverage - there's no one on the beat to keep up-to-date with the latest moves in the industry and so they don't end up covering anything.

Ironically, there was a time in the very early days of radio that many newspapers refused to even acknowledge its existence or print program listings (back in the day when it was home to primetime so-called Golden Age comedy shows like "Jack Benny.") They felt it was a competitor to their papers and why give their foes any advantage?

Public demand eventually led to that turning around and the editors soon realized it actually helped SELL papers - not cause people to look elsewhere.

CuzinDave · July 12, 2022 11:40 am

Great link. A lot of history there. Thanks for posting.

paterson1 · July 12, 2022 2:42 pm

We shouldn't forget the Globe's television critic and writer John Doyle. His opinion pieces still are popular and he does critique and review Canadian network programming a lot. Not just the traditional broadcasters but streaming and specialty channels as well. He normally isn't Toronto specific but does a decent job covering the national aspect and new offerings from US television. He doesn't do radio at all.