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Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
Ever worked at CKSO in Sudbury or know anyone who did? Then you may be interested in a website (that's now been spun off into a book) about CKSO, the one-time AM (now FM) station that served the Nickel City. Even if you've never heard of the place, the people who got their start there is impressive. Among them:
-Joe Bowen, the longtime voice of the Leafs,
-Stirling Faux, now a veteran mainstay of Vancouver radio but a onetime CFTR rock jock,
-Dan Kelly, the late play-by-play man for the St. Louis Blues on KMOX,
-Paul Ski, who would later play a huge role in management at CHUM,
-Judy Erola, who went on to become a federal MP, and
-Michael Cranston, who came from Sudbury, wound up at CHUM for a cup of coffee and then returned to do mornings at CKSO.
A pretty interesting list and there are more of them, along with airchecks and other memorabilia. You can check out the site here. 
- paterson1
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
Sudbury has always been an interesting market. The largest in Northern Ontario with the Greater Sudbury area's population of about 163,000. The CKSO Sudbury call letters were briefly revived for about 4 years in 2002 with a Christian FM music station that eventually went dark.
Today Sudbury has 13 radio stations (all FM) and receives 3 more from smaller communities like Elliot Lake and Espanola. About 40% of the population can speak French and the city has a commercial French hot a/c station with CHYC ( Le Loup 98.9), Stingray and Rogers have two stations each in town with hot a/c and rock/classic formats, Bell has a Pure Country outlet and CBC/Radio Canada operate local stations as well in English and French. The rest are college, Christian, and tourist/weather. So a fairly competitive radio market in Northern Ontario.
Last edited by paterson1 (November 9, 2021 3:35 pm)
- mike marshall
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
RadioActive wrote:
Ever worked at CKSO in Sudbury or know anyone who did?
Even if you've never heard of the place, the people who got their start there is impressive. Among them:
-Joe Bowen, the longtime voice of the Leafs,
-Stirling Faux, now a veteran mainstay of Vancouver radio but a onetime CFTR rock jock,
-Dan Kelly, the late play-by-play man for the St. Louis Blues on KMOX,
-Paul Ski, who would later play a huge role in management at CHUM,
-Judy Erola, who went on to become a federal MP, and
-Michael Cranston, who came from Sudbury, wound up at CHUM for a cup of coffee and then returned to do mornings at CKSO.
A pretty interesting list and there are more of them, along with airchecks and other memorabilia. You can check out the site here.
RA, you can add the name of CFRB's Bill Deegan to the list.
[Edit] -- We can add another well-known name...George Johns, later CFTR PD and Manager.
Also, I noticed a familiar name with a slightly younger face in the ad you included: Jim Craig. For 10 years, Jim programmed what is now Stingray's Smooth Jazz channel on cable across the country. And the poor guy hired me in 2000 as Smooth Jazz WAVE 94.7 went on the air in Hamilton.
Last edited by mike marshall (November 9, 2021 4:28 pm)
- Doug Thompson
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
Jim Craig has been a Professor of Communications at Seneca College in Toronto for many years. I worked with Joe Bowen at Telemedia and Michael Cranston at CHUM.
I believe Roger Klein was also at CKSO at some point. Maybe in the George John's era. I do remember one promo they did back then "Did you have your bowlful of Reg Madison this morning." That one stuck with me all these years later.
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- turkeytop
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
Back in the early 1970s CKSO operated both an AM and an FM station under those call letters. I used to listen to both of them. Back then, I was living up on the Bruce Peninsula. We had no local FM at all. FM listening meant DXing. CKSO was one of the stations I could sometimes hear.
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
- darcyh
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
I believe Sudbury is unique as there are no longer any commercial AM stations on the air. They have all migrated to FM. I was surprised when CKSO gave up it's big coverage 50KW AM frequency for the FM band.
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: Website Traces History Of Unique Sudbury Radio Station
I believe Sudbury is unique as there are no longer any commercial AM stations on the air. They have all migrated to FM. I was surprised when CKSO gave up it's big coverage 50KW AM frequency for the FM band.
A number of Canadian cities have no local AM radio stations anymore. Notably Halifax, Moncton, Kingston, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay, and I believe most of Quebec outside Montreal has no AM left either.
There hasn’t been as much of an abandonment of AM in Western Canada as in parts of Eastern Canada.