Transcript
00:00:03 Speaker 1
With the tapes, I’m doing some transcribing and left the mountain back at.
00:00:08 Speaker 1
Back at home.
00:00:10 Speaker 1
And some students transcribing for me and.
00:00:14 Speaker 1
The tough part comes after we did this is the.
00:00:17 Speaker 2
Fun part well the the the chilling station.
00:00:22 Speaker 2
And I I presume this is where you would like me to start because where I started in broadcasting.
00:00:30 Speaker 2
Get underway with this chap wells.
00:00:31 Speaker 2
Casey wells.
00:00:34 Speaker 2
And I know I’m only this Casey.
00:00:35 Speaker 2
I don’t.
00:00:36 Speaker 2
He had other initials, but what his full title was, I don’t know.
00:00:40 Speaker 2
And he had a younger brother, Ron.
00:00:42 Speaker 2
Who, as I say, eventually took up aviation.
00:00:48 Speaker 2
And became a flying instructor.
00:00:53 Speaker 2
He started this broadcasting station in Chilliwack, the.
00:00:58 Speaker 2
At the top of the hardware store Menzies hardware.
00:01:01 Speaker 1
What, what year would that be?
00:01:02 Speaker 2
Question I would guess somewhere in between.
00:01:07 Speaker 2
28262728 and I’m guessing only if those years, and I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t wish to be as an accurate time. You can check that I’ve forgotten to what year the station was licensed.
00:01:16 Speaker 1
So we can check we can check that.
00:01:23 Speaker 2
But it it got underway as a broadcasting station.
00:01:32 Speaker 2
Wells ran it by himself and then a man named Pilling Jack Pilling, who is still alive.
00:01:39 Speaker 2
Was a director of the BC Association of Broadcasters, was a director of Think and I’m not positive of that of the CAB.
00:01:49 Speaker 2
And he is retired from the station, sold out his interest about 8:00 or 10 years ago, I think.
00:01:58 Speaker 2
He came in with Wells and they started to be a commercial broadcasting station in shallow iPhone.
00:02:06 Speaker 2
Either one of them would try to sell somebody, neither one of them were really what you would call salesman.
00:02:13 Speaker 2
Wells was a technician.
00:02:14 Speaker 2
Although Pilling himself was a very able technician.
00:02:23 Speaker 2
Pilling did the news.
00:02:24 Speaker 2
He had a good voice and he.
00:02:25 Speaker 2
Did the news.
00:02:25 Speaker 2
Broadcast, which was taken from the daily papers that most of those early broadcasting stations did.
00:02:31 Speaker 2
They just took items and cooked them and put them on a clipboard and the news was due at 11:00 o’clock or 12:00 o’clock or and almost 11:00 o’clock or almost 12:00 o’clock.
00:02:41 Speaker 2
And they they got the news on.
00:02:44 Speaker 1
And when news actually was a concept that was in news, as we know in anyway, was a concept that didn’t come quickly to really broadcasting, it was more of an entertainment.
00:02:54 Speaker 2
This is correct news in the early stages of broadcasting, with some exceptions.
00:02:55 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:01 Speaker 2
Was largely.
00:03:04 Speaker 2
Theft from the papers or the periodicals?
00:03:07 Speaker 1
Of that time, which the papers periodically resented.
00:03:11 Speaker 2
Whichever newspaper happened to be in the area, the radio stations at that time would take from the news columns of that paper whatever was happening and they.
00:03:24 Speaker 2
Then put it together and call it a newscast.
00:03:28 Speaker 2
They had no.
00:03:29 Speaker 2
No reporters of their own excepting this.
00:03:33 Speaker 2
They would have people phone in and tell them of new items.
00:03:36 Speaker 2
If anything that happened in a district.
00:03:39 Speaker 2
And if you saw a barn fire, you got to the nearest phone and new phone.
00:03:43 Speaker 2
There’s a farm on fire down here.
00:03:46 Speaker 1
There was a great deal of public participation, and this was actually media before.
00:03:49 Speaker 2
Ohh and it was an enjoyable opportunity.
00:03:50 Speaker 1
People were fascinated, but everybody really seemed to get involved with the radio.
00:03:55 Speaker 2
Station in in small towns and it was typical, I think of Canada and the United States on a summary day when screen doors were on and the windows were open, you could start down.
00:04:07 Speaker 2
Street walking slowly and you could listen to a newscast or a broadcast all the way down the street.
00:04:14 Speaker 2
People were talking all the way down, or rather, had their radios on all the way down the street.
00:04:20 Speaker 2
And it was the same station because there wasn’t a multiplicity of stations in the small town particularly.
00:04:25 Speaker 2
At that time.
00:04:26 Speaker 2
And you could catch while strolling slowly down the street.
00:04:29 Speaker 2
You’d catch a full newscast.
00:04:31 Speaker 2
Or whatever it was.
00:04:33 Speaker 2
And this worship?
00:04:36 Speaker 2
They were fun days in broadcasting, too.
00:04:38 Speaker 1
But how did you come to?
00:04:39 Speaker 1
Get involved with this.
00:04:42 Speaker 2
Well, I had been.
00:04:44 Speaker 2
I had no intention of being involved in the broadcasting business in 1929 when the.
00:04:51 Speaker 2
Crash came.
00:04:51 Speaker 2
I was at that time, and assistant manager of a jewelry repair department at Henry Birks and Sons.
00:04:59 Speaker 2
And Mr.
00:05:01 Speaker 2
Walter Carson, who was the then manager of Birch, came to me and said, John, he said.
00:05:08 Speaker 2
I’m sorry to tell you we’re going to have to cut staff, he says.
00:05:11 Speaker 2
We’re going.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
To work on.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
The principle of last in first out, he says.
00:05:15 Speaker 2
And you are very happy with what you’re doing in here.
00:05:18 Speaker 2
There’s no complaint and they gave me a nice letter of recommendation and a fountain pen presentation and the staff wish me happiness.
00:05:25 Speaker 2
But I was in the depression years.
00:05:29 Speaker 2
And I was about to hook up with a young.
00:05:31 Speaker 2
Man, whom I knew in Vancouver, who was starting to sell the receivers, the radio receivers and as you remember, they were as big.
00:05:38 Speaker 2
The small receiver then was as big as your small portable tent television set as today.
00:05:46 Speaker 1
Well, they were terrible.
00:05:47 Speaker 2
Oh, and they were awful price.
00:05:48 Speaker 1
They were big things.
00:05:49 Speaker 1
Well, they were terrible.
00:05:50 Speaker 1
Craig’s too.
00:05:52 Speaker 1
How did you get where collective.
00:05:53 Speaker 1
Seems to me they were running between 150 and.
00:05:55 Speaker 2
$300.00. Oh yes, $400 is not unusual $500.00 not unusual for a radio receiver.
00:06:03 Speaker 2
And they were great, cumbersome things, all filled with tubes.
00:06:07 Speaker 2
The transistor had not been invented.
00:06:10 Speaker 2
This chap said John’s.
00:06:13 Speaker 2
I think we could do well.
00:06:14 Speaker 2
This radio is going to catch on.
00:06:17 Speaker 2
My brother had taken on a resort activity up in Cultus Lake where I’m going today as.
00:06:23 Speaker 2
A matter of fact.
00:06:26 Speaker 2
And he said, John, I think.
00:06:28 Speaker 2
You starved to death.
00:06:29 Speaker 2
You’re not a salesman.
00:06:30 Speaker 2
You haven’t been a salesman.
00:06:33 Speaker 2
People don’t have much money.
00:06:34 Speaker 2
Come on up and help me workout the resort your hands with your hands and tools and so forth.
00:06:39 Speaker 2
And so I went up.
00:06:40 Speaker 2
There with my mother.
00:06:43 Speaker 2
I worked around with him.
00:06:45 Speaker 2
Things were very thin and on two or three occasions, Casey Wells or Jack Benny was sent to me.
00:06:50 Speaker 2
What would I come in and be a salesman for them with broadcasting station?
00:06:54 Speaker 2
I said no, I’m not really a salesman. But things got kind of desperate when in the 1920s, Thirties, 31 and I had tried to sell some savings certificates to pick up some money. I eventually said yes, I would start.
00:07:10 Speaker 2
What would the deal? Well, the deal was $10 a week.
00:07:14 Speaker 2
Which would be my salary and when possible, Ron Wells would loan me his car.
00:07:18 Speaker 2
I could go up to other areas and they felt that there was business to be obtained from around the whole upper Fraser Valley and it was a case of.
00:07:29 Speaker 2
Scratch it out.
00:07:31 Speaker 1
Well, you had to educate people too.
00:07:32 Speaker 1
And the fact that radio was an advertising medium well.
00:07:35 Speaker 2
Of course, they were starting to come into the circumstances where radios were at home on the specific coast.
00:07:43 Speaker 2
Good receivers could pick up broadcasting stations down the coast.
00:07:48 Speaker 2
We got good reception from Oakland and Los Angeles and Salt Lake City had KNX salt.
00:07:55 Speaker 2
Lake City was very.
00:07:56 Speaker 2
Strong station.
00:07:57 Speaker 2
There was a little station at Belly.
00:08:00 Speaker 2
Him, which was the forerunner.
00:08:02 Speaker 2
As a matter of fact, of Kvos TV.
00:08:04 Speaker 2
It was run by a man named Logan zones, and it was an amateur almost.
00:08:09 Speaker 2
It was hit, had become a commercial enterprise.
00:08:12 Speaker 2
That have moved from amateur stages into being a good commercial enterprise in Bellingham, and Robin Jones was most helpful for the Chilliwack station as a matter of fact.
00:08:21 Speaker 2
In getting tubes and various things, you know that were put together in a haphazard way.
00:08:26 Speaker 2
I don’t mention customs or anything like that, but somehow they would find their way.
00:08:34 Speaker 2
And I started selling for the.
00:08:36 Speaker 2
Station now remember, no, I shall never forget the end of my first week.
00:08:46 Speaker 2
Time came for the ghost to walk, and I walked into the wells and this was, as I say above this.
00:08:50 Speaker 2
Hardware store and so the.
00:08:51 Speaker 2
Factory suggested that we have time to get my salary for the week.
00:08:56 Speaker 1
You know, maybe $10.
00:08:58 Speaker 2
Well, as it happened, they didn’t have $10.
00:09:02 Speaker 2
He had $3.40 in the child and I got the 3:40, but this was all the money they had and it was a hand to mouth existence so.
00:09:09 Speaker 2
This went on for some oh year.
00:09:12 Speaker 2
You’re in a bit, and I eventually.
00:09:14 Speaker 2
Left the broadcasting station.
00:09:16 Speaker 1
Who are some of the people you sold advertising to?
00:09:19 Speaker 2
I sold to I think.
00:09:23 Speaker 2
I know I sold to what was then David Spencer’s department store up there.
00:09:29 Speaker 2
A Christmas broadcast, a Santa Claus broadcast.
00:09:33 Speaker 1
So you actually instead of selling them an ad, you sold them a program.
00:09:36 Speaker 2
I showed him the program and then I said to him, now who’s going to be your sanitized and man named Jameson, was a manager at Spencers at the.
00:09:43 Speaker 2
Time, he says.
00:09:43 Speaker 2
Well, I guess you.
00:09:44 Speaker 2
Are, but that wasn’t the part of the deal.
00:09:46 Speaker 2
He says, well, if you want to make the sale and you.
00:09:48 Speaker 2
Want the program you’re going to have to have a Santa Claus.
00:09:52 Speaker 2
So I I was considerably younger in those days and I embraced being in the program.
00:09:59 Speaker 2
Guy on the Santa Claus thing and I became Santa.
00:10:01 Speaker 1
Claus, did you have to write the program as well?
00:10:04 Speaker 2
I had to write the program such writing as was done, and then I solicited letters I had, and I’ve always regretted.
00:10:11 Speaker 2
I never saved the letters.
00:10:12 Speaker 2
I had letters from children and I have since had children of my own and now have grandchild.
00:10:17 Speaker 2
And I regret it.
00:10:18 Speaker 2
I never saved those early letters from those kids.
00:10:22 Speaker 2
Just Santa I want because I know my own children.
00:10:25 Speaker 2
And I suppose children write the same letter.
00:10:27 Speaker 2
All over the.
00:10:28 Speaker 2
World to Santa Claus.
00:10:29 Speaker 2
But it was a kind of a touching thing.
00:10:32 Speaker 2
I lived about 15 miles.
00:10:36 Speaker 2
Out of the Chilliwack city I lived out at this lake.
00:10:40 Speaker 2
And I had an old Model T Ford by this time or models, not model TI had a star open touring star with the hard tires and new wooden wheels.
00:10:54 Speaker 2
And the trap blew off the thing, and I would drive in.
00:10:57 Speaker 2
And you know, you just put stickers over you to keep yourself dry and.
00:11:02 Speaker 2
By pressure another you get up to about 45 miles an hour, but that was.
00:11:05 Speaker 1
Its top speed downhill with the tailwind.
00:11:11 Speaker 2
After Christmas program went over very well, I love you.
00:11:13 Speaker 1
How much wood?
00:11:14 Speaker 1
Would be charged.
00:11:15 Speaker 1
I realized in those days they weren’t really rate cards and they sort of charge, would you?
00:11:18 Speaker 1
Get away with it, actually.
00:11:19 Speaker 2
Well, we had rate if we did, we had a Type 33 card, but the rate card was a guide, really more than a than a firm thing.
00:11:29 Speaker 2
And I think that still goes on in broadcasting.
00:11:32 Speaker 2
I don’t think there’s much change in that.
00:11:33 Speaker 2
I think negotiations with people for.
00:11:38 Speaker 2
For goods, is still bartering to a large degree because they say we never break rates, but they make up packages and they.
00:11:45 Speaker 2
Do all manner of.
00:11:46 Speaker 2
Things that are literally a device for getting around.
00:11:50 Speaker 1
Do you have any recollection of what that Christmas program costed before?
00:11:56 Speaker 2
I can give you two or three instances of what the program.
00:12:00 Speaker 2
Think Spencer’s for 10 days on the air, or 15 days?
00:12:05 Speaker 2
Santa Claus came by the air and then he had to make his appearance.
00:12:08 Speaker 2
I had to do this.
00:12:09 Speaker 2
They provided me the Santa Claus outfit.
00:12:11 Speaker 2
I didn’t get a fee for being a Santa Claus.
00:12:14 Speaker 2
I got the program sale, which the station desperately needed.
00:12:18 Speaker 2
And I think the total cost dispensers were somewhere something under $100, including the 15 minutes a day on the air for the two weeks and.
00:12:28 Speaker 2
The appearance of Santa Claus in Spencer’s provided a sack full of candy, and they gave those hard candy.
00:12:34 Speaker 2
I don’t know if your memory embraces those hard curly candy they used to have, almost like Christmas decorations.
00:12:40 Speaker 2
It was a hard candy and they sold pounds of it at Christmas time, but they gave me a sack of this to give out to these children.
00:12:47 Speaker 2
Well, of course I got into the store with the Santa Claus.
00:12:49 Speaker 2
That’s what I got hot and the story was hot.
00:12:51 Speaker 2
The children’s hands were hot and I’d reach into this sack and the candy would be sticking to my fingers around her.
00:12:57 Speaker 2
Mother would have the most horrified look.
00:12:59 Speaker 2
On their faces.
00:13:01 Speaker 2
We eventually got wrapped candy, but I think the total program cost was under $100.
00:13:07 Speaker 2
I recall that I would go out and sell to what was then.
00:13:12 Speaker 2
The model dry cleaning and pressing outfit in Chilliwack.
00:13:17 Speaker 2
I think that was her name or the economy.
00:13:19 Speaker 2
Dry cleaning and pressing one or the.
00:13:21 Speaker 2
Other modern day model.
00:13:25 Speaker 2
And I could sell them a package of three announcements for $2.00.
00:13:30 Speaker 2
And when I.
00:13:31 Speaker 2
That made the sale of the three.
00:13:33 Speaker 2
Announcements I then.
00:13:34 Speaker 2
Went back to the studio and I rode up the three announcements studio.
00:13:38 Speaker 2
Of course, being a sort of the shell above this hardware store.
00:13:42 Speaker 2
I wrote up the three announcements, went back to the dry cleaning establishment, had them approve the copy, and change the end ifs and buts.
00:13:50 Speaker 2
If their grammar were better than mine, which was quite like then quite frequently would go back to broadcasting station time was to be aired and do the announcements yourself and you wrote.
00:14:01 Speaker 2
You sold the copy you sold the commercial.
00:14:06 Speaker 2
You then wrote the copy and if it happened in your shift, you then ran the.
00:14:11 Speaker 1
Copy that would horrify an advertising entity.
00:14:14 Speaker 2
Would I?
00:14:15 Speaker 2
I’ve changed the first piece of national business that.
00:14:19 Speaker 2
CHWK.
00:14:20 Speaker 2
Chili had ever had.
00:14:23 Speaker 2
And I got it.
00:14:23 Speaker 2
It was from an ironized yeast, yeast, tablets, iron ironized, yeast tablets and they were running and Rogan Jones has put us on to it, he said.
00:14:33 Speaker 2
These people buy farm markets.
00:14:34 Speaker 2
He said good after.
00:14:36 Speaker 2
I was down there on some occasion rather than I did.
00:14:40 Speaker 2
I entered into a correspondence with the man who was handling this stuff.
00:14:46 Speaker 2
And by golly, the letter came in. I was I was at the lake at the time when I got what then cost $0.25 for a phone call for the station.
00:14:54 Speaker 2
We were very careful about making that the phone calls.
00:14:56 Speaker 2
I got a long distance phone calls.
00:14:57 Speaker 2
Congratulating me on their.
00:14:58 Speaker 2
First piece of nation ever got the.
00:15:01 Speaker 2
Broadcast and we had that account for.
00:15:05 Speaker 2
About two or three years and it.
00:15:07 Speaker 2
And the station, somewhere in the neighborhood of.
00:15:09 Speaker 2
60 or $70 a year for a series of announcements which you made-up as a pack.
00:15:17 Speaker 2
And we’ve got another odd *****. And from there I moved off into at that time in 193031.
00:15:26 Speaker 2
There were.
00:15:28 Speaker 2
Of CJR, Vancouver.
00:15:31 Speaker 2
There was the Daily Province station, which shared its channel with another station, which was a church station.
00:15:38 Speaker 2
There was CWX, which was operating out of a garage up on Seymour St.
00:15:43 Speaker 2
and Sam Ross may have told you something about that.
00:15:48 Speaker 2
And there was ckmo, and there’s a chap you should see named Jack Short, who was with Ckmo as a salesman in the early time and hated, was the voice of racing out here.
00:15:58 Speaker 2
Very excellent chap.
00:16:00 Speaker 2
And he retired from his racing duties this year as a matter of fact.
00:16:07 Speaker 2
There was a station, sort of a marine broadcast transmitter over in Victoria running what is now.
00:16:19 Speaker 2
The Victoria radio station.
00:16:23 Speaker 2
Shikashi D.
00:16:26 Speaker 2
There was a.
00:16:27 Speaker 2
Similar sort of an operation up at Prince Rupert.
00:16:31 Speaker 2
There was a station 100 Watt station in Kamloops owned by the Sentinel. The man named Ralph White.
00:16:39 Speaker 2
There was a station just getting underway decently in Kelowna Cko V Kelowna, which is still extant, still owned by the same family.
00:16:47 Speaker 2
As a matter of fact large.
00:16:50 Speaker 2
And there was a radio station in Trail VC just getting started.
00:16:55 Speaker 2
It was being started up by a man named Robinson, Tommy Robinson, and we had him, broadcasters.
00:17:02 Speaker 2
We formed the Interprovincial Broadcasting Association.
00:17:07 Speaker 2
And it comprised Shashlyk Chilliwack CJT Trail, which was just getting underway Cko V Kelowna.
00:17:17 Speaker 2
And CFJC cameras and those were the only four stations outside of Vancouver, excepting the semi amateur station at Prince Rupert and the Victoria Station.
00:17:29 Speaker 2
And I became their Vancouver representative to solicit national national business and business from Vancouver.
00:17:38 Speaker 2
Would be put on the air in those markets and they.
00:17:41 Speaker 2
And their first I think for first six months.
00:17:46 Speaker 2
They agreed to pay me.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
And I’ve forgotten what it was 15 or $20.00 a month each.
00:17:53 Speaker 2
At that time you could get bored in van on room in Vancouver for about $25. Quite decent, bored in room when you could get to dinner and.
00:18:02 Speaker 2
Lay your head down and.
00:18:04 Speaker 2
And you got two clean towels.
00:18:05 Speaker 2
A week and you got.
00:18:06 Speaker 2
A good portion.
00:18:08 Speaker 2
And I started out in representation of that, and then eventually I added another station in, I think CFC Calgary was then 100 Watt station.
00:18:18 Speaker 2
And I hooked up with the Calgary station.
00:18:21 Speaker 2
And from there eventually got into the group for the Itinerario Group owned business there.
00:18:26 Speaker 1
We with were you.
00:18:27 Speaker 2
With them I own.
00:18:28 Speaker 1
Own business here.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
Were you with them when they were still?
00:18:30 Speaker 1
Taylor Pierce and Carson?
00:18:32 Speaker 2
I was not with them in that essence.
00:18:34 Speaker 2
I was.
00:18:35 Speaker 2
I used their name I made.
00:18:36 Speaker 2
A deal with Harold Carson.
00:18:39 Speaker 2
And I.
00:18:41 Speaker 2
Operated under the name of All Canada Radio and television in British Columbia.
00:18:46 Speaker 2
But if there were any losses, they were mine.
00:18:49 Speaker 2
If there was any profits, they were mine and I had an amicable arrangement for them.
00:18:52 Speaker 2
I had a very excellent relationship with Harold Carson over a great many years.
00:18:56 Speaker 1
Did you hear the person is still alive?
00:19:00 Speaker 2
I understand I was still spy.
00:19:02 Speaker 2
I tell me too.
00:19:03 Speaker 2
An alert.
00:19:04 Speaker 1
You know very much so I was a little disappointed to find out he’d run the automotive business and really didn’t know much about broadcast.
00:19:10 Speaker 2
And he knows very little about broadcasting.
00:19:12 Speaker 1
Because I was just actually.
00:19:13 Speaker 2
Automotive business was his business.
00:19:15 Speaker 2
As a matter of fact, that’s how they got into broadcasting.
00:19:18 Speaker 2
Perhaps you know that story.
00:19:20 Speaker 2
They started in broadcasting at Lethbridge.
00:19:24 Speaker 2
Simply by virtue of the fact that they had the automotive house down there and had batteries and various things that broadcasting stations used.
00:19:32 Speaker 2
And the people in Lethbridge at that time who were starting a broadcasting station.
00:19:38 Speaker 2
Put into them pretty deeply and eventually Tanner, Pearson and Carson Lethbridge had to take over the broadcasting station to bail themselves out of what they had.
00:19:49 Speaker 2
Advanced to this channel.
00:19:51 Speaker 2
And it was useful to them in that they were selling Rogers majestic radios at that time and I’m not sure if they have Westinghouse, but I know they had Rogers.
00:20:00 Speaker 2
And northern electric.
00:20:02 Speaker 2
And they.
00:20:04 Speaker 2
They utilized the broadcasting station to prevey these radio receivers and they were all battery receivers all through that area before it was electrified and did quite well with it.
00:20:15 Speaker 2
And eventually it.
00:20:16 Speaker 2
Became a a broadcast enterprise and Harold Carson was the man who was interested in broadcasting, and this thing proliferated from there.
00:20:24 Speaker 1
We eventually owned and managed stations and then ultimately became Selkirk.
00:20:28 Speaker 1
I guess when sodium got involved with.
00:20:31 Speaker 2
Some of them got involved when they got involved.
00:20:35 Speaker 2
Hal Carson was a great man to conjoin.
00:20:37 Speaker 2
With other other groups and.
00:20:39 Speaker 2
And people to affect an end.
00:20:43 Speaker 2
And he at one time he has quite closely associated with assistans, of course, who seek KCK Regina.
00:20:51 Speaker 2
Ckoc Winnipeg and then the split came in the shifting circumstances there.
00:21:00 Speaker 2
And he.
00:21:02 Speaker 2
From Lethbridge.
00:21:06 Speaker 2
The 1000 people had a radio station in Calgary and in Edmonton at that time she had a C&C JCA and they were.
00:21:17 Speaker 2
Having the whips and the jingles from trying to operate these things, these were new people, new with people and broadcasting.
00:21:22 Speaker 2
They didn’t feel this here to stay anyway.
00:21:26 Speaker 2
And eventually, they saw that Carson was making quite a success of this broadcast operation in Lethbridge and they said, how would you like to take on our Calgary station so he and they came together on terms and it became a successful operation.
00:21:42 Speaker 2
It would have been do it in Calgary, let’s do it in Edmonton.
00:21:45 Speaker 2
And there began all Canada radio.
00:21:49 Speaker 1
Will all candidates is, is the selling arm of the Selkirk.
00:21:53 Speaker 1
Isn’t it still?
00:21:54 Speaker 2
Well, Selkirk is a latter day addition to everything.
00:21:57 Speaker 2
It was all Canada.
00:22:00 Speaker 2
Radio and Broadcasting System Limited because he hooked up at one time with CKY Winnipeg and with a chap in Winnipeg.
00:22:08 Speaker 2
And there was a conjoining there and subsequently the name became changed to all Canada Radio Facilities Limited and then.
00:22:18 Speaker 2
It became Selkirk.
00:22:23 Speaker 2
Oh, shortly after.
00:22:27 Speaker 2
The Taylor Pearson Carson thing went public, became Shocker, came soccer.
00:22:34 Speaker 2
Was the name of the.
00:22:35 Speaker 2
Thing from the shockers, I suppose.
00:22:45 Speaker 2
I was not part of that.
00:22:49 Speaker 2
That that thing, although I retained the all Canada name out here and operate it out here and worked with them until my return was about 10 years ago.
00:22:58 Speaker 1
But you’ve seen quite a change.
00:22:59 Speaker 1
You you went through that period too.
00:23:02 Speaker 1
Then when price product was not allowed to be used on the radio.
00:23:08 Speaker 2
We couldn’t use any prices we I went through all those changes went through.
00:23:15 Speaker 2
Quite a number of the things that were involved in the early stages of broadcasting and I had the pleasure, bushy tree fruit people are extensive users of broadcast or have been over the last 20 years.
00:23:27 Speaker 2
And I had the pleasure.
00:23:28 Speaker 2
Of negotiating the first contract with the VC Tree Fruit people.
00:23:36 Speaker 2
Their total advertising budget.
00:23:39 Speaker 2
For what they were going to advertise on radio.
00:23:45 Speaker 2
In the first year from Winnipeg.
00:23:48 Speaker 2
To Vancouver, embracing those stations which I had on my list at that time.
00:23:53 Speaker 2
Amounted to a little under $800.00.
00:23:57 Speaker 2
Now their budget and it’s mostly spent in the West now, has run as high as over $100,000 for those same areas of coverage. Originally, they used only selected stations in the market, the leading stations.
00:24:13 Speaker 2
And eventually began to add to that the other stations to get the total coverage.
00:24:23 Speaker 2
But price mention was a great fight amongst broadcasters for years.
00:24:29 Speaker 1
Well, I gather the prohibition really stemmed from the newspapers.
00:24:32 Speaker 1
We didn’t know.
00:24:32 Speaker 1
We were afraid, didn’t quite likely saw it as it appeared at the time of losing advertising revenue.
00:24:41 Speaker 2
I’m quite sure Ralph White.
00:24:43 Speaker 2
In Kamloops and a number of other, I think the Southern people got this broadcasting thing to control their revenue factors rather than as a adventurous ongoing thing as well as in other broadcasters, sparks Halstead, who started CWX.
00:25:04 Speaker 2
Not over here.
00:25:05 Speaker 2
From the name of.
00:25:06 Speaker 2
As a matter of fact.
00:25:10 Speaker 2
He was a pioneer in broadcasting and good many of the people in broadcasting.
00:25:16 Speaker 2
Where there is a newspaper influence or background.
00:25:20 Speaker 2
We’re not pioneers in the broadcasting.
00:25:24 Speaker 2
Field as much as they were entrepreneurs, protecting either their vested interest in press.
00:25:32 Speaker 2
And out of that and they eventually had to get broadcasters to run their affairs.
00:25:36 Speaker 2
They became broadcasting people.
00:25:39 Speaker 2
But basically they were they were protecting their own interests more than trying to advance the broadcast.
00:25:45 Speaker 1
What you said earlier, they weren’t convinced it was.
00:25:46 Speaker 1
Here to stay.
00:25:48 Speaker 2
No, they were not.
00:25:54 Speaker 1
Well, they were. You’ve gone through again probably 2. You know the shifting patterns in advertising in that as you were saying earlier on you sold you know a 10 or 15 minute program, you really sold airtime, needed a program and now you’re really selling, you know the 32nd in the one minute when when when did that.
00:26:07
That’s fine.
00:26:12 Speaker 2
08 seconds.
00:26:14 Speaker 1
Begin to appear.
00:26:16 Speaker 2
Once these stations.
00:26:19 Speaker 2
In the successful stations and a great many of our patterns were were direct result.
00:26:27 Speaker 2
Of the entrepreneurial activities of the American Broadcasters, Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandy also had an influence on what we did in Canada because they in there, where at the time there was no commercial broadcasting other than Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandy.
00:26:48 Speaker 2
In the European scene.
00:26:50 Speaker 2
They had to.
00:26:50 Speaker 2
Devise ways to handle all the advertising that was offered to them.
00:26:56 Speaker 2
As some of the successful American stations did.
00:26:59 Speaker 2
So some smart chap said, well, why don’t we instead of selling one minute announcements?
00:27:06 Speaker 2
Why don’t we sell 232nd announcements?
00:27:10 Speaker 1
Intelligent sandwich would for a minute.
00:27:13 Speaker 2
Well, they would charge as much for the 30 seconds as they did for the minute, and they get twice the revenue.
00:27:17 Speaker 2
Then suddenly somebody else.
00:27:18 Speaker 2
Said well, why not 415 seconds? And then we got the 2320 second breaks and then eventually the 10 second. The 8 seconds is on television, 5 seconds on television because of the.
00:27:30 Speaker 2
Combined impact of both.
00:27:33 Speaker 2
Audio and visual.
00:27:37 Speaker 2
View impact tremendous amount can be told in five seconds.
00:27:43 Speaker 2
What was it they used to tell me as a a script writer after all of all then they told the story of creation in 50 words.
00:27:50 Speaker 2
Sure, you can tell me about this lumber yard in 50 words or 100 words we sold originally hundred word announcements. They weren’t trying.
00:27:57 Speaker 2
Much 100 words ran reasonably close to being a minute. One full SCAP double.
00:28:04 Speaker 2
Spaced, you know.
00:28:07 Speaker 2
That made about 100 word announcement.
00:28:09 Speaker 1
That will be pretty close to.
00:28:12 Speaker 2
I think this is where they started.
00:28:13 Speaker 2
They started where the 100 words.
00:28:15 Speaker 2
It wasn’t a minute so much.
00:28:17 Speaker 2
Then it began to get broken into segmentations and began to.
00:28:21 Speaker 2
Get various radio stations which sided with twenty word announcements and the 30 word announcement.
00:28:26 Speaker 2
The 50 word, the hundred word announcements.
00:28:29 Speaker 2
And it began to be broken down into time segments.
00:28:33 Speaker 1
What was it?
00:28:33 Speaker 1
What’s the hurry?
00:28:34 Speaker 1
Selling advertising in the in the theory this was not a very wealthy period in our history.
00:28:41 Speaker 2
Hells bells, it was not not wealthy.
00:28:46 Speaker 2
Oh, God no.
00:28:48 Speaker 2
As I say I I got $3.40 for my first week’s pay and I think I I had my own representation business in Vancouver.
00:28:57 Speaker 2
And I finally collected all the money that I was to get from chilac, CSWP, K 3 1/2 years afterwards had taken them that long to get enough, but gradually the thing became a little more successful and advertising broadcast advertising became.
00:29:17 Speaker 2
More and accepted.
00:29:20 Speaker 2
Mode merchants began to recognize that they could motivate people.
00:29:24 Speaker 2
Very quickly with broadcast.
00:29:27 Speaker 2
And this is once the merchant got lies to the fact that the broadcast medium could activate his potential customers very rapidly.
00:29:38 Speaker 2
Then broadcast began to.
00:29:40 Speaker 2
Client has.
00:29:41 Speaker 1
Because you know, it’s part of your job.
00:29:43 Speaker 1
I was thinking your early days would be simply educating the advertisers that this was the way where he ought to spend his money instead.
00:29:49
You should run.
00:29:49 Speaker 1
Of in the newspaper.
00:29:51 Speaker 2
And very few.
00:29:52 Speaker 2
And if there’s a newspaper, of course, was not inclined to give you any chances to move into their territory for what they thought was a single dollar.
00:30:03 Speaker 2
Newspapers in the early stages of broadcasting looked upon the the dollar available for advertising.
Part 2
Transcript
00:00:05 Speaker 2
You’re saying they looked at it as a?
00:00:06 Speaker 1
Single as a single unit.
00:00:09 Speaker 1
It was either the newspapers, the billboards.
00:00:14 Speaker 1
Or some other known advertising device.
00:00:17 Speaker 1
We’re going to get all or a portion of that unit when broadcast came along, they still considered the dollar as being a unit.
00:00:26 Speaker 1
Or the advertising daughter as being a unit and they felt that this was going to further impair, but what actually took place was.
00:00:35 Speaker 1
But advertising revenues increased to take care of the changing market scene.
00:00:42 Speaker 2
Turned out not to be still watching.
00:00:42 Speaker 1
And this broadcasting turned out to create.
00:00:46 Speaker 1
Advertising dollars rather than than divide them.
00:00:51 Speaker 1
And campaigns, Kelly, Douglas and company.
00:00:57 Speaker 1
Bought, I think the first half hour program from.
00:01:01 Speaker 1
From the West.
00:01:03 Speaker 1
Ran on Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Westbridge, Grand Ferry, Vancouver and Kelowna.
00:01:12 Speaker 1
Program a transcribe program which I sold them.
00:01:17 Speaker 1
And they ran it to. It was called ports of call, and they ran this program for about 3 years of 26, half hours or 52 half hour programs.
00:01:30 Speaker 1
Had the opening, the middle break and the closing break and it.
00:01:34 Speaker 1
Was before television, of course, and from there Kelly Douglas moved into.
00:01:42 Speaker 1
The live show and they hired an orchestra and they had the Harmony house, which ran for a number of years out of Western Canada on the network.
00:01:51 Speaker 1
And it was a very successful series of shows and loving who is now dead, who was handling their advertising said to me, said Johnny says.
00:01:59 Speaker 1
We’re going to have to go network for this.
00:02:01 Speaker 1
With a live show.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
He said.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
Can you face the network time and?
00:02:05 Speaker 1
I said no, I can’t.
00:02:06 Speaker 1
Give you that the.
00:02:07 Speaker 1
CBC detained to their own department.
00:02:12 Speaker 1
It doesn’t seem fair.
00:02:12 Speaker 1
You’ve got Kelly Douglas started.
00:02:15 Speaker 1
Well, the original start of the Kelly Bentley show.
00:02:19 Speaker 1
And there’s a hilarious instant if you can so you can wipe this anyway, concerning with the sale of this porch of carshall.
00:02:28 Speaker 1
Kelly Douglas had.
00:02:29 Speaker 1
Their offices down on the corner of water and Richard St.
00:02:33 Speaker 1
In Vancouver.
00:02:35 Speaker 1
And I had a coffee chilling up in there and they grated their coffee with a big building when they had their directors offices in there.
00:02:45 Speaker 1
And their sales officers and so forth and they were at quite an important.
00:02:50 Speaker 1
Food distributing, distributing outfit in particular.
00:02:54 Speaker 1
British Columbia.
00:02:56 Speaker 1
And they had.
00:02:57 Speaker 1
Made Bob Coffee, of course, throughout the West.
00:03:00 Speaker 1
And their advertising had been handled by outfit called Benwil Atkins, and the accounts had been taken over by.
00:03:08 Speaker 1
A man who is now dead, named Pinky Stuart.
00:03:11 Speaker 1
Pinky, Stuart and another young man whose father at one time.
00:03:15 Speaker 1
Was with Kelly Bennett.
00:03:17 Speaker 1
As a senior executive.
00:03:22 Speaker 1
Thank you, Stuart.
00:03:23 Speaker 1
Got the Kelly Douglas account.
00:03:25 Speaker 1
And I went to him with his ports of call show, which was part of our stable of programs which we could sell to broadcasting stations for filling the time with or selling to customers and so forth and suggested that this would be a first class show for them to take for Western Canada.
00:03:41 Speaker 1
And Stewart was an entrepreneur of some.
00:03:46 Speaker 1
Considerable stature of very successful salesman.
00:03:51 Speaker 1
He listened to the program and he thought the.
00:03:53 Speaker 1
Idea was right.
00:03:55 Speaker 1
So he said.
00:03:56 Speaker 1
Now, he says, I finally came to me, said John.
00:03:59 Speaker 1
He says I’ve arranged for Kelly Douglas to hear this program.
00:04:01 Speaker 1
They’re going to consider taking this on for Western Canada and I said OK and I had all the costs figured out for him was about 78.
00:04:09 Speaker 1
$100 total.
00:04:11 Speaker 1
They said we’ve got to take it down to their boardroom and demonstrate what the program is like.
00:04:16 Speaker 1
Can you do that?
00:04:17 Speaker 1
And I said sure and I had this portable equipment, one was a amplifier and the other was a big speaker and they were in suitcases and they were, they were big suitcases.
00:04:29 Speaker 1
They’d be about.
00:04:31 Speaker 1
All of 10 inches thick.
00:04:34 Speaker 1
And about 24 by 24, and they weighed heavily.
00:04:37 Speaker 2
And they’re only portable in name.
00:04:40 Speaker 1
They were portable only in name.
00:04:42 Speaker 1
And we got this down to the boardroom.
00:04:44 Speaker 1
And it was.
00:04:45 Speaker 1
Quite an impressive boardroom there were about.
00:04:48 Speaker 1
15 chairs around the long semicircular table.
00:04:53 Speaker 1
And there were pictures of our founders on the wall, you know, all very Papa.
00:05:00 Speaker 1
And we’ve actually had scripts and I put on when Pinky said.
00:05:05 Speaker 1
Now Mr.
00:05:06 Speaker 1
Bolin will show you what we mean by this program and the foot of the steamship whistle came.
00:05:13 Speaker 1
On and then.
00:05:13 Speaker 1
This melodious voice came on and said shift car we take you now to adventurous and matra.
00:05:20 Speaker 1
And the wonders of this.
00:05:21 Speaker 1
You know, and so on.
00:05:23 Speaker 1
Ports are called me in various places.
00:05:24 Speaker 1
In the world where?
00:05:25 Speaker 2
Or were you?
00:05:25 Speaker 1
The ship travels.
00:05:25 Speaker 2
Were you hooked up to the studio?
00:05:27 Speaker 2
And was this a?
00:05:29 Speaker 1
No, no.
00:05:29 Speaker 1
This was a transcription.
00:05:30 Speaker 1
This was A and there were great big thick things about 1/4 of an.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
Inch thick at that time.
00:05:36 Speaker 1
And there were two of these with 15 minutes on each side that you had for the program.
00:05:42 Speaker 1
So I started the needle and this, as I say, introduction to the program came on and I faded down the.
00:05:50 Speaker 1
The volume and just spoke in my voice, I said.
00:05:54 Speaker 1
This is what you’re asked would sound like kind of me and read out a commercial ports of call brought to you by Kelly Douglas makers and so on and so on and so.
00:06:01 Speaker 1
On and so.
00:06:02 Speaker 1
On, and so on, so on, and Pinky and myself had devised this pinky Stewart.
00:06:09 Speaker 1
Device is commercial, you see, which we read and then we started the program and we ran the program for a moment or so.
00:06:16 Speaker 1
And the.
00:06:19 Speaker 1
The chairman of the board was in the room, the sales manager for Kelly Douglas, in the room, their coffee taster, all their directors.
00:06:27 Speaker 1
And there were.
00:06:27 Speaker 1
Eight of them in there.
00:06:28 Speaker 1
And this advertising man and myself, some of this program.
00:06:32 Speaker 1
And then I showed how the program would fade out in the middle and their central bank commercial for Kelly Douglas would come on or nay, Bob as it would want to be referred to, and then to close out in the final, nay, Bob Commercial.
00:06:48 Speaker 1
So the moment the program and I said that’s the way it would handle gentlemen, you have to understand of course I’ve limited this to about four minutes rather than take up.
00:06:55 Speaker 1
Your time to listen.
00:06:56 Speaker 1
To the whole program, they understood that thoroughly.
00:06:58 Speaker 1
But then they start to nitpick about all the things that were or were not right about radio.
00:07:04 Speaker 1
We’re not right about could we rely?
00:07:06 Speaker 1
On the announcer in.
00:07:08 Speaker 1
Where is it Regina doing this as well as you’ve done it here, for example.
00:07:12 Speaker 1
Or can he would do what we do here?
00:07:14 Speaker 1
What do we do there?
00:07:15 Speaker 1
And they were nitpicking, right, left and centre about the small mechanics of the programming.
00:07:22 Speaker 1
And I shall never forget Stuart.
00:07:24 Speaker 1
He looked down and he said, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, he.
00:07:26 Speaker 1
Said honestly, he says this has to be ridiculous.
00:07:30 Speaker 1
He says you’re nitpicking and arguing about little bits and things on this program where you’re not conceiving the idea at all.
00:07:36 Speaker 1
Honest about if.
00:07:37 Speaker 1
I came in here with a dog that I had trained to fart N A/B, OB running up and down.
00:07:42 Speaker 1
Granville St.
00:07:43 Speaker 1
should buy it like.
00:07:43 Speaker 1
A dam.
00:07:44 Speaker 1
He says you’re silly ***** around.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
And I was appalled at all.
00:07:51 Speaker 1
Well, we’re just further straightened.
00:07:51 Speaker 2
The directors like that.
00:07:53 Speaker 1
But the way he went and.
00:07:56 Speaker 1
I got they bought the show.
00:07:57 Speaker 1
Highly successful and it was very.
00:07:59 Speaker 1
Successful for a couple of three.
00:08:00 Speaker 1
Years, but I shall never forget Stuart.
00:08:04 Speaker 1
I had brought him a dog, trained, trained to fart.
00:08:07 Speaker 1
Hey, Bob, up and down.
00:08:11 Speaker 2
Things have changed now, of course.
00:08:13 Speaker 2
You, you.
00:08:14 Speaker 2
The advertising agencies no longer really package programs and they buy spots, particularly on television, because of the expense of it, but also on radio, you don’t.
00:08:23 Speaker 2
Have you know you don’t have the jello hour and chasing Sanborn out?
00:08:26 Speaker 1
Oh, no, no, no.
00:08:27 Speaker 1
You don’t have the programming in in broadcasting.
00:08:30 Speaker 1
At least I don’t.
00:08:31 Speaker 1
I don’t think you have today.
00:08:33 Speaker 1
Now, mind you, I’ve been out of broadcasting for 10 years.
00:08:35 Speaker 1
I’m not an active broadcaster any longer.
00:08:39 Speaker 1
I’m a vineyard this now.
00:08:40 Speaker 1
I I grow a.
00:08:41 Speaker 1
Grape and make a little wine.
00:08:43 Speaker 2
But the whole thing is packaged differently.
00:08:45 Speaker 2
I was just trying trying to relate.
00:08:47 Speaker 2
You were telling the story about taking this program to nabob now, who put the program together?
00:08:53 Speaker 1
There were a number of people around the world.
00:08:56 Speaker 1
As a matter of fact, who did this largely in the United States.
00:09:00 Speaker 1
They had transcription services, they were standard radio.
00:09:05 Speaker 1
For a palm dairies outfit in Calgary, I brought in just during the shortly after the war.
00:09:12 Speaker 1
A series of transcriptions called Sons of The Pioneers and I bought it from the people in Kansas City.
00:09:20 Speaker 1
And I arranged a contract with them to buy the library for, I think it was eleven stations in Western Canada, and I bought the library and I took the financial responsibility myself.
00:09:32 Speaker 1
I brought in this library.
00:09:34 Speaker 1
And the library had.
00:09:36 Speaker 1
Musical numbers on it by the Sons of pioneers, which as you can.
00:09:39 Speaker 1
Imagine were.
00:09:41 Speaker 2
What we call country and Western.
00:09:43 Speaker 1
Country western now.
00:09:45 Speaker 1
And they sang.
00:09:46 Speaker 1
They sang very appealingly, and we actually had people in the Prairie stations come in and want to meet the sons of The Pioneers.
00:09:53 Speaker 1
Because you never.
00:09:54 Speaker 1
Told us there was a transcribe.
00:09:55 Speaker 1
Program you know, in the early days we’re doing Spanish.
00:09:58 Speaker 1
And so where will people who packaged programs?
00:10:02 Speaker 2
I thought one of the laws was you had until it.
00:10:05 Speaker 1
Was transferred.
00:10:05 Speaker 1
Well, I think I’ve got forgotten occasionally.
00:10:08
OK.
00:10:10 Speaker 1
I I had.
00:10:11 Speaker 1
Another program that I can recall, again a transcribe service that had come up from.
00:10:18 Speaker 1
Somewhere in Los Angeles, we had the thing.
00:10:22 Speaker 1
And they had some very excellent musical.
00:10:26 Speaker 1
People on this show.
00:10:31 Speaker 1
Stewarts associate lovik.
00:10:34 Speaker 1
Had attempted to sell this program to a man who.
00:10:42 Speaker 1
Foodstuffs and coffees and things in Western Canada and he wanted to put on a program in Vancouver and he was going to use the CBC station to put it on.
00:10:53 Speaker 1
And one of the artists in this series I had prior to her or acquiring great fame was Vivian del Pieza, which you may know the name of.
00:11:02 Speaker 1
He was an operatic star.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
With the Metropolitan operas matter of fact.
00:11:07 Speaker 1
The chapter we’re going to sell the program to came down to hear it.
00:11:11 Speaker 1
And again I did the bit of putting on the program and auction and so forth.
00:11:16 Speaker 1
And CBC had made their studios available because they were going to sell the time it was going to be filled.
00:11:21 Speaker 1
With this program, if it.
00:11:22 Speaker 1
Was suitable to this chap and.
00:11:24 Speaker 1
He bought his.
00:11:26 Speaker 1
Wife Sister who was a.
00:11:30 Speaker 1
Some sort of a?
00:11:32 Speaker 1
Solo artist herself or a piano teacher, or she had some phase in in, in music circles.
00:11:42 Speaker 1
Here she listen to program and which just Vivian was singing.
00:11:53 Speaker 1
Was turned down by this.
00:11:56 Speaker 1
Potential sponsor on the virtue that this would mean Delcueto didn’t know how to sing.
00:12:02 Speaker 1
And I said, well, she’s she’s become a very famous artist in the United States, maybe, but she doesn’t breathe properly.
00:12:09 Speaker 1
She doesn’t sing properly, but this singing teacher, so it was turned down to on that basis, million delicate.
00:12:15 Speaker 1
Eventually became as.
00:12:16 Speaker 1
You will discover one of the outstanding stars of the Metropolitan Opera.
00:12:21 Speaker 2
Which somebody in Vancouver didn’t think she could sing well.
00:12:23 Speaker 1
But somebody in Vancouver didn’t think she could see, but these programs were available, and there were a great many services provided these transcribed programs in the early stages that.
00:12:34 Speaker 1
All I would guess would be 1516 inches across in diameter.
00:12:39 Speaker 1
And the very early ones were sick. They were almost 1/4 inch sick of this plastic. Subsequently they got thinner and thinner and thinner.
00:12:46 Speaker 1
And then NBC came up with their Thesaurus library service.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
You may have heard of.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
That one.
00:12:51 Speaker 1
That was a.
00:12:52 Speaker 1
Recording service and they had almost transparent and little way free recording such as you get today.
00:13:00 Speaker 1
And they had queued selections, libraries that told you what number was where and what, and you got a filing cabinet for it.
00:13:10 Speaker 1
And it was a whole service and you could then build programs and NBC sent along with this authority service suggested program formats for making up.
00:13:20 Speaker 1
And we had their art directors, as they call them, and production managers make up a program which could be put together from this resource, 15 minutes of songs or of violin playing or whatever.
00:13:32 Speaker 1
And the days I’m talking about before television.
00:13:37 Speaker 1
Creating this sort of a programming.
00:13:40 Speaker 1
In areas like Kamloops, Kelowna.
00:13:45 Speaker 1
The hinterlands was very, very valuable to a station because they could suddenly start to bring a professional.
00:13:53 Speaker 1
Atmosphere to their broadcasting.
00:13:55 Speaker 1
Rather than rely on what was coming through the CBC and fiddling.
00:13:58 Speaker 2
Through or or on the on the local talent to the.
00:14:00 Speaker 2
Ice House beer with.
00:14:02 Speaker 1
Well, they did have one year.
00:14:04 Speaker 1
The CBC came in here and put on they were going to encourage the artists and this is from the.
00:14:13 Speaker 1
Constant plea that all the art was held in Toronto and Ottawa and Vancouver.
00:14:20 Speaker 1
And they put on a series of.
00:14:23 Speaker 1
Programs from the VC, each radio station in British Columbia.
00:14:28 Speaker 1
That was on this network. The BC network was to provide 1/2 hour musical program a week and it would be from trail this week and from Kelowna next week and from Cabinet was the following week. And then from Chilliwack.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
And then from Victoria and from the various stations in the BC network.
00:14:48 Speaker 1
And to say some of it was simply awful would be an understatement.
00:14:51 Speaker 1
It was simply appalling.
00:14:53 Speaker 1
Some of the the programs were put on because the talent wasn’t in these centers.
00:14:59 Speaker 1
Well, you might have somebody who could declaim from the stage.
00:15:05 Speaker 1
And he might have some local piano teacher who felt that Jimmy should be recognized for his budding talents.
00:15:13 Speaker 1
The virtual facts are that talent will almost invariably.
00:15:20 Speaker 1
Move from the small centers into the big centers because there they are in touch and in contact with the things that make their art live and breathe.
00:15:29 Speaker 1
They must be in contact with other artists.
00:15:32 Speaker 1
Most art.
00:15:36 Speaker 1
By living upon itself with other artists, I think this is.
00:15:39 Speaker 2
True, you know, well it it, it does.
00:15:41 Speaker 2
Gravity as you get as your level of perfection if you like gets greater gravitation.
00:15:42 Speaker 1
The gravitations.
00:15:48 Speaker 2
This is why you get to Montreal clan and then all the next.
00:15:51 Speaker 2
Obvious step, not New York.
00:15:51 Speaker 1
So obviously gotta go to.
00:15:52 Speaker 2
The bigger center is New York and in California.
00:15:58 Speaker 2
So in effect, what what you did or what you would do would be to have a a program or a program format available which you would try to interest an advertiser.
00:16:07 Speaker 1
We sold them.
00:16:08 Speaker 1
We sold them to radio stations.
00:16:13 Speaker 1
As a service, they could buy it so much program and they could then go out and sell it to the advertisers themselves.
00:16:18 Speaker 2
Local news.
00:16:19 Speaker 1
As a whole program.
00:16:22 Speaker 1
And we we sold to radio stations I sold to British Columbia radio stations, these transcribe programs for their library services.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
We tried to retain two or three of the better programs for sale to a national advertiser so that we could go to somebody like napalm or somebody who had distribution over a number of stations and.
00:16:43 Speaker 1
Offer him a program.
00:16:45 Speaker 1
Which he could have as a first run, you may say program for his own use as identified with as his program, which we did with ports of call as the.
00:16:54 Speaker 1
One I mentioned earlier.
00:16:55 Speaker 2
And then you would buy the time on the.
00:16:57 Speaker 2
Various stations and you know.
00:16:58 Speaker 1
In the stations we.
00:17:00 Speaker 1
Would have spent where we were.
00:17:03 Speaker 1
Selling this program.
00:17:05 Speaker 1
In the name of Volcano Radio, we had to program series and libraries.
00:17:11 Speaker 1
We would attempt to sell a national advertiser this.
00:17:13 Speaker 1
Program and would attempt also to have him use our station in those markets which we represented.
00:17:20 Speaker 1
For example, we represented the station in Winnipeg.
00:17:24 Speaker 1
Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and so on.
00:17:26 Speaker 1
Now we didn’t have a representation operation in Saskatoon, so we would recommend the use of the station in Saskatoon and negotiate for time there or the agency would.
00:17:38 Speaker 1
And we would try to.
00:17:39 Speaker 1
Have the program.
00:17:40 Speaker 1
Running our own.
00:17:42 Speaker 1
But if the advertiser would buy the program it it’s his privilege to run it.
00:17:45 Speaker 1
But sometimes the program was available to the advertiser only if he bought our stations too.
00:17:52 Speaker 1
All sorts of little folks gone.
00:17:55 Speaker 1
Sprangers, I’m going to have to go.