Roger Ashby courted on air by rival station

Radio News from Ontario

Roger Ashby courted on air by rival station

Postby paterson » Wed Oct 31, 2018 9:12 pm

Roger Ashby announced his retirement from Chum 104.5 last week. This week AM 740 Zoomer radio Toronto started running promos on air....
"Zoomer Radio, the future home of Roger Ashby..we hope! Come on Roger, you love the zoomer hits..."

Roger Ashby, with over 50 years on air and 49 of them at chum (am and fm) retires on December 5th. For decades Roger anchored the number one morning show in Toronto with Marilyn Denis along with Rick Hodge (later years Daryl Lamb). The last show will have a live audience with special guests and old airchecks from Ashby's career. The show will be broadcast from the Sheraton Hotel Ballroom.

I know Ashby is not well known out west but he is one of the greats in top 40 radio with an amazing "Ron Maclean" memory and knowledge of top 40 music and trivia. Interesting in the various tv and radio interviews with Ashby last week, he mentioned a few times that local radio will always survive, as long as it stays local.

Met Ashby twice, once at a college forum on radio, back in the days when AM was no longer cool and everyone over 17 listened to FM. A college student asked Roger very condescendingly if he was tired playing the same AM top 40 junk everyday? Ashby smiled and said, does a carpenter get tired of hammering nails everyday?

Back in 1980 a radio friend of mine from BC was visiting me in London. Dan Bonk had never been to Toronto before so we drove off for a couple of days and I showed Dan some of the sites. We dropped into chum unannounced and asked the receptionist if we could have a tour of the station. Out comes Roger Ashby and gave us a tour of 1050 chum and chum-fm.

My friend had an aircheck with him and Roger said he would be more than pleased to give it a listen and a critique. Ashby spent 40 minutes going through the aircheck break by break and giving Dan an honest evaluation of the tape. He was complimentary and asked my friend to stay in touch.

Classy and nice guy, and I hope if he doesn't land at AM 740, he will do a syndicated version of the "Sunday Morning Oldies" show.

A career that began in 1968, at CFCA in Kitchener, then briefly to CKOC Hamilton and finally 1050 chum and chum fm Toronto.

All the best in retirement Mr. Ashby.
paterson
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