Jody Thornton wrote:

I love small town radio, and it was fun working in it

Small town radio is THE best place to learn, whether operating or on air or both. It lets you get better without the entire world hearing you when you were, let's say, not at your best! (But boy, is it embarrassing when those tapes show up years and years later!) 

Same as Jody, I loved working in small town radio.  And RA is correct, the place to learn the trade and find out if this is the career for you. 

If you were on air, you were a bit of a celebrity, and everyone knew who you were.  If you were in sales, virtually every business in town would advertise. In the summer, the station was regularly sold out back in the days when there were commercial limits.   And even though the "locals" loved to make fun of the town's radio station, you knew that pretty well everyone listened and listened a lot. 

When somebody would say that nobody tuned in to the local radio, it was fun to point out how the station had temporarily jammed the phone lines in the region when running a contest.  Also the BBM's were interesting (back when small stations took part in ratings) and you would see the hours tuned per week and per day.  Smaller rural market and cottage country radio had CBC listening levels, where the radio was basically on all day. 

Small town radio, not a place to make the big bucks, unless possibly you were in sales, but the place to have so much fun, experiment, and to learn the businesses. 



 

If you don't mind being blasted out of your bed 5 seconds later by pink noise, or whatever underlying station was on the same frequency.  Either way, it would be far from relaxing silence.

RadioActive wrote:

From Swap Shops to lost pets, Alan Cross pens a hilarious look at the small town one-lung radio stations where he got his start, and reminds that they're still a vital part of many local communities. 

"Before I arrived, the last person out the door each night had to play a short commercial before shutting down the transmitter. That commercial was for the local funeral home: “The next six hours of restful silence is brought to you by …” I’m not kidding."

The peculiar comforts of radio stations in cottage country

My experiences were with listening to CKLP-FM 103.3 Parry Sound in the early 90s and still till today although it has changed in ownership, formats and technology. It was quirky back then, lots of dead air spots, the music was a mashup.   Bob Boland owned it.

 

darcyh wrote:

In the late 60's maybe into the 70's my dad would tune to the news on CFOS 560 AM from Owen Sound. Just before 1:00 PM they would air a five or ten second lead up to the top of the hour time signal. It sounded just like WWV. I think that was followed by the daily funeral announcements.

I believe both CFOS and CKNX 920 still both have funeral notices daily.  I remember the 1pm time signal which was when CFOS was a CBC radio affiliate.  The time signal continued until March 1983.  CBC had their own repeater in Owen Sound/Grey Bruce, and CFOS dropped the small amount of CBC programming that they still carried.  

Jody Thornton wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

I believe both CFOS and CKNX 920 still both have funeral notices daily

Would you say that they are in a "dead heat" with one another? 

 

Hahaha...Yes, whenever you hear the funeral notices on the radio....it's always a somewhat grave affair...

We may be making light of the Obits but as a young boy In Memoriam was "must listen" radio for my parents on CFCO Chatham every evening. There was no talking while they aired  . I found it rather odd that they  would be riveted to the radio to find out who died but then again the only other sources were the daily or weekly newspapers..thus emphasizing the immediacy of radio and what it does best. Being older now , I can laugh at myself as I do read the obits from several papers every day! I am not relying on family members to tell me who passed away. Fact is, I once told my own brother in Southwestern Ontario  that his neighbour  had died. The guy lived right across a field from him !

Last edited by fyshtalk (July 7, 2021 9:53 am)