The Word - Vol 68

He’s Back!
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Let’s turn the clock back to 1971. That was the year Big Daddy Dave McCormick, one of the original rock and roll disc jockeys at CFUN was brought back home to Vancouver from California to work at radio station CKNW. At the same time, I was hired at CKNW after working at CHNL in Kamloops. The two of us were to take over weekend DJ shows and do split shifts of traffic reports and program operators for Jack Webster’s talk show during the week. I was 22 years old and had to keep pinching myself that I had landed a job at the number one station in the province

For me, the weekend show soon gave way to the 12 noon to 3pm show replacing Jack Kyle, who was moved to the all-night show. It was bittersweet. I was thrilled to get a weekday show, but worried about how Jack felt about the move. When I caught up with him, he said “Don’t worry about me, it’ll happen to you one day.”  And it did.

​Five years later, management decided to add another talk show to the day’s programming and decided it would be from 12 noon to 3pm, the same time of day I was playing music. The talk show host they hired was Barrie Clark, a former politician who had also hosted a talk show in the past. Jack Kyle’s words rang true, it happened to me. 

That’s the way the business goes, and proves the old radio saying, “If you have a job in radio, leave your car running in the parking lot, and don’t bring a lunch!” After 7 years at CKNW, I was shown the door and ended up working weekends at Super Country CKWX on the weekends, oh, and also at an advertising agency during the week, and was also Fred Latremouille’s fill-in guy presenting the weather forecast at BCTV, now GlobalTV, whenever I was needed.

On the advice of a wise media man by the name of Greg Douglas, aka Dr. Sport, I approached CKVU-TV for a co-hosting job on their nightly Vancouver Show. The show was on the air from 7pm to 9pm Monday through Friday and was co-hosted by Mike Winlaw, Pia Shandel, and Laurier LaPierre. It was a lot of fun and over the 7 years at CKVU, I met a lot of very interesting people and even switched over to anchor the 6pm news with Doriana Temolo for 2 of those years. I also managed to land hosting jobs on 3 different TV Game Shows, but my tenure at CKVU ended when new owners took over the station and I was once again looking for work. 

As I mentioned last week, but for those of you who didn’t see “The Word” last week, I’ll recap: One day a call came from George Madden, the General Manager of radio station CJOR. He wanted me to host a new morning show at the station. I said I’d love to, but at the time I was a Mr. Mom to 2 young boys, and getting up at 3:30 in the morning to go to work just wasn’t in the cards. Time went by and George called again to say that their 9am to noon talk show host had quit and would those hours be more suitable for me? I figured I could get the boys off to school and make the mad dash down the highway in time for the show, but I hesitated because you see, I’m not a radio talk show host! Remember? I was a disc jockey who got replaced by a talk show host! Talk show hosts interview politicians and give editorials, and while I had interviewed politicians I didn’t give editorials! My thinking was, that I didn’t care what I thought, why would anyone else care what I thought? George pressed on though and invited me to come to the station, he said he’d show me around, introduce me to some of the staff, and then I could make up my mind whether or not to take the job.

Let’s face it, I needed the paycheque, so I went in to meet with him and look around and meet the staff. After a quick tour and a few introductions, I told him I’d take the job, but only if I could have my desk next to the very attractive Promotions Manager. He agreed, I agreed, and a few years later that Promotions Manager became my wife!

The 9am to noon show went exactly as I thought it would. It was a six-month disaster. The ratings were dismal, and I knew George wasn’t going to let it continue much longer, and I was right.

​One day I was in the men’s room washing my hands when I heard someone come in the room and walk over to the sink next to me. I looked over to see Barrie Clark! I said “Oh, no! Not again!” And Barrie replied, “Oh, they didn’t tell you?”

Haha. Yes, the same Barrie Clark who took over my time slot many years earlier at CKNW was about to take over my time slot at CJOR. I laughed, he laughed, and we both went to see George, the GM. He said he wanted to move me to the 3pm to 6pm afternoon show. It would be a lot more fun than the very serious programming expected in the morning slot. I agreed and made the move. It didn’t last long though, as 6 months later management decided to change the format of the whole station, from all talk to all music. Yes, I had gone full circle, and Jack Kyle’s words of wisdom came back to haunt me. “It’s ok, it’ll happen to you one day.” 

Sure, Jack but twice? By the same guy? 

​Till next week...
Wayne

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