Easily one of my favourite instructors at the Seneca radio program.

Taped these back in the day. Rivers on Mix 99.9 Feb 25/93 and CHEZ May 2/94- date jives with the article copied above. Radio contests. The first one is easy but you needed song and artist and that stumped some. Second includes stereo recording of the Kensington Markets' I would Be The One. I beleive Mike Stafford is in the Mix so to speak going for the PHD crowd but I could be wrong.

Tom Rivers CKFM & CHEZ

Last edited by Fitz (October 26, 2025 4:29 pm)

Here's an excerpt from The CHUM Tribute Site about Tom Rivers, from Larry MacInnis, the former Creative Director at the station. He explains why Rivers was suddenly fired, despite having a highly creative morning show. 

"On Christmas Eve 1980, Jay Nelson retired as the host of The 1050 CHUM Morning Show and Tom became his successor. Tom modelled his new morning show on that of KFRC San Francisco’s legendary morning man, Dr. Don Rose. That meant endless one-liners, a cast of zany characters (most of whom were actually Tom), and regular theme shows such as Tom’s famous “live” broadcast from the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

"The advertising posters in subway cars read Not Just Any Tom, Dick and Henny (referring to Tom’s co-stars Dick Smyth and Brian Henderson) and for about a year all was well in Tom’s world.

"But then a series of personnel and programming changes, and Tom’s rebellion against them, resulted in Tom being fired by CHUM – on his 35th birthday – in September 1982. The third Tom Rivers Era at CHUM had lasted twenty-one months."

You can read the rest here. 

RadioActive wrote:

This goes back a ways but even after reading the article from 1982 below, I'm still not quite sure what CHUM's reason for firing Tom Rivers might have been - in the middle of a ratings period, no less. Too many bits and not enough music? A lack of discipline? Failure to follow format changes? They're all used as excuses, but what did they expect out of a morning man?

Whatever happened, CHUM's loss was CFTR's gain. The Rivers flowed over to 680 in 1983, and resumed his morning gig for around 10 years there. Other places he worked in the Big Smoke included CKFM, CHEZ, CJAQ (now Kiss 92.5) and AM640, then known as CHOG. He sadly died of cancer in 2004. 

Whatever the case, and as much as I loved CHUM, I will always believe that firing Tom Rivers was probably the stupidest decision they ever made. When Tom was terminated, CHUM still had a talented pool of jocks for sure, but they didn't really have a "resident funny guy" to take his place, which was vital to most radio stations in that era, or at least music format stations that appealed to a younger demographic. When Tom hopped aboard to CFTR, they had two resident funny guys, with Tom in the mornings and Mike Cooper in the afternoons. That was the one-two punch CFTR needed and the one-two punch CHUM definitely didn't need. Both stations battled it out during their Top 40 years, but this would play out as CHUM's final battle as a CHR station, when they conceded defeat and flipped to their Favourites of Yesterday and Today format in June 1986.



PJ
 

Last edited by Paul Jeffries (October 26, 2025 9:51 pm)

Tq345 wrote:

I didn't know Tom Rivers, and never even saw him in person, so I was pretty shocked to read the second paragraph of the first Toronto Star article saying he was six foot nine.

I know a lot of SOWNYites knew Tom. Is it true or a typo? If true, he must have been an incredibly imposing figure.

Can confirm. He would've been imposing if he wasn't so damned congenial but I'd be willing to bet he used his size to his advantage when necessary.

How was Tom doing against CFTR in the morning ratings?