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 programming and become an all news station, running an audio feed directly from all-news TV station CP24. Its last format change (so far) was a return to Sports and Talk in 2011.
1050 CHUM is best known for it’s Top 40 format from 5/27/57 until 6/6/86. Those days will never be forgotten and we’re glad to be able to post a bit of that era right here on Airchexx.com!
I’m from the good old USA, lived here all 52 years of my life, but I wish CHUM still played music. Though it was scoped, I liked “Talk about Money” at 0:57, and I dug the “1050 CHUM” jingles.
Good listening! Jim Van Horn has had a long sports broadcast career since his eight years at CHUM. He has a Wikipedia page for anyone who wants more information.
Sadly bring in the New York City area at the time (and still), 1050 was: 1050 W H N. No way for the signal to make it here then or now.
Aardvark, your comment about WHN struck a chord with me. There was nobody that loved that station from 1979-87 than I did. If I’m not mistaken, it’s now WUKQ, with a Spanish-language sports format. It’s also the Spanish outlet for Mets’ baseball. WHN had three stints carrying the Mets. Long story short, it became WFAN July 1, 1987, and has changed call letters so many times since I can’t keep track.
JVH, Tom Rivers, John Mahjor, Terry Steele, Jay Nelson and even me! Those were the days, we LOVED working at C HUM and being part of J. Robt Wood’s grand plan. CHUM was a whole that was far bigger than the sum of it’s parts.