Year Born: 1948
Year of Induction: 2009
Member of CAB Hall of Fame
Sanderson, Eric G. “Sandy” (1948- )
Sandy Sanderson’s career started in the 1960’s in Huntsville, Ontario at CKAR (now CFBK -FM). He was host on a daily 2 hour Country Western program starting at 6:30 pm and continued playing records until 1:00 am.
A few months later he became the Morning Man and Program Director, a position he held for a year. Wanderlust took over and he and his wife Anne spent a year hitch-hiking around Europe.
The station called and wanted him back in the same job, so he returned.
In the early 70’s he heard of a job opening at CJBK London, Ontario as Production Director, which he found interesting ,but that didn’t last long. Six months later, he was off to Montreal to CKGM where he stayed three years as Program Director.
Then, in the 1970s, the big move came to New York’s WABC as Assistant Program Director, and then Program Director. He was then moved to Chicago’s ABC station to change their format from disco to Adult Rock.
Then it was back to New York as Program Director of ABC’s FM Network. It was here that he got the call from Rogers to come to Toronto.
He was appointed CFTR’s Programmer in 1982 and by 1985 CFTR had moved ahead of CFRB in ratings for the first time. Sandy was appointed Vice-President of Programming for the Toronto/Kitchener cluster of Rogers stations.
In 1990, he was appointed Executive-Vice President of Programming for Rogers Radio Broadcasting Ltd.
In 2004 Sandy played a major role in re-inventing CJAQ-FM, Toronto’s newest Rogers station.
On August 31, 2009 he retired after more than 40 years in radio.
On November 30, 2009. Sandy Sanderson was inducted to the CAB Hall of Fame.
Written by Ross McCreath – November, 2009