CKUA Celebrates 80th Birthday

[Glen Livingstone]

Fri, November 23, 2007

Don't touch that radio dial :CKUA on air for 80 years

By JUSTIN BELL, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

Jack Hagerman moves through CKUA's studios, the floorboards creeking with the nobility that comes with a century-old building. The halls are a winding rabbit warren of radio history, every corner crammed with old records, CDs, LPs and EPs. A true institution in the radio world, CKUA is doing what few other stations ever could - celebrate its 80th anniversary.

Hagerman, who goes by the on-air monicker of John Worthington (picked up after filling in for a union job while in management), has seen it all at the station. And its story can be seen through the progression of the province.

Founded in 1927 at the University of Alberta (hence the UA call sign), CKUA allowed the University's Faculty of Extension to broadcast educational talks easily throughout the province. Music programming quickly followed and the station grew in prominence in the broadcast world.

It was brought into Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) in 1945 shortly after the death of William "Bible Bill" Aberhart, a radio man himself, while his Social Credit party was holding on to the reigns of power. Hagerman arrived at the station four years later, a wide-eyed prairie boy coming from Saskatoon.

"It was a sea change when I came here," says Hagerman while sitting behind a mixing board once used by pianist Glenn Gould. "The station I came from in Saskatoon was a quite a bit like WKRP."

At his various posts throughout the years, from announcer in 1949, to chief announcer, program director, station manager and his "retirement" 25 years ago, Hagerman has watched the station pick up transmitters across the province, expand its influence and become a major innovator in the radio and music scene.

With his long history at the station, it's fitting Hagerman was selected to host the 80th anniversary celebrations, happening tonight at the Myer Horowitz Theatre on the University of Alberta campus.

The evening will feature recreations of radio shows from the past -- George Lake will bring to life his Hawaiian Sunset program from the 50s -- readings from Marylu Walters' CKUA: Radio Worth Fighting For and music from the CKUA All-Star Hummers, Strummers and Tinklers. Also being celebrated is Worthington's CD project The Old Disc Jockey -- Restored.

Hagerman insists many have been responsible for the station's success, listing off other announcers who have made CKUA what it is.

"When Tony (Dillon Davis) came here, he was on Saturday night," says Hagerman. "He started to play an occasional underground rock record, which had never been heard at that time. But in all of Alberta, really, it was startling to hear this stuff, and quite intriguing to a lot of people. It wasn't long before other stations in town started to catch on."

It was that pioneering attitude, according to Hagerman, as well as the station's connection to it's founding principles, that has kept it in the hearts of so many Albertans.

"We stayed close to our roots in the idea that we were not intended to be a popular outlet to sell lots of airtime. We were intended to be educational," he says.

The station hasn't always been on such solid footing. When Ralph Klein was in the process of de-regulating industries and selling off the province's corporate assets, the station was cut loose in 1995.

The doors were shuttered in 1997 after CKUA was put in the hands of a government-appointed board. But a public outcry led by local newspapers and other media outlets, a letter-writing blitz to the provincial government (Public Affairs Minister Iris Evans couldn't enter her office there were so many) and an unprecedented $1 million fundraising campaign over the span of two weeks brought the station back.

But CKUA staff and supporters are looking forward as much as they are looking back. It's now, as it has been, "a commercial station without the commercials," which means the station has to raise money through other means, and their annual fund drives bring in about a million dollars a year, satisfying about 60% of the budget.

"If we don't respect our listeners to the extreme, if we aren't relevant to our listeners, they just don't give us the money," says current CKUA general manager Ken Regan. "They appreciate the product."

It's that sense of responsibility that seems to drive the staff and volunteers at CKUA to keep going. The station has seen huge upheavals in the province in the last 80 years and plans to be around to see even more. Regan says they are planning five, 10 and 15 years down the road.

"I think there's no question there's a lot of pride among people who work at CKUA. That's no small thing, particularly in media, to last 80 years."

Courtesy Edmonton Sun

[jon]

Tickets are available at the door for tonight's event, as they have not yet sold out.