1 of 1- darcyh
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When radio stations played records
When did most radio stations switch from vinyl records to digital sources?
How many records would an average station have?
Assuming the station was a top 40 hits format did they keep every record or discard them after a few years?
Storage. Records are heavy and take up room. How were they stored so a title could be retrieved like a library book. Alphabetically? By artist or song? By format? By year?
When digital storage become standard what did stations do with their inventory of records? I suppose someone maybe digitized the record? That would have been pretty labour intensive, then what?
Thanks for your comments.
Regards,
Dave
- RadioActive
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Re: When radio stations played records
I'm honestly trying to remember back to what the CFTR record library looked like in the early 80s. I was in there often, looking for everything from music beds and old hits to sound effects records.
If I recall correctly - and it's been a very long time - they had shelves of LPs everywhere in alphabetical order. So if you were searching for The Rolling Stones, you'd go to the "R" section and have to go through everything to find it. Keep in mind, this was before computers and indexing everything electronically, and there wasn't really any other effective way to deal with all those covers in there.
The librarian at the time, a terrific lady named Cyd Kaplan, was available to help and somehow always seemed to know exactly where the thing you were looking for was.
They kept all those albums in case they needed to go back to the source and there were still a few turntables in the control room and in my production studio, but by then, everything was on cart. Carts don't last forever, of course, so hence the need for the LPs.
That library was a playground for someone like me, and I found hits radio would no longer play in there, and I was lucky enough to have a key to the place, so I could get in anytime I wanted.
I'm guessing everything is now stored on computer and accessible to all, but I'm hoping someone somewhere in those stations still knows where there's a turntable if they need it!
- RadioActive
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Re: When radio stations played records
One more thing - when I volunteered at CHIN radio as a young teen, all the various language speakers mostly brought in their own music or discs. It wasn't like they had a huge place to stash thousands of records in dozens of languages.
We used turntables back then, but the one thing I distinctly recall is that the records from some of those overseas places, like Ukraine, had no discernible grooves on them. So when the host would ask through talkback to cue up cut #3, you had no real idea where that was. I've still never seen anything like that before or since.
I do recall Fred Snyder occasionally raiding what little there was in the CHIN library. You may not know the name, but for years he did the only country show after CHUM switched to Top 40, under the name Moose Latrek. He was the production director there and recorded and edited all the intros and spots used on the various shows.
He had a very strange sense of humour. One day, he discovered a sound effects record with a woman on it screaming in terror. He cued it up on the turntable, turned the volume on those strong speakers as loud as it would go, and then let the shrieking begin.
Everyone in the station ran to the room to see what was going on. And that's when they saw Snyder sitting there with a cigarette in his mouth, laughing out loud at their shocked reaction.
Only in radio.
- markow202
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Re: When radio stations played records
Boom plays turntable tuesday spinning actual records
- AspectRatio
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Re: When radio stations played records
markow202 wrote:
Boom plays turntable tuesday spinning actual records
They also have an excellent Youtube channel playlist, "Behind The Vinyl", with the artists literally dropping the needle on a vinyl release of their music and recollecting anecdotes. Fun stuff:
- The Weed
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Re: When radio stations played records
At the old CING 108 in 81, I know the night jocks brought their own records in the ubiquitous milk crate. And the teletype was on a board over one half of the literal kitchen sink and would spool into the sink.
At CKLY in the 80s, the front portion of the unfinished basement, which was shaped like a large bay window, was the storage area for 45s. They were stacked up about a foot high and arranged in neat rows and covered that "bay window" area. None that I saw had sleeves or looked like they had ever been played. I never found out why they were there, but assumed they were 45s sent by record companies that the station never intended to play. I wish, with hindsight, I had asked to take them away.
- Chrisphen
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Re: When radio stations played records
I recall Q107 having a giveaway of their vinyl archive (the remaining stuff that wasn't picked over by mgmt and staff) about two decades ago.
Last edited by Chrisphen (August 12, 2026 3:22 pm)