Toronto
The “Spaceman”, CHOG AM 640 – “The Beat of Toronto” | September 1, 1995
Curator’s Notes: Not only was CHOG the final CHR in the Toronto market, it was just over one month away from changing formats from CHR to News Talk. Not surprisingly, being on the AM band did nothing to help AM 640 in its transition. The new N/T format suffered from low ratings, as did it’s successor, launched in 2000, male oriented, talk formatted CFMJ “Mojo Radio” (no relation whatsoever to WPLJ New York). Just four years later, the station would adopt it’s more mainstream Talk format. The CFMJ call letters remain today. Original Comments: We hear two jingles in this scope, along with the hits of 1995. AM 640 was little more than a month away from flipping to Talk radio, and at this point in time, was the LAST contemporary hit station left in Toronto –...
The End of an Era: The CFTR Story, Part 1 | June 4, 1993
For more than two decades, CFTR had been known for being one of TWO contemporary hit music stations in Toronto. The other was the legendary 1050 CHUM. CHUM moved away from Top 40 in 1986 in favor of an Adult Contemporary format, leaving CFTR alone as Toronto’s Top 40 station. It all came to an end on Monday, June 6, 1993 when CFTR became 680 News. Leading into the change, was a weekend countdown of the Top 500 songs of the past 25 years. There was a conspicuous lack of jocks this particular weekend. The countdown was simply voiced by someone unnamed, and there were promos running all weekend long for listeners to tune in Monday morning for the new News format. One promo even suggested listeners tune down the dial to AM 640, which by then, was doing a Rhythmic leaning CHR format! The ...
Humble & Fred 102.1 CFNY Toronto | March 21, 1991
Recording Date: 03.21.1991 Station: 102.1 CFNY (Brampton) Toronto, Ontario Format: Modern Rock Branding: “FM 102” Featured Air Personalities: “Humble” Howard Glassman, Fred Patterson (Wikipedia) (Website) Owner (At time of recording): Maclean Hunter (Present) Corus Entertainment Contributor: Russ Horton Total Time: 35:54 (Telescoped) This just in… Humble Howard taking a course in English… This is aircheck #1,560 Curator’s Notes: There is much relevant historical data that relates to this recording of “Humble & Fred“, tracing this show back to it’s roots, nearly at the beginning of their long run as first, a local CFNY Toronto show, then nationally in Canada and across North America on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. In...
Gerry Forbes (and friends), 1050 CHUM Toronto | October 19, 1988
Date of Recoding: 10.19.1988 Station: 1050 CHUM Toronto Format: Gold Based Adult Contemporary Branded: “Ten-Fifty Chum” Featured Air Personality: Gerry Forbes, others Contributor: Russ Horton (original recording) Total Time: 27:15 (Telescoped – Two Stop Sets intact, Includes two newscasts) Airchexx Entry: 1,557 (This means the total number of live airchecks on this site) Ten-Fifty CHUM,… Elton John and a crock… of rock) Curator’s Notes: More than Gerry Forbes, this actually seems like two different morning shows spliced together. Two complete newscasts anchored by Paul Cross, and we kept the first two stopsets full of commercials, so that the listener gets to hear what’s going on in 1988. I spliced out the rest of the commercials except the promos ...
“Psychedelic Sunday”, 107.1 CILQ Toronto | February 2, 1986
Date of Recording: 02.02.1986 / 1145am to 12:30pm Station: 107.1 CILQ Toronto, Ontario, Canada Format: Album Rock Featured Air Personalities: Derringer, Andy Frost Contributor: Russ Horton Airchexx Entry: 1,464 …We’ll be taking 107 phone calls at that point Comments: This high-quality cassette recording came to us via contributor Russ Horton on a TDK D-90 tape. You won’t notice hardly any tape noise or hiss. So much for the quality. Most of you may remember that weekend programming on most old fashioned AOR stations was special. Remember shows like the King Bisquit Flour Hour, Rockline, and other, locally programmed specials. At CILQ (“Rock Radio” Q107) Toronto, one such feature was Psychedelic Sunday. The show started at Noon on Sundays and here on this recor...
Ted & Geets, 102.1 CFNY South Brampton/Toronto | December 12, 1985
Date of Recording: 12.12.1985 Station: 102.1 CFNY Toronto, Ontario, Canada Format: Free-Form Album Rock Featured Air Personalities: Ted Woloshyn, Geets Romo Contributor: Russ Horton Airchexx Entry: 1,463 “…this should make your morning much more pleasant…” Comments: Contributor Russ Horton writes: Ted Woloshyn & Geets Romo. Both were famous as stars on their own, in fact, Geets was part of the immortal Pete and Geets” From a time shortly before the station went through an identity crisis (flipping to a short-lived CHR format), here’s a glimpse of the morning show on CFNY. Ironically, the station was using the slogan “The Spirit of Radio” as its branding. The Spirit of Radio was an iconic song by the Canadian trio RUSH. Click to Donate No...
Dan Williamson, 680 CFTR Toronto | July 28, 1978
Date of Recording: 07.28.1978 Station: 680 CFTR Toronto, Ontario, Canada Featured Air Talent: Dan Williamson Contributor: Russ Horton Aircheck Entry: 1,440 Date of Contribution: 08.28.2016 12:03, time to shake that thing!… Comments: Courtesy of our biggest Canadian Contributor, Russ Horton, AKA Big Daddy (the head honcho up at D-Moos.com), we bring you another one-of-a-kind AM Top 40 classic! CFTR was the station John Records Landecker (WLS/WLS-FM Chicago) went to for a time in the 80s, and listening to this, you’ll understand why. CFTR, showcased here from 1978, has that sound; that excitement that the best AM Rockers had before burning themselves out and leaving everything to FM. The amazing thing is that while we down here in the United States (where airchexx.com hails from)...
John Rhode, 590 CKEY Toronto | October 11, 1988
Date of Recording: October 11, 1988 Station: CKEY Toronto “Key 590” Featured Air Talent: John Rhode “The Breakfast Club” Contributor: Russ Horton Aircheck Entry: 1,404 Comments: New Contributor Russ Horton sent in a high quality unscoped recording of Classic Hits formatted 590 CKEY. Branded “Key 590”, the Classic Hits format was barely invented, in fact, CKEY is not doing what the original Classic Hits format started out as in the United States – as a mainline 1970s hits station. CKEY played a wide range of music from the 60s through then current songs. This is Morning Drive. “The Breakfast Club”, which, for a music station, featured all the elements you’d find on a current day News/Talk outlet. Full News, Traffic, Sports and Weat...
Gerry Forbes, 1050 CHUM Toronto | October 18-19, 1988
Date of Recording: October 18-19, 1988 Contributor: Russ Horton Station: 1050 CHUM Toronto Featured Air Talent: Gerry Forbes, Greg Lee (Jocks), Paul Cross (News), Mary Garafallo (Traffic), Robby Evans (Weather) Aircheck Entry: 1,402 Comments: If there was any doubt that AM radio was still vibrant and strong in 1988, at least in Canada, this should remove all of it. For any who may not be familiar with 1050 CHUM, this was one of two very successful Top 40 stations in the city of Toronto on the AM dial. Primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, CHUM and 680 CFTR duked it out for ratings superiority as both churned out the hit songs every hour for many decades. By the 1980s, music on AM was on the decline, eclipsed by the success of FM CHR formats in the United States. But in Canada, AM hung on, in p...
Jackson Armstrong, 1050 CHUM Toronto | 1967
Perhaps it was the PAMS signature jingles, the incredible music, the enormous audience or just the mystique surrounding this radio station. But for a time in the 1960s and 70s, no other station in Toronto touched its listeners the way 1050 CHUM did. One of radio’s greats is featured on this worn but wonderful aircheck. The late Jackson Armstrong, complete with the Gorilla and the future “world’s fastest talking human” by the Guiness Book of World Records (1973), blows through this 12 1/2 minutes of Top 40 magic so fast that one can barely understand what he’s saying! Armstrong would slow down (a little) by the time he got to 64 KFI Los Angeles in the 1980s, but here, his jaws are going at light-speed! Aircheck #1,346 since May 2, 2002!
Jim Van Horn, 1050 CHUM Toronto | September, 1977
Courtesy of Big Apple Airchecks, here’s a snippet of 1050 CHUM in the salad days of late 70s AM Top 40. Its right after Labor Day weekend so we can nail the date of this recording down to early September, 1977. This is Jim Van Horn, a jock with big pipes and a big city sound to his presentation. The aircheck is a bit choppy and not altogether the best audio quality, but we restored it the best we could. And remember, even though its 1977, the FM Rock stations were nipping at the heels of AM radio. But CHUM soldiered on, playing contemporary music until 1989, when on Sept. 1, the station went Oldies, then Sports some twelve years later. Sports was so successful (not), that CHUM returned to Oldies on 8/27/02. That would last until 3/26/09 when CHUM decided to ditch all music and local ...
MicroChexx: 1050 CHUM Toronto, First Day as Gold-Based AC | June 6, 1986
What follows is all that could be salvaged from two sides of a C-60 cassette featuring music from the first day of the then-new AC format at 1050 CHUM. We don’t feature the music on this website, but endeavor to bring you as much of the radio station’s imaging, the ‘sound between the records’, so to speak. What happened here is, the person who recorded this obviously was recording for the music, and in a twist of opposites of what we do at airchexx, cut out all the format items in between these songs, except for the two instances you hear in this under one minute recording. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to 1050 CHUM. The format change to this is explained as follows: By the mid-1980s, CHUM had lost ground in the Toronto ratings to competitor Top 40 station CFTR and...
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