At the end of the show he just said he had an announcement and that Friday would be his last appearance on The Rush and tune in tomm for more details. That was it

I have no inside or special knowledge, but just some general thoughts/speculation:

1) I wonder if they give "The Rush" to Jim Richards as a solo show, similar to various afternoon slots he's had before on 1010. 4 hours is quite the block of time to fill "alone", although he would have guests, pundits, etc.  Maybe even a new co-host. (Tamara Cherry?)  Maybe they retool the show completely and Richards goes back to his evening "Nightside" gig (could explain why they've never removed him as official host in the program listings?).

2) I wonder if Doyle and Michaels move to the podcast medium if they want to continue doing their show with the unique chemistry they had?

3) Alternatively, I wonder if AM640 picks up Doyle and Michaels in the John Oakley afternoon drive slot with rumors over the last year or so that Oakley is close to retiring. Old colleague Amanda Cupido might be able to make that happen.

4) Maybe Michaels goes back to music radio. He's also professed love of the East Coast, so although you can theoretically do a show from anywhere, perhaps it's an Atlantic region radio gig. Maybe he throws in the towel on his talk radio experiment.

John Moore mentioned that Jay Micheals will moving on to something else, that he wants to do, is more to his liking, or words to that effect. And to tune in to The Rush this afternoon for the full story on what is to come for Jay. He also gave Glen Crouter's ski report on the weekend mornings a plug.. No mention of what time the ski reports will air, or any reference to a weekend morning show.

Ian wrote:

Ted Woloshyn . . . . . stated at the time that it was a "mutual" departure, although that was later revealed to be untrue.

"It takes a long time for the truth to become true" -- Robert Penn Warren
 

Ted's replacement for the morning show didn't get the numbers/enthusiasm that the brass at the station had hoped. I went looking for another station for a morning show once Bill Caroll took over on CFRB. Once John Moore sat in the chair as morning  show host, I returned to CFRB  for the morning show and have continued  to listen in. He does an excellent job, and I hope he stays for many more years.

Jay confirmed he is indeed leaving Newstalk 1010 but is staying with the Bell family. His new gig is not yet public, but there goes my theory that he and Ryan were both going to end up on 640.

If Jay is going to CHOM in Montreal, a definite move up.  Especially if he is going to do mornings.  Toronto has no equivalent station like CHOM, not even Q107.  CHOM is a great station that plays excellent music, and has never strayed from it's rock roots. 

torontostan wrote:

Fitz wrote:

Just looked at their playlist and they do have a few tracks that are not the usual rock or classic rock " suspects.

First they played 10 tracks from the Ramones including Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.

Also No More Mr Nice Guy by Alice Cooper, Woman from Tokyo by Deep Purple, Keep Yourself Alive by Queen and the great Rain by the Beatles the flip of Paperback Writer and not on any Beatles album until the Hey Jude Comp. Not off the beaten track artists but I don't believe these tracks are heard on Toronto radio much:
 

Probably due to the hit music rules in that market, no?
 

Yes, absolutely.

It's owned by Bell. They'd be playing all hits if they were allowed.

paterson1 wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

torontostan wrote:

Probably due to the hit music rules in that market, no?
 

Yes, absolutely.

Debatable, CHOM has always been an album rock station, even prior to the hit/no hit reg. So it didn't really effect them anyway.   Montreal/Ottawa music stations are superior to Toronto and more interesting in my opinion, largely due to the hit/non hit ratio and the fact that these two markets in many ways just have better radio.

It's not at all debatable that CHOM plays these songs because of the regulation. It's 100% why. I've worked with them in programming.

Non-hit is designed specifically to suppress listenership. That's the whole point.

WYUL technically had no competition either.  They could play all the hits, no cancon regs, no non hits that supposedly "suppress" listenership, even had some bilingual announcers and would run ads and some weather forecasts in french.  Montreal's anglo stations couldn't do any of these things.   WYUL had 18 years and  should have done much much better but didn't.   

WYUL/WVNV owners Martz Communications failed every time in other border markets where they had an "all hit" US based radio station to skim off revenue and listeners. I guess they figured listeners in these Canadian markets were starving for hit music and didn't want to hear domestic artists? . The other Martz stations in Port Huron, St. Sault Marie Michigan, Detroit, Morriston NY and four others all either closed down or were sold. None were successful to any great extent on this side of the border. 

Getting back to CHOM and Montreal radio in general I am still not convinced that the hit/non hit is that much of a detriment, if any.  If it were gone tomorrow, naturally most of the stations like Virgin would opt mostly for all hits.  And the french stations would want the same with a lot less francophone music.  CHOM I believe would always play some album cuts or non hits. That's one of the reasons why they have remained popular in a very competitive radio town.  

Last edited by paterson1 (January 29, 2022 11:17 pm)

Hit non-Hit No! CHOM was ahead of the times and was the trend maker for North America while retaining its Montreal vibe.  The station has never worried about that archaic rule. CHOM has always played music that resonated with the audience of the day. To a degree, CHOM today still relies on the golden era that Doug Pringle established  where the station broke so many new artists to form a diversified sound that reflected the sound of Montreal: Supertramp, Harmonium, Chris De Burgh, Genesis, Vandergraf Generator, Shawn Phillips, Beau Dommage, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream,  Joan Armatrading, Stevie Wright, Robert Charlebois, Diane Dufresne, Kraftwerk, Zappa, Yes, ELP and so may more. The first song played as a rock station ( CKGM-FM at the time) was Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles  Playing the "Hits"  was never CHOM's mantra.   

paterson1 wrote:

Getting back to CHOM and Montreal radio in general I am still not convinced that the hit/non hit is that much of a detriment, if any.  If it were gone tomorrow, naturally most of the stations like Virgin would opt mostly for all hits.  And the french stations would want the same with a lot less francophone music.  CHOM I believe would always play some album cuts or non hits. That's one of the reasons why they have remained popular in a very competitive radio town.  

No, CHOM would absolutely drop the non-hits and album cuts. There's a reason they're more concentrated in lower listening hours.

The Anglo market in Montreal is not competitive in the least. There are only 3 local English FM music stations. There's a healthy back-and-forth between The Beat and Virgin, but that's it.

And the Martz argument is frankly absurd, saying they "only" lasted 18 years. They were never designed to do anything but siphon off a fraction of listening and revenue in the market. They didn't fail, the owner took his EMF money the same as many other smaller American operators. He ran a very successful operation.

Last edited by RadioAaron (January 30, 2022 7:34 pm)

RadioAaron wrote:

kevjo wrote:

Bristol wrote:

Playing the "Hits"  was never CHOM's mantra.   

That applies to the rock format in general which is not largely hit driven.
 

What commercial rock station in Canada isn't hit driven? It's not 1978 anymore.

Actually more like 1974. Commercialism and a corporate ethos began to creep in increasingly after 1975. Let me ask you Radio Aaron, if you watched the WBCN doc which aired on PBS last week, you would have seen that the owner said that he had the top station in the city in terms of Ad buys and they were very selective with the ad buys. How is it that such a non-conformist station could be so successful ?

I am not arguing that you are wrong because you are right but what happened ?

Edit: I should add that there were still pockets of creative radio after 1975 but far fewer and I actualy was in Montreal in 1976 and CHOM  still reatained a free form feel.

Last edited by Fitz (January 30, 2022 8:06 pm)

Babe Ruth's - The Mexican, Wells Fargo and their version of Jesse Winchester's Black's Dog still see limited but consistent airplay.