radio memories

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radio memories

Postby radio knob » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:38 pm

Not sure if my post belongs here, but my thoughts on just being a listener in the old days. Old for me now.

What a great site, hats off to the curators and industry people who are keeping the history
alive. I've lurked a few times when something in the news happens and now decided to put a few thoughts into the mix.

I love radio, since a very early age and my first jelly colour radio shack transistor I can't go to sleep without it, never thought about being anything but a consumer
of radio. I guess now I could become my own radio station if I wanted to just listen to myself talk.
My mum used to say there is only one thing free in the world - the sun. I think radio (batteries not included) is a close second,
at least radio pre-internet days. Vancouver was the market I grew up in the 70's and 80's. Great memories.
Canucks radio with Jim Robson, intermissions with Big Al - when the team stunk he's talk up another sport, when could that happen today?
Down(Dean) Hill, (TDM) Tedium shlock rock stuff on CFOX, Pat Burns smoky voice on CJOR, the Sportstalk wars, Cullens old radio dramas, I
think I remember he broadcast for a time from a mall in BBY - yes?
CISL we called it Senile, I could pick up radio from sanfrancisco on a good night and listen to a ball game, hook the stereo up with the TV cable
you get even more choices? WOW. I remember checking out CO-OP vancouver one day - think it was called Pigeon square?
What a scene - inside and out. And the cool factor of listening to CITR and hearing all the music corporate radio wasn't allowed to play.

I moved away in '91 to what now is a Pattison/Vista market. I became a CBC listener. I learned after summer road trip across canada
a few years later that our stations weren't unique at all, they had the same name and jingles and bumper stickers we had at home.
How cheesy was that they just copied us? Little did I know it was the begining of the end. Beige was in. The hard drive was going to rule.
I was always a dial changer, now it just lands more often to CBC. This past summer I had alot of outside work that meant full days of radio
listening. Low tech radio. It's immediate, it's today, it's just there. Music side is just white bread and bologna after a few hours however.
Time to insert the USB stick for a while or back to CBC. The older demo station had just broken Roxy Roller as a new cancon hit (I assume)
so it was in heavy 2x daily rotation, the younger demo station had a BTO song on daily playlist. I thought both were 30+ years old
but who's counting.... except for the CRTC I guess.

I'll always be a consumer of free radio. Hopefully there will always be free radio. Maybe free market radio will be the next step....
Like Uber for the airwaves.
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Re: radio memories

Postby The Unknown Copywriter » Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:10 pm

Jack Cullen did (taped?) his show, at least for a while anyway, from the back of a record store in Brentwood.

Guessing very early 70's. Can't recall the name of the store.

Was able to watch him through the glass a few times on a Thursday or Friday night in my younger days...
T.U.C.

"The present day composer refuses to die!"
Edgard Varese

"Kill ugly radio."
Frank Zappa
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Re: radio memories

Postby radiofan » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:13 pm

For much of the 70's, Jack did his show live nightly from the back of JACK CULLEN MUSIC in Burnaby's Brentwood Mall.

In the late 70's, the stores closed. In addition to Brentwood, there was one at Guildford in Surrey and one at Kingsgate Mall (Broadway & Kingsway). Jack had to find new digs for his studio and record collection.
He moved to the Parkcrest Mall, about a mile east of Brentwood. From there, Jack did some live shows, but most were taped during the daylight hours. The location was much smaller than Brentwood or the old
Howe Street Social Club downtown, so there really wasn't room for the regulars to stop by and party with Jack as he did his show.

In the mid 1980's, Jack's studio and collection moved to McBride Plaza in New Westminster (across the parking lot from CKNW's main studios). There was no broadcast lines installed there, so Jack's shows
were then 100% pre-recorded. Likewise with his final location on Clipper Street in Coquitlam after CKNW moved to the TD Tower.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: radio memories

Postby gwp » Thu Dec 01, 2016 3:51 pm

radio knob wrote:I'll always be a consumer of free radio. Hopefully there will always be free radio. Maybe free market radio will be the next step....
Like Uber for the airwaves.


Like Freedom ... Radio never has been free and never will be free!
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Re: radio memories

Postby jon » Sat Dec 03, 2016 2:19 pm

gwp wrote:
radio knob wrote:I'll always be a consumer of free radio. Hopefully there will always be free radio. Maybe free market radio will be the next step....
Like Uber for the airwaves.


Like Freedom ... Radio never has been free and never will be free!

The subject of Free Services has being getting a lot more attention lately. Most notably in a recent Consumer Reports special report on web sites where you pay for their services by giving them your personal data, such as Facebook.

Listeners and viewers pay for "free" commercial radio and TV by allowing their eyeballs and eardrums to be rented by anyone who will pay for an ad to be aired. Free web sites that make money have traditionally used the same approach.

Meanwhile, going all the way back to at least the 1970s, some Magazines offered free subscriptions to anyone who qualified as of interest to their advertisers, if the qualified individual filled out a long form of information, either personal or corporate information. Questions might be "When do you (personally or the company you work for) plan to buy a new (specified service or piece of equipment)?"

This information was sold by the magazine in two ways:
  1. As overall numbers to entice Advertisers; and
  2. As specific Leads to interested Sales folks at Advertisers
There were even middle men who bought this information from all the magazines in a specific industry, put it all together, and resold it.

Facebook uses the same concept, but less openly, by analyzing both your behaviour and your content on Facebook.

In both cases, you are paying for the magazine or access to the web site with your "personal data".
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