Bill Hughes, former program director with CKNW radio, with the original ‘roving’ microphone he used to interview bus passengers disembarking at the Royal Towers Hotel, which used to also serve as a Greyhound terminal. The mic was presented to him in honour of his 15,000th broadcast.
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
By Grant Granger - New Westminster News Leader
Published: June 16, 2011 12:00 PM
Updated: June 16, 2011 4:51 PM
Typhoon Freda tore up the west coast of North America in October 1962 leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. It was a natural disaster that was a blessing for New Westminster’s radio station, CKNW.
Although it had been broadcasting from two locations on Columbia Street for 18 years, it was not the top station in the market. Freda changed that.
Her huge winds knocked every radio station north of California off the air as she headed up the coast. Except for NW. Just a few weeks before, the station had bought a power unit from the air force that allowed its transmitter to keep on beaming its signal.
“Our radio station became the No. 1 station for emergencies and it never looked back,” says Bill Hughes, who was born and raised in New Westminster and was the station’s general manager and president.
New West resident and former NW newscaster John Ashbridge was working in Victoria at the time.
“As I listened, stations progressively were kicked off the air as it moved up the coast, but CKNW kept broadcasting,” recalls Ashbridge. “It’s been proven time after time that when a station is put out of operation during an emergency the public rarely goes back to the one they listened to before.”
First with the news
CKNW started as a little cowboy station on the second floor of the Windsor Hotel in New West on Aug. 15, 1944. Under the leadership of owner Bill Rea, though, it became the powerhouse of the Lower Mainland airwaves hitting opposing stations like a typhoon with innovation after innovation.
It was the first in the area to air hourly newscasts, and then eventually every half hour.
“In those days the CBC and lots of other outlets had about five newscasts a day. NW really pioneered the emphasis on hourly news,” says Hughes, whose first job at the station was in the newsroom starting in 1946. “Things were happening almost hourly in the world. The thirst for news was really paramount.”
In 1947, NW became the first to broadcast 24 hours a day. That decision wasn’t long in the making.
“Everybody thought we must have discussed that move for weeks, but it took about a minute to decide it after we found dynamite under our tower in Queensborough,” says Hughes, who received an honorary fellowship from Douglas College earlier this month.
To ensure the transmitter’s safety, Rea assigned a disc jockey to broadcast all night from the transmitter site. “Everything was really decided on the moment whereas everyone else contemplated for a long time,” says Hughes. “NW made a lot of mistakes, but it moved and made things happen. We also had great people.”
During that time, NW was housed in the Swanrite Building, which stood where the Columbia Street SkyTrain station is now. It burned down in 1954, but it was rebuilt and NW stayed there until it moved to a former Safeway store building at McBride Boulevard and Eighth Avenue in 1969.
First in the ratings
It was a heady era for CKNW and New Westminster. The station developed personalities, and stole the occasional one or two from other stations. Bob Hutton ruled the morning drive airwaves in Greater Vancouver from 1955 to 1973. He was a tough act to follow, but Brian (Frosty) Forst continued to dominate the ratings right up until he retired in 2005.
Other disc jockey personalities included Norm Grohmann, Rick Honey, Wayne Cox and Jack Cullen, whose Owl Prowl every evening dominated the ratings. Cullen had remarkable connections in the entertainment world and remarkable collections of albums and old-time radio shows.
“These people were top performers. Legends in their own time,” says Ashbridge.
The station’s evolution moved more and more to talk, but not away from personality. Jack Webster, followed by the likes of Gary Bannerman, Rafe Mair and Art Finley, elevated Vancouver talk radio to levels it had never reached before, or since.
The sports department was full of hiss and vinegar, too. For decades sports director Al Davidson alienated every team in town, but everyone tuned in to what he had to say. “Al was larger than life,” says Ashbridge.
Once the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL, NW chased its radio rights and brought over Jim Robson to do the play-by-play before eventually giving way to Jim Hughson and John Shorthouse. The station even bought the team and Hughes was its president for a while. New Westminster native Jim Cox, who worked his whole career at NW, did the B.C. Lions play-by-play.
Right place, time
The station’s backbone, though, was the newsroom headed up by Warren Barker. With him at the helm, CKNW became far and away the top dog—as CKNW billed itself—not only in the ratings but in the news game. No one came close to touching the resourcefulness of the likes of George Garrett, John McKitrick, Maury Hesketh, Carl Waiz, Jack Kyle and Ashbridge, to name just a handful.
“You were working with the best and learning from the best. Warren led by example. He was the hardest worker there. He wouldn’t ask someone to do something he wouldn’t do, and he wouldn’t ask them to do some of the things he was willing to do,” says Ashbridge, who started at NW in 1965. “He was certainly a great influence and inspiration.”
After 50 years in the business, Hughes retired his microphone in 1994. Not bad for a guy whose dream when he started was to be a booth announcer.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was in the right place at the right time,” says Hughes. “We’re really living in a different age. Newspapers have gone through a real bloodletting, radio and TV, too. The Internet has changed everything.”
Ashbridge is retired from NW but hasn’t put away the microphone. His mellifluous tones can still be heard announcing goals and more at Canucks games and he also does Crimestoppers public service spots.
“I look back at it and I don’t make comparisons. I was there in the good times. In fact I’m proud to say I had a hand in the good times.”
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vanc ... 17614.html
