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CJVI History & Stuff


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#1 AllseeingEye

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 06:38 PM

I wasn't intending to start a new topic but a quick search of VV revealed somewhat surprisingly no dedicated CJVI thread. Interesting considering with roots beginning in 1923 I believe it is the oldest radio station in the city.

 

Regardless one of things I do enjoy about the interweb, and local FB groups especially, is how on occasion you can be (pleasantly) caught off guard when something is posted that is directly related to your family.

 

So it was tonight when the "Old Victoria" group posted this beauty of the CJVI announcing lineup from 1960, including Mr ASE senior bottom row second from the right.

 

He spent 22 years in radio and TV and I thought I either had copies of or at least had seen any PR-related material featuring him. Wrong! Amusing thing here IMO is the tag line "The Happy Sound", lol. Good grief that sounds like Crooner Central. Then again this was Victoria in 1960. Not surprisingly dad and Joe Easingwood are by far the two youngest bucks in this lineup. Joe would have been 22 and dad was 26.

 

An interesting sideline is Lundy Sanderson pictured second from the right, top row. Any graduate of BCIT's excellent broadcast journalism school in the last 55+ years, which includes a huge number of radio and TV personalities very well known to most folks on this forum, have principally Lundy to thank as he was one of the main driving forces behind launching that program in the mid-60's.

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#2 Mike K.

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 06:57 PM

Easingwood and “household problems,” classic.
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#3 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 07:08 PM

"Salute To Duncan"...oh yeah, I'll be setting the DVR for that program.



#4 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 07:13 PM

Easingwood's 22 going on 54. 

 

I take it anything remotely resembling rock n' roll was not on CJVI's playlist.



#5 AllseeingEye

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 07:46 PM

Easingwood's 22 going on 54. 

 

I take it anything remotely resembling rock n' roll was not on CJVI's playlist.

 

No the only station on the west coast at that time promoting "rock n roll" was CFUN which kicked off that format in the fall of 1959 under "Big Daddy" Dave McCormack. Even CKLG didn't formally join the 'rock' party until 1964, playing up to that time what they termed more "middle of road" fare for their toney (primarily) North Vancouver listeners (how many people knew that the LG stood for "Lions Gate?").

 

By 1960 'VI was already well into middle age as a radio station and as you can see from the images above the average age of that group, minus the two youngsters, was probably 50 years old.

 

To illustrate just how middle 20th century the prevailing thinking was one day I will post the notes for the CJVI on-air announcers as 'suggested' to them by station management, from a meeting of Operations and Sales staff in 1958. It's quite the revealing read - very 1950's thinking and the commentary therein would most certainly *not* fly today, lol. I'll probably have to redact a paragraph or two....



#6 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 08:07 PM

Overwhelmingly White, as well. Think about some of the amazing music from 1960. Elvis was in the army, rock was fading but you had Miles, Coltrane, Duke, Ella, Satchmo, Canada's own Oscar Peterson--how many of them were played on CJVI? And of course it was always handy to have a woman on board for any fluff stories.



#7 AllseeingEye

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 09:05 PM

Overwhelmingly White, as well. Think about some of the amazing music from 1960. Elvis was in the army, rock was fading but you had Miles, Coltrane, Duke, Ella, Satchmo, Canada's own Oscar Peterson--how many of them were played on CJVI? And of course it was always handy to have a woman on board for any fluff stories.

 

How many of those artists were played anywhere really, other than perhaps in Toronto and Montreal in this country, and the big US markets in California and (perhaps) the eastern US? 

 

Peruse the most popular songs of the day in this (BC) market - the famous CFUN "Hi 40", hand cataloged mind you, by the biggest DJ in BC by very a long shot, that being the aforementioned Dave McCormick - and you won't find any Ella, Coltrane or Oscar Peterson on his play lists either, which weren't tabulated based on fancy marketing metrics but as Big Daddy himself once said "but by what the fans called in and told us to play!".

 

Lastly bear in mind CFUN in 1960 was the "hippest" of stations west of Toronto in those days; 'VI couldn't (and didn't in any event given the different market demographics in Victoria), try to compete on the "Cool" scale with CFUN, but then nor did any other station at the time.

 

CKLG was still playing syrupy middle of the road stuff and the original Vancouver rock station, CKWX, had by 1960 been surpassed by CFUN thanks largely to McCormick and his "Swinging Men at 1410" crew of young music-savvy DJ's, which nevertheless overwhelmingly played tunes by white artists and groups:

 

http://www.vancouver...0/c-fun1960.htm



#8 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 09:19 PM

Victoria seemed to be passed over by the hip music gods for many generations.

 

CKDA played some light rock and pop and Q100.3 came along in the late 80s but it wasn't until 2000 when Mel Cooper got a license for Extreme 107.3 when Victorians finally got a dedicated contemporary rock music station -- but even that only lasted a couple of years. 



#9 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 09:45 PM

This thread inspired me to look up the term "rock and roll" and I seem to have made a bit of a historic discovery: the earliest known mention of the term "rock and roll" in the musical sense:

 

On April 25, 1881, comedian John W. Morton of Morton's Minstrels performed a song entitled "Rock and Roll" as part of a repertoire of comic songs at a concert at the Theatre Royal in Victoria, British Columbia.


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#10 AllseeingEye

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 09:55 PM

/\......Agreed Rob but we must remember historically - even today - this was/is not a big market no matter what those who think Victoria "now looks like Vancouver!" may spout. It was that much smaller in 1960, and even into the 80's when I was at Uvic (there something like 280,000 people in the entire CRD at that time). In 1960 I don't think there were many more people in the region than in present day Nanaimo.

 

As such it was also very parochial, not terribly sophisticated and - lets be honest, viewed through the lens of the 1960's - it was also very white and quite conservative both politically and in general outlook. In our Gordon Head neighborhood, which I suspect looked much like any other neighborhood in Greater Victoria in 1970, the main common denominator was that we were all white and most folks voted for the Tories. I don't think we even knew anyone in a union at that time and in that place, lol.

 

Given those outlooks and our small population, considering the ethnic makeup and market demographics of radio listeners in a region with several stations but where a listener-ship of 30,000 was and is considered a big number (hell when I lived in Kitsilano we had more people than that in my broader neighborhood), its no surprise a hard rock format would be later in arriving to the region, given I think it was a fair assumption that older generally white audiences in the 1960's and 70's were much more apt to prefer 'golden oldies' or 'easy listening' and, later, talk radio, which really flourished in the 80's and 90's. 

 

By the time the Q and especially Cooper got his license the region had grown sufficiently and moreover diversified sufficiently, that a pure rock format could stand on its own from a profitability, i.e. listening audience, standpoint. As my Vancouver (ex-CFUN and CKNW DJ) buddy Tom Jeffries is fond of saying "Its always all about the numbers man....always!"


Edited by AllseeingEye, 29 October 2020 - 09:55 PM.


#11 Rob Randall

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Posted 29 October 2020 - 10:17 PM

It makes you wonder how local teens satisfied their hunger for rock during the 50s and 60s. For some reason even pirate radio didn't seem to take hold here like it did in the UK and southern US.

 

I don't think any local station had such a variety of formats as CJVI. I remember it as a country station, then an all-sports station. I think it was also all-talk and pop oldies during my time. 



#12 Sparky

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Posted 30 October 2020 - 10:16 AM

^ This is one of my favourite stories of pirate radio. I bumped into Rob McAdams a couple of years back at a charity golf tournament and he was delighted that I still remember watching the DJ in the window of a shoe store on Yates next to the Odeon. 

 

You are correct it did not "take hold" here as the Canadian Radio Police shut them down. 

 

What a great idea though broadcasting from the US via long distance telephone. 

 

https://livevictoria...ce/1093778/view



#13 Rob Randall

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Posted 30 October 2020 - 10:27 AM

The radio police could only shut down pirates within their own borders. But what if some entrepreneur set up a transmitter on a San Juan island? I bet for Victoria teens "the 60s" would have gotten a head start. 



#14 LJ

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Posted 30 October 2020 - 07:54 PM

It makes you wonder how local teens satisfied their hunger for rock during the 50s and 60s. For some reason even pirate radio didn't seem to take hold here like it did in the UK and southern US.

 

When you grew up in the interior of the province you had no option of pirate radio. Our local radio station played 1 hour of what they thought was popular music at 7 in the evening. Right before "This is Holland calling" radio show.


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