Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

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Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby jon » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:03 am

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With the upcoming celebration of CFRN-TV's 60th anniversary, and the arrival of television in Edmonton, I thought it made sense to turn things around and look at the Last Day of Radio before Television arrived.

The schedule begins at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. At 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, CFRN-TV signed on.

Since it seems unlikely that there were any major schedule changes this quickly after television first signed on in Edmonton, I've also include the full Monday schedule.

As well as a lot of network programming, much of it OTR (Old Time Radio) classics, you can also see some of the Radio Names that were then local Edmonton personalities. Here are a few that I caught: Keith Rich, Stu Davis, Curley Gurlock, Bob McGavin, George Payne. The one local name that I didn't recognize was CKUA's morning man, Al Burton.

I'm assuming that the listing for Bill Good (Sr.) late Saturday night on CBC is networked out of Vancouver.

And, by the way, before you pass by "Rawhide" at 7:00 pm on Monday on CBC, thinking it was the radio predecessor of the TV series of just a few years later: that was Max Ferguson's show. A few years later, when TV had done its damage to radio ratings, it would become, with the possible exception of play-by-play sports coverage, CBC Radio's most listened to program.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby Toomas Losin » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:00 am

October 1954, The Shadow (CJDC Monday night) was midway through its last season. It would be eight more years before the cancellation of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, and Suspense would bring the OTR era to a close.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby jon » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:58 am

Finally had time to check it out: "Steve's Place" late nights on CJCA was Steve Woodman, who would later run his show with the same title at CKWX.

Toomas' mention of OTR got me curious about network affiliation. CBXA (low power Edmonton) and CBX (high power Lacombe) were, of course, CBC-owned. CJCA was a "CBC Trans-Canada supplementary B affiliate". CFRN was a "basic CBC Dominion affiliate". Until 1962, CBC had two radio networks: Trans-Canada and Dominion networks.

The last mention of CBC affiliation that I could find for CKUA was in 1940 when they carried some or all of the CBC programs that CJCA did not air, but only those without embedded advertising, the so-called CBC Sustaining programming.

CHFA was part of the CBC French Radio Network.

Which means that, in 1954, CHED was the only radio station in Edmonton that never had any affiliation with the CBC (other than with the CBC Board of Governors, which licensed the station).

For the non-Edmonton stations listed, CFGP was a CBC Trans-Canada network affiliate, as was CJDC.

Speaking of CJDC, sorry for the clipping of the right of their listing, but that was the way the page was scanned to microfilm.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby dogfish35 » Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:29 am

"Squeaky" on Sunday Morning on CJCA was "The Squeaky Club". It was sponsored by the Edmonton Milk Producers Association. If I remember correctly, Squeaky The Milk Elf was played by Steve Woodman. The show was hosted by "Uncle Dudley", who was Andy Philip. I had my Squeaky Club membership card for many years after the show went off the air, but alas it eventually went missing.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby ronrob » Tue Sep 23, 2014 8:47 am

Isn't it fascinating that the Journal included the local stations in both Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek.

I can't imagine the Vancouver Sun of that era listing either CHUB Nanaimo, or CJVI or CKDA Victoria. Any out-of-town stations in the Sun's radio grid would be the major network affiliates in Seattle.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby radiofan » Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:12 am

ronrob wrote:Isn't it fascinating that the Journal included the local stations in both Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek.

I can't imagine the Vancouver Sun of that era listing either CHUB Nanaimo, or CJVI or CKDA Victoria. Any out-of-town stations in the Sun's radio grid would be the major network affiliates in Seattle.


I'd think they were included, as The Journal was "Central-Northern" Alberta's newspaper.

The Vancouver Sun listings in the mid 1950's did include CHUB from Nanaimo (which was owned by The Sun). I guess they figured the Times Colonist could supply Victoria listeners the local schedules.
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Re: Edmonton's Last Radio-Only Day (1954)

Postby jon » Tue Sep 23, 2014 12:07 pm

I was trying to create a parallel "Vancouver's Last Radio-Only Day" when I noticed that, in 1950, the Vancouver Sun listed CHUB separately, below the "grid", along with KING-TV.

The grid itself was, L-R, CJOR, KIRO/KNX listed together as CBS, KJR/KGO/KVO as ABC, CKWX, KOMO/KNBC as NBC, CBR, CKNW and CKMO.

KVO was short for KVOS, then the AM call letters for KGMI in Bellingham. KNBC, in the issue I was looking at, was mislisted as 650 KHz, and switched to the current KNBR call letters in 1962. CBR later switched call letters to CBU. And CKMO became CFUN.

By the way, I gave up on the Last Radio-Only Day for Vancouver as it was much more of a gradual process as KING bought Channel 5, switched call letters and increased power over the years. That and the fact that there are a lot of missing Sun issues for that period in the sources that I generally use.
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