M
MsMusicRadio
Guest
I was in Toronto in 1964 and there seemed to be a TOP 40 war between CHUM and CKEY. Does anybody know the history of TOP 40 radio in Toronto?
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MsMusicRadio
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I guess people in your city are too busy to post here or Toronto never had a TOP 40 station? I guess WKBW served that role for you
MsMusicRadio said:
Shows you don't know anything about Toronto radio. Toronto had fierce top 40 rivalries between CHUM and CFTR, and in later years CFTR and CHOG. There were other players involved including CKFH, CKEY and throw the Hamilton stations CKOC and CHML into the mix, there was a lot of radio for top forty fans.
While 1050 CHUM liked to come across as the top 40 leader right up until 1986 when their format changed, there were others that took them on well.
I'm young. (in my mid 30's) so I can *best* recall the CHUM vs CFTR days that ran right up until 1986, where CFTR continued on with the hits.
Then in June 1990, CFGM, (a country music station) decided that country just wasn't working for them anymore.
CFGM became CHOG, a more rocky version of CFTR (CFTR was leaning in a dance direction at the time)
CFGM thought they could get the kids to grow up to love sister station q107 by launching "AM 640, the HOG", but no one was listening to the "Maximum grunt" so they went head on with CFTR in 1991 instead, known simply as "AM640-The Beat of Toronto".
In 1993, CFTR was way ahead of the game in ratings, still killing CHOG, but they found themselves in a situation that "required change".
The truth is, even though they were Toronto's #1 hit music station, they did worry that they'd get stuck being the only AM station left playing music, so in June of 1993, they surrendered their listeners to AM 640 and went all news.
It is to my understanding that AM 640 had very serious plans to go all news as well, but 680 beat them to it.
(I have an aircheck of 640- It aired shortly before 680 went all news claiming that "When news happens, you'll hear about it first on AM 640...the NEWS beat of Toronto"-that never happend because 680 went all news first.)
By October 11, 1995, AM 640 decided to throw in the towel.
It was over.
Top 40 was no longer a logical thing to air on AM radio.
Times were changing. People more than ever wanted their hits with FM quality sound.
AM 640 decided to tackle 1010 CFRB as the all new "Talk 640".
This left the hit music listener with WKSE, CING, and CIDC as their only listening choices.(CKOC already went oldies in Feb. 1991)
However, WKSE (as great as it is) is American, leaving out many great Canadian hits, and both CING and CIDC were too dancy, and didn't pay close enough attention to a *true* hit music format.
As a result of this, there was a hole in the market for a hit music station.
In 1999, Ciss 92, a Country music station was sold to Rogers. Rogers rounded up the staff for a party to celebrate the success of the country music station-little did the staff know they were celebrating the end of their job as Rogers decided to launch the short lived Power 92.
There was already a dance music station known as Power 88five.
They sued and won, only to go country a few months later anyway.
After only a few weeks as Power 92, the station was forced to relaunch as the all new Kiss 92 FM.
By 2002, someone decided to flip the hit music format on Kiss 92 to more of an urban sound, known simply as the new Kiss 92 FIVE, tackling Flow 93.5, instead of being a true hit music station!
If the station were left alone, they may very well have still been a hit music station today, but instead, someone higher up decided that urban hits were a mistake, and by late 2003 it was bye bye Kiss and hello Jack!
Jack has been a million different things since. This week, they're a rock station...honestly, if they were serious about tackling Q 107, they should have at least changed their name to Xfm, or Hog or what ever, but they didn't...(but that's anothe story.)
Today, the hits can be found on Z103...but it's more of a dance based hit music station.
The ultimate question though is, how much longer will this continue on for?
Perhaps forever, perhaps not.
Z103 has been doing well adding more and more "way back play backs". If they decide to go all way back play back all the time, I don't blame them.
If they never change, I still wish them all the best.
I'm young. (in my mid 30's) so I can *best* recall the CHUM vs CFTR days that ran right up until 1986, where CFTR continued on with the hits.
Then in June 1990, CFGM, (a country music station) decided that country just wasn't working for them anymore.
CFGM became CHOG, a more rocky version of CFTR (CFTR was leaning in a dance direction at the time)
CFGM thought they could get the kids to grow up to love sister station q107 by launching "AM 640, the HOG", but no one was listening to the "Maximum grunt" so they went head on with CFTR in 1991 instead, known simply as "AM640-The Beat of Toronto".
In 1993, CFTR was way ahead of the game in ratings, still killing CHOG, but they found themselves in a situation that "required change".
The truth is, even though they were Toronto's #1 hit music station, they did worry that they'd get stuck being the only AM station left playing music, so in June of 1993, they surrendered their listeners to AM 640 and went all news.
It is to my understanding that AM 640 had very serious plans to go all news as well, but 680 beat them to it.
(I have an aircheck of 640- It aired shortly before 680 went all news claiming that "When news happens, you'll hear about it first on AM 640...the NEWS beat of Toronto"-that never happend because 680 went all news first.)
By October 11, 1995, AM 640 decided to throw in the towel.
It was over.
Top 40 was no longer a logical thing to air on AM radio.
Times were changing. People more than ever wanted their hits with FM quality sound.
AM 640 decided to tackle 1010 CFRB as the all new "Talk 640".
This left the hit music listener with WKSE, CING, and CIDC as their only listening choices.(CKOC already went oldies in Feb. 1991)
However, WKSE (as great as it is) is American, leaving out many great Canadian hits, and both CING and CIDC were too dancy, and didn't pay close enough attention to a *true* hit music format.
As a result of this, there was a hole in the market for a hit music station.
In 1999, Ciss 92, a Country music station was sold to Rogers. Rogers rounded up the staff for a party to celebrate the success of the country music station-little did the staff know they were celebrating the end of their job as Rogers decided to launch the short lived Power 92.
There was already a dance music station known as Power 88five.
They sued and won, only to go country a few months later anyway.
After only a few weeks as Power 92, the station was forced to relaunch as the all new Kiss 92 FM.
By 2002, someone decided to flip the hit music format on Kiss 92 to more of an urban sound, known simply as the new Kiss 92 FIVE, tackling Flow 93.5, instead of being a true hit music station!
If the station were left alone, they may very well have still been a hit music station today, but instead, someone higher up decided that urban hits were a mistake, and by late 2003 it was bye bye Kiss and hello Jack!
Jack has been a million different things since. This week, they're a rock station...honestly, if they were serious about tackling Q 107, they should have at least changed their name to Xfm, or Hog or what ever, but they didn't...(but that's anothe story.)
Today, the hits can be found on Z103...but it's more of a dance based hit music station.
The ultimate question though is, how much longer will this continue on for?
Perhaps forever, perhaps not.
Z103 has been doing well adding more and more "way back play backs". If they decide to go all way back play back all the time, I don't blame them.
If they never change, I still wish them all the best.
Yezi, nice summary on the Toronto Top 40 chronology. Endjoyed reading it. And to be fair, I think Ms. Music Radio was "asking" more than she was making a statement about KB and Toronto. But the truth is, there were bigger Top 40 stations in TO than KB, which had/has a directional signal that really didn't hammer Toronto as well as the big Top 40 Toronto stations.
The CHUM-CFTR Top 40 wars of the late 60s and 70s were classic, even to this radio dork from South Buffalo who enjoyed listening to both stations. Great jocks, great music, especially the CanCon and great audio processing too.
Speaking of CHUM, surprised there hasn't been much mentioned of the layoffs at the CHUM group. You boys better get on that!
The CHUM-CFTR Top 40 wars of the late 60s and 70s were classic, even to this radio dork from South Buffalo who enjoyed listening to both stations. Great jocks, great music, especially the CanCon and great audio processing too.
Speaking of CHUM, surprised there hasn't been much mentioned of the layoffs at the CHUM group. You boys better get on that!
Radknowski said:
Chum-CFTR = early 70's, since CFTR didn't launch as a hit music station until the early 70's
I believe it was a Chum-CKEY battle in the 60's. (CKEY was at 580 on the dial, and later moved to 590).
Add in the BIG 143 (1430 CJCL) somewhere in there and there was indeed alot of competition in the Toronto market throughout the 70's for the hit music ear.
Radknowski said:Speaking of CHUM, surprised there hasn't been much mentioned of the layoffs at the CHUM group. You boys better get on that!
We're waiting to see what goes on as early as June 2009!
To make a (very) long story as short as possible, here's one of their problems:
CTV bought CHUM group expecting to be allowed to keep City TV.
The CRTC said no.
(simple as that!)
So, instead of Rogers buying the "A" channels (pronounced "eh", not "ah" lol), CTV kept them and Rogers bought all the City Tv's in Canada.
There was no regulation to prevent CTV from keeping the CP24 television station, so they did.
There was also no regulation preventing Rogers from launching a brand new Citynews 24 hr channel to compete with CP24 very soon, so they will.
Long story short, there may be cuts now at CHUM group (now ctv radio group), but currently, the CP24 morning show is a Breakfast television repeater that airs on City TV.
CP 24 is going to have to find a new morning show when the BT repeater moves to it's new home on the CityNews channel.
Morning shows cost money. People don't work for free, and if CP24 wants to compete with this new CityNews channel, they are not about to hire just anyone to do the job...they had to do something to make their pockets look deep...perhaps I'm getting too far ahead of myself. (lol)
Let's just wait and see who will be the new host of the CP24 morning show, and ponder how much that must cost.
If it were up to me, I would have just sold CP24 with City in the first place and never bothered trying to own it, since they both worked so well togehter, but that's me, and I'm not the powers that be at CTV...
M
Mid West Clubber
Guest
I cant see Z-103 as going to an all way back play back,,, the younger listeners would flock.... Z-103 is a tue CHR,,, possibly the only true chr in North America.... CHR is supposed to play the best hits of all formats,,, Dance-POP-Rock-Urban,,, some Country Cross Overs,,,, so Toronto does have a true CHR station... Also aside from AM 640,,, you also had Energy CING after they transitioned from Dance to CHR, and launched the Energy radio network around Toronto,,, this proved to be a mistake,,, they tried to go back to dance in the last few weeks, but it was already too late.
Mid West Clubber said:
I had friends in London listening to the Hamilton morning show feeling very annoyed that a London station was "ALL TORONTO!"
They were not happy at all!
e-dawg said:
That's because it's actually licenced to be an Orangeville, Ontario station, not a Toronto station.
e-dawg said:
That's because it's licenced to be an Orangeville, Ontario Station, not a Toronto station.
T
theradiokid
Guest
Speaking of CHR stations, what about “Flow 93.5?” What are they now? CHR? Rap? AC? If CHR, are they a true CHR (playing Rock, and urban), or do they still only play rap music? I ask because I heard that they went through some changes.
--The Radio Kid
(Oswego, NY.)
My email: [email protected].
--The Radio Kid
(Oswego, NY.)
My email: [email protected].
theradiokid said:
I think Flow is lost and confused.
They are still something I consider to be "Urban hits" but then, out of nowhere there is this public transit ad that informs people of all the music they play...many (current) urban artists, but then, somewhere in the middle of all that...is...Madonna!
Since when is Madonna "Urban hits"?
I believe they still sound very urban, but don't forget, they *do* stream, so feel free to listen and judge for yourself: http://flow.standardinteractive.com/shows?tab=day&day=6
Obtuse1 said:
Part of the problem there was the 49% non hit rule at the time, which made it almost impossible to compete with 680 CFTR.
That rule is long gone now, but stations like Ciss 92 should have tried harder to survive without going urban/rythmic.
I believe very strongly Ciss would still be around today if they didn't.
B
Bob1370
Guest
"I guess people in your city are too busy to post here or Toronto never had a TOP 40 station? I guess WKBW served that role for you"
1050 CHUM had a great history that lasted almost 50 years, there's a tribute site online, no need to recount the story here. CKEY probably deserves one, it was a hit music station even before the days of rock, as early as the late 1940s, and stayed a hit music station off and on through a series of owners including Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. (a corporate predecessor of the current CBS Corporation) and the late NFL Washington Redskins owner, Toronto native Jack Kent Cooke.
Now that you mention KB, WKBW and 1050 CHUM are linked in their histories between 1958 and 2006. The two stations actually had a bit of a talent interchange going on...KB was the place where the late Jay Nelson developed his Jungle Jay persona (along with KB's sister TV station Channel 7, where he hosted a kids' cartoon show) before he went up to Toronto to become the city's top morning guy on CHUM. Then CHUM returned the favor, since it was Jackson Armstrong's last stop before moving over the Peace Bridge to take over 'KB's nights, which he handled twice (in the early 70s, and from 2003 to 2006) before his untimely passing. KB also was Don Berns' previous home before heading north to TO to spin rock and alternative tunes on the FM band...
1050 CHUM had a great history that lasted almost 50 years, there's a tribute site online, no need to recount the story here. CKEY probably deserves one, it was a hit music station even before the days of rock, as early as the late 1940s, and stayed a hit music station off and on through a series of owners including Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. (a corporate predecessor of the current CBS Corporation) and the late NFL Washington Redskins owner, Toronto native Jack Kent Cooke.
Now that you mention KB, WKBW and 1050 CHUM are linked in their histories between 1958 and 2006. The two stations actually had a bit of a talent interchange going on...KB was the place where the late Jay Nelson developed his Jungle Jay persona (along with KB's sister TV station Channel 7, where he hosted a kids' cartoon show) before he went up to Toronto to become the city's top morning guy on CHUM. Then CHUM returned the favor, since it was Jackson Armstrong's last stop before moving over the Peace Bridge to take over 'KB's nights, which he handled twice (in the early 70s, and from 2003 to 2006) before his untimely passing. KB also was Don Berns' previous home before heading north to TO to spin rock and alternative tunes on the FM band...
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