Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 1
The Selkirk collection.
00:00:07 Speaker 1
Of The Pioneers of Selkirk communications.
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The following interview with Burt Cairns with recorded in January 1978 by **** Meisner.
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I’m at the Palacio Hotel in Calgary. It’s Friday, January 27th.
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And my guest this morning is for Karen’s.
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Bert I.
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Came into Calgary to see you under the impression that you had.
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Retired only to have you telling me that you’re busier now than you ever have been in your life.
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Well, that may be a slight overstatement, but I I am very.
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Well, that’s tell me about what?
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You’re up to.
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Well, I set up about 12 years ago consulting business and.
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For a while it was running along the predicted lines.
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I was doing consulting work for a Calgary station.
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I was doing consulting work for.
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A couple of couple of British Columbia stations.
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And then I got the idea that.
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There might be some broadcast dollars.
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We weren’t getting coming out of the provincial government.
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I chatted with the stations in Alberta and make a Long story short.
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They agreed to give it a try and so.
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I started out trying to develop new government business for radio and television and the.
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It has come to.
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The point now where we’ve shown a very great increase in in provincial government business, certainly not all of it.
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As a result of my efforts, but also certainly some of it, and it has grown to the point where it occupies me pretty well full time.
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It must have improved the efficiency for the.
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Government the various government offices and placing their advertising.
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Well, I believe it has.
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Yes, I can.
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I can function for the Government Department for its advertising agency or for the branch that we have here in Alberta, the the Bureau of Public.
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Affairs, which directs.
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About 90% of the governments advertising.
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Prior to your.
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Leaving a direct involvement with.
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What is now Silker holdings?
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You were with Cfac in Calgary latterly.
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Or were you on the Rep side of the business?
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The my period on the Rep side of the business with all Canada was sort of sandwiched in between my radio which started in Edmonton with what was then CFTP.
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And then.
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I think you said that was about.
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1934 was 34. Yes, 110. A person sold that.
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To take over the operation of the journal Station there CJC a I went with them to CJC A and then in 37.
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They moved me down to Toronto to what was then known as United Broadcast Sales eventually became all Canada as we know it today.
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So I spent a few years in the Rep business there.
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About a year and a half to two years as radio director for Machim advertising in Toronto.
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And incidentally, as a matter of interest, it was while I was at mckimm’s that Mckimm’s client purity flower.
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Working through me, of course.
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Put Mark Kenney on his first commercial national broadcast for a period.
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That’s everything.
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Yeah, that was.
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That’s everything off.
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First thing I spoke to Mark and Norma County and Vancouver last week.
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Yeah, I haven’t seen them for quite a while.
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I saw them in New Westminster a couple.
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Of years ago, but.
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I’m not suggest this is not Mark’s first network broadcast, but it was his first commercial big commercial network coast to coast affair.
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I left Mckimson 42 to return to.
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Actually, the return to all Canada and was moved to Calgary where I took over the management of radio station CSFAC.
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And I stayed there for 18 years as manager.
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Not much of a job.
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Jumper wire.
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Not when I landed in one.
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That I liked as much as cfac that was a.
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Very, very, very nice bunch of people and a great station.
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And then in 60, I went over to Channel 2 television here in Calgary as a general manager and I stayed there for six years.
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Who were some of the people who were?
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With you during that sojourn, that cfac.
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Well, there’s some that are now.
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We’ll drawing to the close of their active work with Selkirk.
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I guess George Brown comes to mind immediately.
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He’s, of course, down in Lethbridge now.
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Don Hartford, who now?
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President, Vice President, or whatever it is of CFRB in Toronto and has been for.
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Some years President, you know.
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That brilliantly.
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Pat freeman?
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I was thinking of Pat.
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Went to the CAB from CFC and then to what was the agency was football and building.
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What’s going on below?
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That’s right, yeah.
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Oh dear, who else?
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Larry Haywood, who’s still very active now with radio sales Bureau.
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He was our news director for a number of years.
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Earl Connor was our chief engineer.
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And he did a great deal of engineering counseling for the whole Taylor Pearson Carson Group of stations.
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I was very dismayed when I came into Calgary yesterday.
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Hoping to see Earl to find that he’s now living in Victoria and I had just come from Victoria.
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Yes, yes.
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This is a bad.
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Time and that was too bad Earl’s been out there since he retired.
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And I can’t.
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I really should have thought about this before talking to you, because it’s hard suddenly to recall names, but those are a few that come to mind quickly and readily.
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Ohh, these names, they come in.
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For during those years.
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Developed and became very active in local theater.
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Well, yes, my feeling as manager of the station was that certainly the senior personnel as many others as possible should take an active part in the life of the Community.
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And this manner of theatre was simply one phase of many community activities in which I participated.
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But I acted and directed in the number of plays here in Calgary, and indeed for a number of years was a governor of the Dominion Drama Festival.
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And at the end of all that time, they gave me a Canadian drama award, which hangs on the wall of my.
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Office reminds me of those days.
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Then I was active in the other.
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While the art scene, generally through the Calgary Allied Arts Council which?
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I was president of for two years and served on the board for two other years as well, for a total of four.
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That sort of Rd.
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heard on the arts in the city.
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Generally speaking, it’s turned down to the Calgary Regional Arts Foundation.
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And I was active in the Chamber of Commerce and was the Charter chairman of the advertising and Sales Bureau.
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Of Chamber of Commerce here in Calgary.
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I was 1949 when Gordon Love was the late Gordon love.
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Was president of the Chamber.
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Yes, yes, of course, yes.
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There was a man I had a tremendous amount of respect for, a solid citizen.
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Yes, I remember 1.
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Incident with Gordon Love after the formation of the CCTV network.
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At that time, and Gordon as an affiliate was the director.
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And representing Marconi’s interests for CFCF Montreal, I too, as a director. So we.
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Education to get to know each other fairly well, and the subject of unions in station.
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Became fairly hot and.
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Heavy in the east, particularly in.
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In Montreal and Toronto.
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I think perhaps in Ottawa.
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And you know what?
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A bluff direct.
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No nonsense kind of guy.
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Oh, yes, indeed.
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Gordon said.
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Well, won’t be any unions in my shop, he said.
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I just walked through the shop the other night.
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And I talked to everybody in the place.
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I said you join a Union, you’re fired.
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Yes, and Gordon can get away with this thing.
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Like that, you know.
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Everybody tried to point out to him that that just wasn’t the way it was done.
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Oh no.
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He said that’s going to be.
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And as a matter of fact, yeah.
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Down in Calgary.
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If anybody had had.
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Cared to do so, you know, they could bring action against them under the the Labor Act.
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You can’t say something.
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I know you got.
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Like that?
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But he did.
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He was very forthright and direct.
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I remember he got.
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Very annoyed with Mackenzie King about something.
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He and I were chatting about it and.
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I wish I could remember what the incident was because Gordon got quite furious about it, he said.
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And when that *** ** * ***** dies, I’m going to go to Ottawa.
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And **** on his grave.
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Tiny Elphick was.
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Was here before, before you.
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Oh yes, Tanya, I think was the manager that Taylor Pearson inherited at Cfac when they.
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Made the operating agreement with the SOUTHERNS to operate Cfac here and CJCC in it.
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And if my memory serves me, Tony was the manager at that time.
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He must have been, I guess, because between between that time and 1941, when I think.
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He went to Vancouver.
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He had spent some time in Winnipeg and in.
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Yes, it was in Edmonton where I first got to know tiny.
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Well, I was working then at CJC a when he came up from Calgary.
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I think it was from Calgary to take over the management of.
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So you’re right, Edmonton.
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Then before either Stuart Mackay or Rio Thompson, for example, or Norris Mackenzie.
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That’s right, Norris Mackenzie was still quite a young man when I was CFC all.
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It wasn’t.
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I helped give them shove into radio.
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Yeah, yeah.
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You had.
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An excellent opportunity and one which I’m.
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Sure you value.
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To get to know Harold Carson pretty well and as much as you were based in Calgary during the.
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Yeah, yeah.
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By the early formative days of Taylor person, Carson’s broadcasting interests.
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And of course, by the time I got here in 42, their interests had had.
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A good eight or nine years to.
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To develop through the early stages, but I think in the 18 years that I spent in.
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In Calgary at Cfac, or find your Harold died just a little before that, but I probably got to know Harold as well as anybody else in the business in the business way and in the.
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And outside of business too, because.
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I saw quite a lot of them and.
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Outside of office hours.
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Very interesting.
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Picture of Harold Carson is growing in my mind as I.
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Been exploring the memories of people like yourself.
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I knew Harold Carson, but I didn’t know him well.
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I was a junior in the organization and in Vancouver.
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And I would see him striding through the place or ambling through.
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On his periodic business.
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But I didn’t get to know him that well, but I’m getting to know him now.
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Very well.
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Through the eyes of people like yourself.
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And it’s unanimous in everybody’s mind.
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To whom I’ve spoken so far.
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That this was probably the giant of Canadian broadcasting.
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I don’t have any doubt about it, but you have to know him to realize this.
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He kept a very low profile.
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He would not turn up as a candidate for President of the although he could have had it anytime he wanted it very low profile.
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You could learn some very useful things from him.
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He expected the other people, he expected his managers and the staff of his stations to take the higher profile and to do the things in the community.
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He taught me that.
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And of course, I suppose I could have learned it from somebody else.
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But I did learn it from him that.
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When you’re considering a man who’s doing a.
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Job for you, you.
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Try to consider him bearing his weaknesses in mind.
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And his strengths.
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And you try to make the most of his strengths and put him in the place where his weaknesses will be minimized.
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He also taught me an extremely important lesson, which?
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I know some very senior companies and people.
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Won’t follow at all. And yet in my experience is invaluable. If a man wants to leave you to go to a job somewhere else and then 2-3 years later wants to come back, take him back. If you can as quick as you can, because you will find he is a much more valuable employee. He has been learning.
00:12:55 Speaker 3
At somebody else’s expense for a couple of years and one of the things he has learned is that he’s never had it so good as when he was working for you.
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I’ve seen this happen personally with not many, but several people and without fail.
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When the man came back to us, he was a much more reliable employee than when he.
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Left a hero’s judgment.
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Must have been very good in selection of senior people because.
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They stayed with.
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Them. Oh yes.
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Yes, he could inspire loyalty.
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And that, of course, is what?
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It takes from a leader of man.
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Captain of Industry, if you want to use a cliche.
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But a captain, he certainly was.
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Did you know Jim Taylor?
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Yes, I knew Jim, of course.
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And Hugh Pearson, I knew them before I knew Carson because I started work at in at the CFTP.
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Oh, I remember some beautiful.
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A little sort of post sign off parties in our studios in Edmonton.
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Jim used to participate in.
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Someone has described that partnership of Taylor Person and Carson has.
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Jim Taylor was the gambler.
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New person, was they?
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He wouldn’t like the expression bookkeeper, but the man who kept a.
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Finger on the excuse me.
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And Harold Carson was the entrepreneur, the operator who set himself.
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The man with the ideas, you know, that’s not not an unfair.
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Assessment of the three, they certainly complemented each.
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Other very nicely and.
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And when you think it all started simply because they wanted to sell.
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Some more batteries.
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For their automotive houses it.
00:14:49 Speaker 2
Curiously enough that that that story has been repeated in many places, as you know.
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Marconi started in the broadcasting business in Montreal.
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To sell radio receivers about which they knew a.
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Little at that time, in about 1918. Nineteen.
00:15:05 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:09 Speaker 2
The Murphy’s I guess in Saskatchewan we’re in the same bathroom situation.
00:15:12 Speaker 5
So he was doing the same thing as.
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Taylor Pearson.
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We’re doing here.
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Guess I remember. They’re.
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A big battery line, of course.
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In those days, their battery was what drove the the radio.
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The old bridges batteries that Taylor Birch needs to handle.
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Forgive little must the mercy handle the Saskatoon, then it doesn’t matter anyway.
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We had to have programs on the air selling Burgess batteries as we did.
00:15:39 Speaker 2
It seems that most people who became station owners.
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Started in the business.
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Not to be in the broadcasting business especially, but to achieve some other result as to count for selling batteries, the Richardsons in Winnipeg.
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I guess when into.
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What was then to see JRC and then Cjam and Moosejaw.
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Basically to enhance their.
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Involvement in.
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Grain trading? Yes, of course.
00:16:13 Speaker 3
And I think that was true at that time.
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In the early days of radio, there was the.
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The ulterior motive.
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No one, of course, could envisage what broadcasting would become.
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And of course, as of today, or indeed recent decades.
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The person who goes into broadcasting to operate or own a station is in it.
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For that reason.
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He’s not in it for any supplementary reason.
00:16:40 Speaker 2
No, there is.
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There’s a breed of.
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Of radio professionals, I guess today.
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Yeah, that didn’t exist at that time.
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When without precedent, you just went ahead and did whatever had to be.
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Done. day-to-day.
00:16:52 Speaker 3
That’s exactly right, yes.
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And if it turns out fine, you did it again.
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If it didn’t, you dropped it.
00:16:58 Speaker 3
Precisely right.
00:17:01 Speaker 2
But do you spend anytime in your?
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Quiet moments thinking about.
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The radio industry.
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In which you spend most of your time rather than television.
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And where it’s going and Oh yes.
00:17:17 Speaker 3
I’d be very insensitive.
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Sort of cloud if I didn’t think about it.
00:17:21 Speaker 3
Sometimes I’m not altogether happy with where it’s going at.
00:17:24 Speaker 3
I think we’re getting too many radio stations and of course I think the most tragic thing that’s happened to broadcast to radio.
00:17:30 Speaker 3
Has been the Canadian content.
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Rulings of the CRC.
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The result is that today.
00:17:37 Speaker 3
It’s hard to find a station that doesn’t sound like every other station.
00:17:40 Speaker 3
Yes, and.
00:17:44 Speaker 3
There was a time when radio listening was a real pleasure.
00:17:48 Speaker 3
Now you listen, I listen.
00:17:50 Speaker 3
And of course I’m reflecting my age and the fact that I’m a little set in my ways.
00:17:54 Speaker 3
Perhaps, but I listen to for news and sports and things like that.
00:17:57 Speaker 3
The musical content, most radio, most AM radio stations today is practically unbearable.
00:18:04 Speaker 2
Well, I’ve speculated with a few people to whom I’ve spoken.
00:18:06
OK.
00:18:10 Speaker 2
The kind of programming the radio seems to be doing today.
00:18:15 Speaker 2
And why radio is doing what they’re doing?
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There’s no question about the fact that they.
00:18:23 Speaker 2
That programs as we used to think of them, started to dwindle and finally, virtually vanished with the advent of television.
00:18:30 Speaker 3
Oh yes, no question about that and I see.
00:18:31 Speaker 3
Nothing wrong with that.
00:18:32 Speaker 2
There is, but then they weren’t replaced.
00:18:35 Speaker 3
The problem is.
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With that.
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Too many stations.
00:18:38 Speaker 3
Our program, too many radio stations are programming the same kind, generally of music.
00:18:43 Speaker 3
Now it is true that in a city such as this.
00:18:47 Speaker 3
Cfac says it’s a country and Western station.
00:18:50 Speaker 3
So which country?
00:18:51 Speaker 3
And Western and CXL says it’s the young adult Top 40.
00:18:56 Speaker 3
But there’s still a crossover as between country and Western music, because country and Western music will turn up in the Top 40 and get played on CK XL, and CFCN says it’s the middle of the road station.
00:19:07 Speaker 3
And so it’s getting some of that too, and it’s just too much of a muchness now, part of it affecting a lot of it is attributable to.
00:19:14 Speaker 3
The Canadian content ruling, which has required the stations to do certain things in the area of music to qualify and those certain things I think have been detrimental to the.
00:19:27 Speaker 3
To the program content.
00:19:29 Speaker 2
And the supply of that Canadian program content is limited to the point where all stations have to use the same Canadian content as far as.
00:19:36 Speaker 3
Yes, in part, that’s, yes, in part that’s true and that’s that’s certainly a major part of the problem.
00:19:37 Speaker 2
Music is concerned.
00:19:42 Speaker 3
I never could understand this Canadian content regulation, even in television.
00:19:47
If the.
00:19:48 Speaker 3
End result could have been achieved much more efficiently in other ways.
00:19:52 Speaker 2
Well, you know, in the magazine business.
00:19:57 Speaker 2
Magazine publishers seem to try to.
00:20:03 Speaker 2
A particular segment of the market and then go after it rather than trying to be all things to all people.
00:20:11 Speaker 2
Radio has tended, I think, to try to be all things.
00:20:18 Speaker 3
Well, mind you.
00:20:18 Speaker 2
And maybe that the markets like Calgary, for example, since we’re in Calgary at the moment.
00:20:24 Speaker 2
Are not large enough to support that purely segmented kind of program, and yet the end result is just that splitting the audience by the number of radio stations that are in the Community anyway.
00:20:36 Speaker 3
Well, I think.
00:20:37 Speaker 3
I think Calgary is big enough for it and I think they can properly target.
00:20:42 Speaker 3
An audience Cfac tries to do this.
00:20:45 Speaker 3
See you.
00:20:46 Speaker 3
Know they all do.
00:20:48 Speaker 3
And they’re all doing pretty.
00:20:50 Speaker 3
I think the radio market here that is the AM radio market here is is flourishing and the FM is beginning to come.
00:21:00 Speaker 3
We now have.
00:21:02 Speaker 3
The first.
00:21:04 Speaker 3
In Alberta, the ALL News FM stations would be another one in Edmonton in the course of.
00:21:08 Speaker 3
The next month, and that’s an interesting concept.
00:21:14 Speaker 2
Yes, it’s interesting.
00:21:16 Speaker 2
It’s I wonder if the markets are large enough for that higher specialized throttle maybe and maybe all may be although Montreal language split is another problem, but Toronto may be that outside Toronto?
00:21:19 Speaker 3
Well, this is the thing.
00:21:21 Speaker 3
You see stations.
00:21:29 Speaker 2
It’s going to be interesting to watch.
00:21:32 Speaker 3
Yeah, the proliferation of news stations is.
00:21:35 Speaker 3
I think you know how are they going to manage it.
00:21:37 Speaker 3
The FM station is in this market.
00:21:39 Speaker 3
Are fortunately associated with AM stations who can pick up the rap if necessary.
00:21:45 Speaker 3
This all news station is not, and it remains to be seen how it will do, but we sit here now in Calgary with five AM and six FM stations and that’s a lot of radio for a city of less than half a million.
00:21:58 Speaker 2
People, it is indeed.
00:22:02 Speaker 2
Burt, one of the people that.
00:22:05 Speaker 2
I was associated with you.
00:22:08 Speaker 2
In your long soldier in the Cfac was the late Pat Freeman.
00:22:16 Speaker 2
And Pat left Cfac to go to the cab.
00:22:21 Speaker 2
Working out of Ottawa or Toronto?
00:22:26 Speaker 2
What was?
00:22:27 Speaker 2
What was he doing at?
00:22:27 Speaker 3
That time, that’s whole history was.
00:22:31 Speaker 3
Cfac and on into the cab is an interesting when he was one of the real old timers here at Cfac, he was on staff when Tiny Elephant was was he was manager here.
00:22:40 Speaker 3
Oh yes.
00:22:44 Speaker 3
Pat was a very familiar voice on the networks out of Calgary in those days because in those days the CBC, then this, the Canadian Radio Commission was originating a lot of programs from places like.
00:22:55 Speaker 3
Calgary and Edmond.
00:22:57 Speaker 3
And I remember well sitting in them and hearing Pat announcing shows out of here with Yasha Galpern and his orchestra, and Rhapsody and rhythm with the Dixie Stewart.
00:23:07 Speaker 2
YMCA via CFC.
00:23:09 Speaker 3
Yes, CFC originating to the CBC network CRC network.
00:23:13 Speaker 3
In those days.
00:23:14 Speaker 3
And Rhapsody and rhythm with Helen, Warden and Dixie Stewart, who later became Dixie Botterell Norman for his wife.
00:23:20 Speaker 3
Anyway, pat.
00:23:21 Speaker 3
Two piano theme.
00:23:24 Speaker 3
Went from Cfac to the war, where he served as a major in the Intelligence Corps, and then came back to see FC after the war and to resume his duties as production manager.
00:23:35 Speaker 3
And then he went to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in what I would judge to be a sort of semi sales capacity.
00:23:42 Speaker 3
He was developing sales information and sales aids and sales presentations.
00:23:47 Speaker 3
That the industry could use he was really a little in advance of his time as a sort of a forerunner of what became eventually the radio shows.
00:23:53 Speaker 2
That’s really your sales growth, yes.
00:23:57 Speaker 3
And then, of course, he left.
00:23:57 Speaker 3
That to go to the agency.
00:24:02 Speaker 2
Bird it has struck me as distressing.
00:24:07 Speaker 2
In this project of.
00:24:10 Speaker 2
Traveling the country on the semi nostalgic.
00:24:17 Speaker 2
Basis talking to a lot of.
00:24:19 Speaker 2
Old friends and.
00:24:21 Speaker 2
Have broadcasters, many of whom I’ve known for a great many years.
00:24:26 Speaker 2
That one.
00:24:29 Speaker 2
People are making history.
00:24:30 Speaker 2
They seldom realize they’re making history.
00:24:35 Speaker 2
As we are right at this moment, it may not be important history, but.
00:24:39 Speaker 2
Immediately we finished talking and what we’ve said becomes history.
00:24:45 Speaker 2
And Canadians at large don’t seem to be a.
00:24:50 Speaker 2
Great diary keepers.
00:24:53 Speaker 2
So I find it.
00:24:54 Speaker 2
I am finding it distressing that so much of the.
00:24:58 Speaker 2
Of the story.
00:25:01 Speaker 2
Should have been preserved, of course, wasn’t.
00:25:05 Speaker 2
And is now hard to reconstruct.
00:25:07 Speaker 3
Yes, it’s very difficult and that I think you put your finger out, you said Canadian Spring Club diary keepers.
00:25:13 Speaker 3
They’re not good, not good record keepers either I.
00:25:16 Speaker 3
Recall at CCA and Edmonton for several years.
00:25:20 Speaker 3
As part of the promotion for the exhibition and stand.
00:25:24 Speaker 3
I interviewed a number of old timers.
00:25:26 Speaker 3
There come to Edmonton, you know, and Red River carts, things like that.
00:25:30 Speaker 2
Yes, yes.
00:25:32 Speaker 3
I would get their recollections and then I would put them in dramatized for them, and we produced them on the air, sponsored by the Indian exhibitionist Stampede.
00:25:40 Speaker 3
I’d give a small fortune to have those scripts.
00:25:43 Speaker 3
In hand, right?
00:25:44 Speaker 3
Now, Oh yes.
00:25:45 Speaker 3
My goodness, there was some interesting information there and it’s just gone down the drain.
00:25:50 Speaker 3
You don’t think of it at the time?
00:25:51 Speaker 3
What the hell?
00:25:51 Speaker 3
You’re too busy getting the script ready at all the year to think of saving it.
00:25:53 Speaker 2
That’s right.
00:25:56 Speaker 2
And it seems like the height of veganism, I suppose to most of us to be.
00:26:01 Speaker 2
Jotting down our daily achievements as though someone at some point in time is going to read our quotes letters.
00:26:10 Speaker 2
And be impressed with who we were and what we did.
00:26:14 Speaker 2
Guys don’t bother.
00:26:14 Speaker 3
We we don’t bother, but we if we did, we.
00:26:19 Speaker 3
Bigger than anybody is going to make much of it later.
00:26:21 Speaker 3
The problem, of course, particularly in radio and particularly in broadcasting, we have not.
00:26:27 Speaker 3
And not when I say we, I mean all the broadcasters kept any proper kind of record.
00:26:31 Speaker 3
There is no good history of radio in Canada.
00:26:36 Speaker 3
And I wish there were.
00:26:37 Speaker 2
I hope that I’ll be back here five years from now and that both you and I will have.
00:26:43 Speaker 2
Corrected that omission of keeping records.
00:26:49 Speaker 2
Because I think it’s important.
00:26:52 Speaker 3
Well, it’s important.
00:26:52 Speaker 2
Someone, someone has said you can’t tell where you are unless you know where.
00:26:55 Speaker 2
You’ve been. That’s right.
00:26:57 Speaker 3
And of course I have.
00:26:59 Speaker 3
That’s the.
00:27:00 Speaker 3
Position I find myself in now.
00:27:02 Speaker 3
It’s all where I’ve.
00:27:03 Speaker 3
Been and I should have started much earlier.
00:27:05 Speaker 3
It’s a little late.
00:27:06 Speaker 3
In life, to start die rising by.
00:27:08 Speaker 2
Activities is never true for coming down.
00:27:12 Speaker 2
I’ve enjoyed chatting with you and you.
00:27:15 Speaker 2
Filled in, still some more.
00:27:18 Speaker 2
What were gaps?
00:27:20 Speaker 2
In this story.
00:27:22 Speaker 3
Just a real a real pleasure, ****.
00:27:33 Speaker 5
Well, I came from Edmonton and I got into.
00:27:35 Speaker 5
The business.
00:27:37 Speaker 5
First of all, in 1929, at the University of Alberta or the Department of Extension.
00:27:44 Speaker 5
Did a series of broadcast over CKU A which station is still going strong and I did some student programming for them and some sports broadcasting.
00:27:55 Speaker 5
In 1934, when?
00:27:57 Speaker 5
Norman Red McMahon hired me.
00:28:00 Speaker 5
They thought they.
00:28:01 Speaker 5
Were hiring a salesman, but it turned out that I was better as an announcer.
00:28:09 Speaker 5
Well, that came a lot later.
00:28:13 Speaker 5
Yeah, announcing in production.
00:28:29 Speaker 5
Well, yeah, that was after they became all Canada. But an opportunity arose to go to Mckimm’s as radio director for their Toronto office, which in effect it was for their Canadian operation. And it was a good experience for me.
00:28:45 Speaker 5
Stayed there 18 months.
00:28:47 Speaker 4
To a teacher you made.
00:28:51 Speaker 4
The idea.
00:28:53
Need to help your.
00:28:54 Speaker 4
Mental back so.
00:28:58 Speaker 5
That, in fact, is what he did with me.
00:29:01 Speaker 5
On that particular thing, and.
00:29:04 Speaker 5
I appreciate it more than ever.
00:29:05 Speaker 5
I think the fact that.
00:29:07 Speaker 5
I could come back to work that I.
00:29:09 Speaker 5
Like very much.
00:29:11 Speaker 5
Having learned a lot.
00:29:14 Speaker 5
At somebody else’s expense.
00:29:17 Speaker 4
Well, I’ve, I’ve.
00:29:19 Speaker 4
Been trying to to learn those characters talking to people.
00:29:27 Speaker 4
What kind of hours did this?
00:29:33 Speaker 5
I don’t know how I described that.
00:29:34 Speaker 5
What would you say, Mary?
00:29:37 Speaker 6
Well, I don’t know.
00:29:37 Speaker 6
I wasn’t that close to him because I was at CFC here in Calgary and Tiny elfick, of course, was the manager.
00:29:44 Speaker 6
When I went in.
00:29:45 Speaker 6
And Harold would drop in quite frequently his hours.
00:29:49 Speaker 6
And not fixed and at that time he was mostly with the the tailor person and Carson Automotive House.
00:29:57 Speaker 5
See, they were more concerned.
00:29:58 Speaker 5
The reason they got their radio stations and I think normal verify this was to help them sell their batteries.
00:30:06 Speaker 5
For the battery powered and the end.
00:30:09 Speaker 5
Through the for the battery powered radios, which was all people had in those days.
00:30:13 Speaker 5
So as Mary says, the.
00:30:16 Speaker 5
Persons hours are not fixing work when work have to be done.
00:30:21 Speaker 4
Yeah, he is a was a big.
00:30:24 Speaker 5
Physically yes.
00:30:25
Have a lot.
00:30:25 Speaker 4
Of energy.
00:30:27 Speaker 5
Oh, I would say so.
00:30:27 Speaker 5
I wouldn’t do that.
00:30:32 Speaker 4
Oh, yeah, yeah, you mentioned.
00:30:39 Speaker 5
No, I didn’t know.
00:30:41 Speaker 6
Did Gordon. Henry Gordon? Yeah.
00:30:47 Speaker 7
Guy was after tiny.
00:30:49 Speaker 6
And then go ahead.
00:30:51 Speaker 6
That’s right.
00:30:53 Speaker 4
Guy Herbert.
00:30:55 Speaker 7
For a very short time.
00:30:58 Speaker 7
Or even Winnipeg.
00:31:04 Speaker 7
Yeah, we took over.
00:31:07 Speaker 7
Over the operation of CTY.
00:31:08 Speaker 5
From the sales department.
00:31:08 Speaker 7
Or just.
00:31:09 Speaker 7
Apparently the other sales departments came by.
00:31:13 Speaker 6
Well, Tiny moved out to Vancouver and that was when Guy became manager.
00:31:16 Speaker 6
Wasn’t that right?
00:31:20 Speaker 6
Yes, that’s right, yeah.
00:31:22 Speaker 4
And then I think you.
00:31:23 Speaker 4
Want to do anything that’s right, yes.
00:31:25
Right.
00:31:33 Speaker 4
Right.
00:31:38 Speaker 5
Well, yes.
00:31:39 Speaker 5
I didn’t really meet guy except very casually prior to.
00:31:44 Speaker 5
Is coming down to Toronto to take over the management of the Old Canada office there.
00:31:48 Speaker 5
I had known him, of course, at Cfac and CKY, but as I say very casually, you knew him a lot.
00:31:55 Speaker 6
Better because he was.
00:31:57 Speaker 6
He was the sales manager at CFC when I went in, tiny was the manager.
00:32:04 Speaker 4
Within the impression I.
00:32:05 Speaker 4
Get of all these men is whether there’s security, enormous amount.
00:32:10 Speaker 4
Of energy.
00:32:11 Speaker 4
And there they’re growing.
00:32:12 Speaker 4
By leaps and bounds.
00:32:15 Speaker 4
Years would be made in Brisbane.
00:32:22 Speaker 5
Well, I’m certain it was that, of course.
00:32:23 Speaker 5
It was a.
00:32:23 Speaker 5
New industry and as such, it had all the fascination of.
00:32:27 Speaker 5
Something quite new.
00:32:29 Speaker 5
And I think it particularly appealed to.
00:32:32 Speaker 5
To the younger man, I think that.
00:32:35 Speaker 5
Guy Herbert, who was probably one of the most senior men in terms of years.
00:32:40 Speaker 5
Had to waste many times.
00:32:41 Speaker 5
He’d had a.
00:32:42 Speaker 5
Chance to get into it earlier in life.
00:32:45 Speaker 5
But most of the rest of me, from tiny on down, were young men when it happened.
00:32:51 Speaker 7
And a good many of them came to the broadcast business for their first job, yes.
00:32:56 Speaker 7
And stayed with it.
00:33:00 Speaker 4
Right.
00:33:05 Speaker 4
Did he make it go?
00:33:08 Speaker 4
What do you say?
00:33:10 Speaker 4
What? What? What was the?
00:33:12 Speaker 4
Voting that they do take.
00:33:16 Speaker 7
He surrounded himself with a lot of people and he hoped to had talents and various.
00:33:25 Speaker 7
Departments and led them on and urged them on and.
00:33:34 Speaker 5
Very difficult to answer your question like that because.
00:33:39 Speaker 5
I don’t think he had any special insight into people.
00:33:43 Speaker 5
He would simply see somebody whom he thought might do, and I think, as is the case.
00:33:49 Speaker 5
With any competent executive, he could be right.
00:33:51 Speaker 5
60% of the time he was doing well and I think.
00:33:55 Speaker 5
He maybe did a little bit better than that.
00:33:58 Speaker 7
Harold also, I think from my experience I could say this something new came up.
00:34:05 Speaker 7
What about this and that industry?
00:34:08 Speaker 7
And he would inquire who’s who’s the best man in the country or in the US, and advise us on that.
00:34:15 Speaker 7
And he’d go to him and say, well, what’s this all about and what do I do then?
00:34:18 Speaker 7
He’d said about to do it.
00:34:20 Speaker 7
This was this was very much so I think you’ll agree, Bert, in the in the representation field.
00:34:27 Speaker 7
That came up and he well, what’s that?
00:34:30 Speaker 7
When when the transcription?
00:34:35 Speaker 7
Came on the market well.
00:34:37 Speaker 7
Where do we learn about this?
00:34:39 Speaker 7
He went to San Francisco and went to the the people who were doing a lot.
00:34:44 Speaker 7
Of that and got the.
00:34:46 Speaker 7
Indeed, he did more better than that.
00:34:48 Speaker 7
He got the Canadian distribution for quite a bit of it.
00:34:52 Speaker 7
So that he was usually going to find out about it.
00:34:56 Speaker 7
What’s the elements?
00:34:58 Speaker 7
Find some people to do it.
00:35:00 Speaker 7
Handle it.
00:35:11 Speaker 4
Just talking about the transcription.
00:35:15 Speaker 4
Was that were you?
00:35:17 Speaker 4
Were you in Toronto?
00:35:18 Speaker 4
When you was into that.
00:35:19 Speaker 5
Well, very much so, yeah.
00:35:22 Speaker 5
That, of course, was part of the event, not the main reason for him going down to open the United Broadcast Sales Office.
00:35:30 Speaker 5
Because at that time there were many shows available on transcriptions that you would.
00:35:35 Speaker 5
Buy and sell.
00:35:37 Speaker 5
And you would buy them and sell them to as many radio stations across the country as you could notice indicated basis.
00:35:43 Speaker 5
And there are shows.
00:35:46 Speaker 5
Well, I don’t even remember some of the titles, but they’re.
00:35:49 Speaker 5
What is the famous country one?
00:35:53 Speaker 5
WG bots.
00:35:55 Speaker 5
Well, I’m an Abner.
00:35:56 Speaker 5
No, but that wasn’t that type of show.
00:36:00 Speaker 5
Don’t remember.
00:36:02 Speaker 5
Well, that’s a little cross.
00:36:04 Speaker 5
Who is, anyway?
00:36:10 Speaker 7
Drinking song.
00:36:14 Speaker 5
Don’t know you’re thinking The Lone Ranger.
00:36:15 Speaker 7
Lone that was far.
00:36:16 Speaker 5
That that came much later.
00:36:17 Speaker 7
Right next came much later.
00:36:18 Speaker 7
That’s right.
00:36:19 Speaker 5
Well anyway.
00:36:21 Speaker 5
And so from the transcription field, he then as Norm pointed out, investigative representation.
00:36:28 Speaker 5
And discovered I think fairly quickly that that really was where the.
00:36:30 Speaker 5
Money was going to lie.
00:36:31 Speaker 4
What’s the representation number?
00:36:33 Speaker 5
No, as there was, but not on the.
00:36:36 Speaker 5
Basis that we.
00:36:36 Speaker 5
Know it now.
00:36:38 Speaker 5
There were two or three companies in the East, one of them being all Canada, which at that time was owned by.
00:36:43 Speaker 5
Richardsons I believe.
00:36:45 Speaker 5
James Richardson and Sons of Winnipeg and.
00:36:48 Speaker 5
There is no such thing as exclusive representation.
00:36:51 Speaker 5
They would go into an advertising agency like Mckinneys will say and.
00:36:56 Speaker 5
And the pickup minority for.
00:36:58 Speaker 5
10 or 12 radio playing around Canada without any bearing on which one it was in the city.
00:37:04 Speaker 5
They could come to a city like Toronto Olympic Station a if it suited their purpose to do so.
00:37:11 Speaker 5
But that decision was left.
00:37:12 Speaker 4
With the the reports.
00:37:13 Speaker 5
That decision was led usually with the agency.
00:37:15 Speaker 5
The Rep has never fought the agency to say we should have station a NOT station B.
00:37:21 Speaker 7
Through UBS to not have to say that.
00:37:28 Speaker 5
Yeah, the the exclusive of the aspect of the course came from the United States.
00:37:34 Speaker 5
And but it did develop that way, yes.
00:37:37 Speaker 7
And there again he went to New York.
00:37:44 Speaker 4
Where did you go?
00:37:46 Speaker 3
We didn’t.
00:37:50 Speaker 7
So wheat and company became the US reps.
00:37:53 Speaker 7
For our stations.
00:37:55 Speaker 7
I mean learned.
00:37:55 Speaker 7
We learned all you’ve learned all.
00:37:57
We’ve learned all.
00:37:58 Speaker 4
About it and.
00:37:58 Speaker 7
Set up the Canadian.
00:38:06 Speaker 4
Which came first?
00:38:07 Speaker 4
The transcriptions are correct.
00:38:10 Speaker 5
They ran pretty well on neck and neck, but I think transcriptions.
00:38:12 Speaker 5
Was really.
00:38:13 Speaker 5
The that was the thin edge of the wedge.
00:38:14 Speaker 4
Fresh fire.
00:38:23 Speaker 5
Recognize that too, of course, is.
00:38:28 Speaker 4
When you came back here.
00:38:31 Speaker 4
I guess you were into the depression.
00:38:35 Speaker 5
Oh no, we’re long under the depression.
00:38:38 Speaker 5
When I.
00:38:39 Speaker 5
Oh yes.
00:38:39 Speaker 5
When I came back here, it was in 40.
00:38:42 Speaker 5
243rd Year of the War. Yeah, that’s when we got married and went E to Toronto.
00:38:53 Speaker 4
Who else was there first?
00:38:55 Speaker 5
His purse was there and.
00:38:58 Speaker 5
John dragao.
00:38:59 Speaker 5
Anybody else?
00:39:00 Speaker 5
You remember Mary?
00:39:02 Speaker 6
Well, he was.
00:39:03 Speaker 6
Montreal, yeah.
00:39:06 Speaker 7
Well, that’s really Kent.
00:39:08 Speaker 4
Yeah, but if someone told him about the.
00:39:10 Speaker 4
Story they’re very welcoming.
00:39:13 Speaker 4
With a signing blog.
00:39:14 Speaker 4
Post demanding this meeting and shopping.
00:39:19 Speaker 4
And the cars become such a kick out brought them all this way.
00:39:26 Speaker 4
Sounds like someone has that somewhere and Carson got an enormous kick out of this brought this guy.
00:39:27 Speaker 7
I don’t want to.
00:39:27 Speaker 7
Recall the?
00:39:28 Speaker 7
Yes, but it’s quite difficult.
00:39:37 Speaker 4
All the way from Montreal.
00:39:44 Speaker 5
As bird heads, he could come up with some marvellous experiences.
00:39:47 Speaker 5
I remember one day.
00:39:55 Speaker 5
And as we crossed Catherine St.
00:39:58 Speaker 5
And George was a very impeccable man.
00:40:00 Speaker 5
And beautifully dressed.
00:40:03 Speaker 5
Always the last word.
00:40:04 Speaker 5
This shoes shine.
00:40:06 Speaker 5
As we crossed some cattle.
00:40:09 Speaker 5
We were chatting and.
00:40:09 Speaker 5
He wasn’t worried.
00:40:11 Speaker 5
Stepped in the patch of horsehair.
00:40:14 Speaker 5
He looked down at his feet, he said.
00:40:16 Speaker 5
My God, harshit in Montreal, I should get a new poker game.
00:40:33 Speaker 4
Some good stories about him.
00:40:35 Speaker 4
When Ken went to work for him, apparently both coming into the office.
00:40:41 Speaker 4
Afternoon at 5:00, o’clock.
00:40:43 Speaker 4
And you can tell me what?
00:40:50 Speaker 4
It’s a silly question I suppose, but you must have.
00:40:56 Speaker 4
Some favorite stories about about your early days here and Carson as.
00:41:06 Speaker 5
Well, off hand, I can’t really think of any.
00:41:07 Speaker 5
Can you marry?
00:41:08 Speaker 6
No, because he didn’t figure within the workings of CFAC. Uh. He was sort of on the fringes.
00:41:15 Speaker 6
He knew that he was running the soul, but he didn’t.
00:41:19 Speaker 7
The houses were in the same building.
00:41:23 Speaker 6
No, he was he was.
00:41:23 Speaker 4
I kept hands off.
00:41:25 Speaker 6
Yeah, yeah, he.
00:41:25 Speaker 5
Very, very much soon, yes.
00:41:26 Speaker 6
Left the running too.
00:41:28 Speaker 6
Whoever was managed at the time.
00:41:36 Speaker 5
I’m sorry.
00:41:38 Speaker 7
Very important evidence.
00:41:47 Speaker 4
And that was especially true, I guess.
00:41:52 Speaker 5
Oh, yes, yes.
00:41:58 Speaker 5
They have that.
00:42:03 Speaker 4
And eventually.
00:42:10 Speaker 7
To start with.
00:42:12
Right.
00:42:17 Speaker 7
He was in charge of everything.
00:42:25 Speaker 6
Well, it lasted two seasons on because while I was there, yeah, I was writing and acting.
00:42:29 Speaker 6
In one, there was a coast to coast CBC.
00:42:35 Speaker 4
The company did you, you?
00:42:37 Speaker 4
You did a lot of grammar.
00:42:38 Speaker 6
Oh yes, live.
00:42:40 Speaker 6
With music too.
00:42:42 Speaker 4
How how many people would be involved in in the radio station?
00:42:48 Speaker 6
Well, the stamp was very small.
00:42:50 Speaker 6
I I can’t remember exactly how many, but probably not more than 10 or 12.
00:42:55 Speaker 7
Double drought and brash and tripled and double tripled in everything.
00:42:57 Speaker 6
Get everything.
00:42:59 Speaker 6
Yes. Oh yes.
00:43:02 Speaker 6
And of course, because there was no tape in those days, we worked on Saturdays, Sundays, whenever.
00:43:08 Speaker 6
And, you know, whatever you needed, you had your best programs on big holidays.
00:43:13 Speaker 6
And on Christmas, New Year’s, we were at Christmas.
00:43:18 Speaker 6
And you know that if you didn’t do it, somebody else would.
00:43:21 Speaker 6
Be very happy to.
00:43:22
Do it so.
00:43:23 Speaker 4
Great. You did it.
00:43:25 Speaker 7
But it was a desire to do it too.
00:43:25 Speaker 6
It fun.
00:43:26 Speaker 6
It was great fun, yeah.
00:43:27 Speaker 7
We didn’t.
00:43:27 Speaker 7
We didn’t like the experience.
00:43:30 Speaker 6
And there was a tremendous feeling of camaraderie amongst the staff because.
00:43:34 Speaker 6
As Burt said.
00:43:35 Speaker 6
Almost everybody was quite young, 20s and 30s, and it was a young person’s field.
00:43:43 Speaker 6
And you were just thrilled to pieces to be in it to be.
00:43:45 Speaker 6
Part of the growth of it.
00:43:49 Speaker 4
Did people take have?
00:43:51 Speaker 4
Assistance and grammar lessenger.
00:43:53 Speaker 4
Was developed for much after talk.
00:43:54 Speaker 6
Well, you just did it all.
00:43:55 Speaker 4
Or was everybody in act?
00:43:57 Speaker 6
Well, yes, of course, because you wouldn’t be in the game.
00:43:59 Speaker 6
If you were not.
00:44:02 Speaker 4
So a lot of the people were recruited from.
00:44:05 Speaker 4
The hopes were what we would now see.
00:44:08 Speaker 6
Not necessarily, no, because they had primarily.
00:44:12 Speaker 6
To be people who could read well.
00:44:13 Speaker 6
And could who could interpret?
00:44:15 Speaker 6
After all, there was no acting involved.
00:44:17 Speaker 6
It was your voice that conveyed what you were doing.
00:44:21 Speaker 6
And the people who could do that were certainly just.
00:44:25 Speaker 4
You were.
00:44:26 Speaker 4
Right, yeah.
00:44:27 Speaker 4
And actress and.
00:44:27 Speaker 6
And again.
00:44:30 Speaker 6
I feel the water BLOB.
00:44:32 Speaker 6
Of you know, for flowers and so.
00:44:34 Speaker 6
We even swept the floor when we had to.
00:44:42 Speaker 4
Would would a lot.
00:44:43 Speaker 4
Of people come in to take part in this.
00:44:44 Speaker 4
Or was it all sort of other stuff?
00:44:45 Speaker 6
No, it was all within the staff.
00:44:47 Speaker 6
We didn’t have any outsiders because.
00:44:51 Speaker 6
Except the music.
00:44:52 Speaker 6
Yes, Yasha, girlfriends orchestra.
00:44:57 Speaker 6
The northern jets.
00:44:59 Speaker 4
Was it pretty much a house orchestra for?
00:45:02 Speaker 6
Yeah, you could call it almost an orchestra in residence.
00:45:05 Speaker 6
Was a little combo which you call it.
00:45:10 Speaker 4
How much money?
00:45:11 Speaker 5
Do you?
00:45:12 Speaker 6
Oh, you’ve been most interested in this for writing the script for this CBC show, which played once a week, and for acting that I got $3.
00:45:23 Speaker 5
And that’s coast to coast.
00:45:25 Speaker 6
Yes, that would be.
00:45:27 Speaker 6
A local say.
00:45:32 Speaker 6
Yes, indeed.
00:45:33 Speaker 6
Well, our salaries were much the same then I started it.
00:45:38 Speaker 6
I think it was $35.00 a month.
00:45:41 Speaker 6
By the time I finished, when Bret and I were married, I was making.
00:45:44 Speaker 6
90 and that was very, very.
00:45:45 Speaker 6
Good. Yeah, well.
00:45:47 Speaker 4
I was going through some of the.
00:45:50 Speaker 4
Pearson’s Diaries.
00:45:57
Oh my.
00:45:58 Speaker 4
And I’ve read ten of them, but first gainers to Toronto. I think it was $375 would be resettled.
00:46:08 Speaker 6
Well, that would do it handsomely.
00:46:10 Speaker 4
A little too much.
00:46:13 Speaker 4
Yeah, some of the comments.
00:46:15 Speaker 4
That’s funny.
00:46:16 Speaker 5
Oh yeah.
00:46:16 Speaker 4
Read it.
00:46:17 Speaker 5
You know, it’s funny.
00:46:19 Speaker 5
A few months ago, we had occasion to hire a solo artist.
00:46:24 Speaker 5
Turning down to $250 for two hours.
00:46:30 Speaker 6
With the.
00:46:32 Speaker 6
Ohh yes yes.
00:46:34 Speaker 5
And so we said.
00:46:37 Speaker 5
And I thought about it and I recalled that when I bought Mark Kinney.
00:46:40 Speaker 5
For the whole network.
00:46:42 Speaker 5
For purity flower on a commercial basis, he went for 500 bucks sold orchestra.
00:46:50 Speaker 5
Nice rehearsal plus.
00:46:52 Speaker 7
He’s part of the entertainment.
00:46:57 Speaker 4
Yeah, he’s going to conduct the art call.
00:47:02 Speaker 5
Daughters and one contiguous buildings.
00:47:06 Speaker 4
It must have been pretty exciting.
00:47:08 Speaker 4
On from.
00:47:09 Speaker 7
I believe it’s on there.
00:47:12 Speaker 4
Yes, certainly.
00:47:15 Speaker 4
This was but this was the the 1st.
00:47:17 Speaker 4
Origination of the 1st.
00:47:19 Speaker 5
Well, yeah, I’m talking to that point.
00:47:23 Speaker 5
It was this first close to close commercial.
00:47:31 Speaker 4
Some of these comments are just great.
00:47:34 Speaker 4
What, in your assessment in three partners, how did you see?
00:47:41 Speaker 4
It seemed like a good team.
00:47:44 Speaker 4
Alone in some ways, brother strain.
00:47:46 Speaker 5
No, it was a very good team.
00:47:48 Speaker 5
I think they tended to.
00:47:51 Speaker 5
Counterbalance each other.
00:47:53 Speaker 5
No one has certain strengths.
00:47:55 Speaker 5
Certainly is the.
00:48:00 Speaker 5
Pearson was by far and away the more cautious than certain.
00:48:05 Speaker 5
Taylor was very fine lined and Harrison was much more the.
00:48:10 Speaker 5
Entrepreneur than I looked.
00:48:13 Speaker 5
And I think much more farseeing than ever.
00:48:17 Speaker 5
During his first broadcasting was concerned, they followed his lead throughout, would you say?
00:48:22 Speaker 6
Well, he was the innovator.
00:48:25 Speaker 7
Herald though.
00:48:26 Speaker 7
At any time should been.
00:48:27 Speaker 7
Heating them, but they think broadcasting, broadcasting.
00:48:34 Speaker 4
And and he he.
00:48:35 Speaker 4
Wouldn’t try to.
00:48:37 Speaker 4
Impose his will on in a broadcast.
00:48:42 Speaker 7
Only if you were losing money, certainly.
00:48:46 Speaker 6
Well, he was a businessman.
00:48:50 Speaker 3
And he’d love to.
00:48:51 Speaker 7
Have show people around.
00:48:54 Speaker 7
I mean, that’s why.
00:48:55 Speaker 1
That guy.
00:48:56
Oh yeah.
00:48:57 Speaker 7
Bert Hall.
00:48:58 Speaker 7
And so when they were shown.
00:48:59 Speaker 4
And Guy had to.
00:49:01 Speaker 4
Great entourage of show people.
00:49:05 Speaker 5
Well, when he had left.
00:49:07 Speaker 5
And you, through his work with the Victory Bond campaigns during war.
00:49:11 Speaker 7
Impresence he was the.
00:49:16 Speaker 4
In 2000.
00:49:22 Speaker 7
Stage production.
00:49:26 Speaker 5
And New York.
00:49:33
During the war.
00:49:34 Speaker 4
And you came just building up to the war.
00:49:37 Speaker 4
Important was CFC.
00:49:41 Speaker 7
What kind of?
00:49:42 Speaker 1
A role did it play?
00:49:45 Speaker 5
Well, I think a role very little different from most broadcasting stations.
00:49:51 Speaker 5
We had staff in the reserve Army, we had staff serving in other capacities in light of the war effort.
00:49:59 Speaker 5
And of course, the whole station was conspicuously odd on any kind of victory.
00:50:06 Speaker 5
But I don’t think that’s at all different from.
00:50:10 Speaker 5
Most of the rest of the stations in this country.
00:50:13 Speaker 5
The industry as a whole, I.
00:50:14 Speaker 5
Think did a superb job.
00:50:16 Speaker 5
Supporting war.
00:50:19 Speaker 4
Yeah, I noticed in in one of their submissions to some regulatory body area commissioners, they listed in the names of the people who had served overseas.
00:50:30 Speaker 4
And so a lot of then you’ve got staff a lot.
00:50:33 Speaker 4
Of women and that.
00:50:36 Speaker 4
Apparently, people who who weren’t able to do military service.
00:50:41 Speaker 5
Yes, I think.
00:50:43 Speaker 5
As the war drew toward a close.
00:50:46 Speaker 5
More and more of the staff that we had.
00:50:49 Speaker 5
Had not passed physicals or were too old or something like that, but that you’d expect.
00:50:55 Speaker 4
Did a lot of them come back?
00:50:57 Speaker 5
I think quite a few, yeah, yeah.
00:51:00 Speaker 7
And their jobs are there.
00:51:01 Speaker 5
Well, of course, yes.
00:51:03 Speaker 4
Did death, who were some of.
00:51:06 Speaker 4
The great ones that you remember.
00:51:09 Speaker 4
Were you involved with Dennett of yourself?
00:51:12 Speaker 6
Oh, he was.
00:51:13 Speaker 6
He was there when I was jacked in and Bobby Freeland both came in as young boys of 16.
00:51:18 Speaker 6
And they were awfully good announcers, Jack.
00:51:20 Speaker 6
And it was a very solid person who could rely on him.
00:51:24 Speaker 6
And of course, he went on to become a great one in the east.
00:51:29 Speaker 6
Did you? Yeah.
00:51:30 Speaker 4
At the GFRG.
00:51:32 Speaker 6
But I can remember in the days when we were on the you take it like.
00:51:38 Speaker 6
Thank you.
00:51:39 Speaker 6
When we were on the roof of the the extinct greyhound building.
00:51:44 Speaker 6
We’d have terrific winds in Calgary and Jack would go out on the outside with a little penthouse and the station would quite frequently be blowing off the air, as it were, and he’d go out and fiddle around with wires and somehow get it back on.
00:51:57 Speaker 6
We always managed to to get back.
00:51:59 Speaker 6
Bobby, feeling, on the other hand, was extremely good as an announcer, very flamboyant and totally unreliable.
00:52:07 Speaker 6
So he went down the drain rather quickly.
00:52:11 Speaker 7
Pat freeman.
00:52:16 Speaker 7
Retired in his own makeup.
00:52:22 Speaker 7
British band.
00:52:24
Made a program.
00:52:26 Speaker 7
And there was a lot of old country.
00:52:27 Speaker 7
People. So it was wonderful.
00:52:30 Speaker 7
He loved and would say fortrey in.
00:52:33 Speaker 7
The sign off program.
00:52:34
And beautiful background music.
00:52:38 Speaker 6
Oh, he did?
00:52:39 Speaker 6
He and Chalmers.
00:52:40 Speaker 6
Do you remember him?
00:52:43 Speaker 6
Chalmers enjoyed hearing himself.
00:52:44 Speaker 6
He was always, yeah.
00:52:45 Speaker 7
There’s a good.
00:52:47 Speaker 7
But they were artists.
00:52:50 Speaker 4
When did it change?
00:52:51 Speaker 4
When did it?
00:52:53 Speaker 4
What would what?
00:52:54 Speaker 4
Would would you say?
00:52:55 Speaker 4
Would be the biggest change away.
00:52:57 Speaker 4
From the television or what’s it?
00:52:59 Speaker 4
Changing things that we could play records after.
00:53:04 Speaker 4
After 7:00 o’clock at night.
00:53:05 Speaker 7
I don’t think they’ll update that.
00:53:09 Speaker 5
Sure, all these things affected and I think perhaps one of the.
00:53:12 Speaker 5
Things that affected most of all.
00:53:15 Speaker 5
Was the great multiplication of radio stations.
00:53:20 Speaker 5
In Calgary, for instance, for many, many years we had three radio stations and that was all.
00:53:25 Speaker 5
I don’t even know how many you got now.
00:53:27 Speaker 5
I think it’s 10.
00:53:28 Speaker 5
But I’m not sure.
00:53:31 Speaker 5
And holding hands.
00:53:37 Speaker 5
That plus television plus a number of other things.
00:53:40 Speaker 5
Do you have made the change?
00:53:43 Speaker 5
Having almost inevitable, but it will keep on changing.
00:53:53 Speaker 5
Continuing role of.
00:53:55 Speaker 5
Instantaneous news and information.
00:53:59 Speaker 5
For some people, entertainment.
00:54:03 Speaker 5
It was not the entertainment medium known that it used to be and.
00:54:07 Speaker 4
I gathered, but I don’t think it did.
00:54:10 Speaker 4
It certainly wasn’t.
00:54:11 Speaker 4
But if if it becomes more calling now narrow gasket and broadcast.
00:54:18 Speaker 4
Right.
00:54:19 Speaker 4
Because of that.
00:54:21 Speaker 4
Bring back.
00:54:24 Speaker 5
Oh, I doubt it.
00:54:24 Speaker 5
I think what they’ve done is or what they think they’ve done is establish.
00:54:29 Speaker 5
As you say, there’s narrow casting.
00:54:30 Speaker 5
You were shooting to try to develop a rifle technique where in the old.
00:54:33 Speaker 5
Days we were talking about a buck.
00:54:37 Speaker 5
But no.
00:54:39 Speaker 5
It would be unreasonable to make any kind of prediction and hope that you’d be even 50% right.
00:54:47 Speaker 4
But you don’t.
00:54:47 Speaker 4
Despair for it.
00:54:48 Speaker 5
Oh my goodness, no, I should say that.
00:54:52 Speaker 5
In many ways it is doing better than the great many other businesses in Canada today.
00:54:57 Speaker 4
Hey Cortana.
00:54:58 Speaker 5
Television is doing well too.
00:55:04 Speaker 5
For a while.
00:55:06 Speaker 4
No, I’m interested.
00:55:09 Speaker 5
Oh yes.
00:55:13 Speaker 4
The television series.
00:55:16 Speaker 5
Not at the prices they’re talking about.
00:55:20 Speaker 5
And also not if cable and the.
00:55:22 Speaker 5
Pay TV stations are not carrying commercials.
00:55:25 Speaker 4
And the **** get the grades in free.
00:55:27 Speaker 4
Give you.
00:55:28 Speaker 4
You want to push the projects carried around.
00:55:38 Speaker 4
You were doing great there for a minute.
00:55:43 Speaker 1
This interview was recorded in 1978 by **** Meisner.