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July Is Historic Month For Toronto & Buffalo Radio
July holds a special place in Southern Ontario/Western New York radio history - it was the month that several key changes happened on local airwaves that became seismic events in hindsight.
It was on July 2, 1967 that CHUM-FM went from being a staid old-fashioned classical format to fulltime progressive rock, a change that surely must have given fans of Beethoven and Brahms a bad case of classical gas. The station defended the shift from Bach to rock, despite a storm of controversary. 
Meanwhile, just nine years earlier, on July 6, 1958, WKBW in Buffalo made the switch to an All Top 40 format, after the success of WBNY, which had been the first to venture into the "new music." It was 50,000 watts vs. BNY's 250 - and soon it was no contest. KB and its "Futursonic Radio" ruled the airwaves for years afterwards. 
The sad thing is most of us in the GTA never got to hear it - the signal was highly directionally and aimed down the Eastern Seaboard, so despite its 50K transmitter, 1520 just never came in very well in Toronto. But what a great station we missed! From 1968's GO Magazine:
By the way, that #6 single below may give you pause. Who the heck are Wilmer & The Dukes? Turns out, they were a local Western New York band that had enough of a following to get their record into the KB Top 10.
July 1st marks the birthday of one GTA-area radio station. It was on what then would have been called "Dominion Day" (which I always thought made it sound like they were honouring a grocery store chain) in 1946 that CKLB first went on the air in Oshawa. It's now CKDO and it's still playing oldies. Notice how it's moved around the dial over the years, going from 1240 AM to 1350, then over to 1580 and now with an FM repeater at 107.7.
Oddly, it was in my faulty memory banks that July 1st, 1970 may have been the day when enforced CanCon became a part of the radio rules here in the Great White North. Canada Day would have made perfect sense. But the article below reveals it actually went into force on October 1st of that year, and we've been living with the rule ever since. 
- Dale Patterson
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Re: July Is Historic Month For Toronto & Buffalo Radio
RadioActive wrote:
July holds a special place in Southern Ontario/Western New York radio history - it was the month that several key changes happened on local airwaves that became seismic events in hindsight.
It was on July 2, 1967 that CHUM-FM went from being a staid old-fashioned classical format to fulltime progressive rock, a change that surely must have given fans of Beethoven and Brahms a bad case of classical gas. The station defended the shift from Bach to rock, despite a storm of controversary.
Meanwhile, just nine years earlier, on July 6, 1958, WKBW in Buffalo made the switch to an All Top 40 format, after the success of WBNY, which had been the first to venture into the "new music." It was 50,000 watts vs. BNY's 250 - and soon it was no contest. KB and its "Futursonic Radio" ruled the airwaves for years afterwards.
The sad thing is most of us in the GTA never got to hear it - the signal was highly directionally and aimed down the Eastern Seaboard, so despite its 50K transmitter, 1520 just never came in very well in Toronto. But what a great station we missed! From 1968's GO Magazine:
By the way, that #6 single below may give you pause. Who the heck are Wilmer & The Dukes? Turns out, they were a local Western New York band that had enough of a following to get their record into the KB Top 10.
July 1st marks the birthday of one GTA-area radio station. It was on what then would have been called "Dominion Day" (which I always thought made it sound like they were honouring a grocery store chain) in 1946 that CKLB first went on the air in Oshawa. It's now CKDO and it's still playing oldies. Notice how it's moved around the dial over the years, going from 1240 AM to 1350, then over to 1580 and now with an FM repeater at 107.7.
Oddly, it was in my faulty memory banks that July 1st, 1970 may have been the day when enforced CanCon became a part of the radio rules here in the Great White North. Canada Day would have made perfect sense. But the article below reveals it actually went into force on October 1st of that year, and we've been living with the rule ever since.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- mace
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Re: July Is Historic Month For Toronto & Buffalo Radio
According to Wikipedia, CHUM FM dumped the Classical format in July 1968, not 1967 and KB became top 40 on July 4th, 1958. I was not a witness to either event because in 1958 I had yet to become interested in radio and in 1968 I was a hard core top 40 guy whose family had yet to purchase an FM equipped radio. As for that Wilmer & The Dukes tune, the week it hit #6 on KB, it reached its peak of #18 on the CHUM Chart.
- RadioActive
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Re: July Is Historic Month For Toronto & Buffalo Radio
Thank you for the update. I'd never heard of Wilmer and the Dukes and had no idea anything of theirs ever made the CHUM Chart. I listened to the song on YouTube. Not bad but not great, either. But I can hear why it might have been a hit with some.
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