CHOO Radio Recollections

An on line scrapbook of images & text for former staff and listeners alike

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TOM'S PAGE

The Tom Edge Interview

Tom Edge worked at CHOO from April 1978 to April 1980, spending the latter part of those two years not only on air but as Program Director (PD.) Tom was my first professional radio PD and was an inspiring mentor. I learned more about radio in the few months I had under Tom's guidance than I ever did before (or sadly, probably since.) Tom was always a thoroughly decent, intelligent person with a great sense of humour. (I'm sure he still is!) He was also a true radio professional. So I am delighted to present Tom's Page on this site in his own words in order to establish his chapter in the story of CHOO Radio.

PHOTOS (ABOVE): LEFT: Tom & Sylvia Tyson at CHOO. RIGHT: Tom & Iris Laratt at CHOO. Both photos circa l978-80. Courtesy: Library & Archives Canada and Tom Edge.

How did you come to work at CHOO (1978-1980)?

As I'll mention later in the interview I had worked down in the US in radio, came up to Canada in 1975, and at that time decided to get out of radio for a while. I took two other jobs--one in insurance which lasted about three months, and then I worked in a corrugated box factory, pricing boxes at the sales order desk using a calculator (pre-computer days....). Getting tired of that, I  decided to get back to radio. I started sending out tapes and I had a reel to reel Sony tape recorder and I didn't have access to a studio. I was living in an old house up in Thornhill and I borrowed a microphone and did a recording in my bedroom on the reel to reel, using an aluminum splicing block  that I had, and probably Scotch tape! I sent tapes everywhere. I sent them to big stations, I sent them to stations that were probably way in the boonies. I had no idea where some of these places were. But I got a phone call from Pat Gonsalves--- "Hi I'm in Ajax at CHOO radio", and I had to ask him where Ajax was. Despite that, we set up a time to meet and I went down there and we talked for a few minutes and I told him of my work history and he said to me "Do you want  to work 6 AM to noon or noon to 6 pm.? I was desperate for work, so I said I would do both shifts.

What radio work had you done before CHOO? Were you a "radio" guy or a "country music" guy or both?

 I had been working down in the US at a small radio station in a town of about 12,000 in North Carolina and I used to do country music in the afternoon on the AM/FM station and I would do what was called "voice tracking" in the pre-computer days. The AM ran country music so I had some history of country music and really enjoyed it, but then I got out of North Carolina and moving to Canada and actually had holidays, and doubled my salary.  I had started out in college radio in NC on a carrier current station, at a small campus radio station where i learned everything from the bottom-up. It's a tremendous way to have the freedom and creativity, all the while being able to make mistakes and learn how to do radio better. It was a lot of fun.

What is your most memorable recollection of your time at CHOO?

I remember spending time after work sitting around with some of the staff after work and we were either just finished with radio school -- a first job for some--or we're all from somewhere else and I can remember the sense of community, of kind of sticking together because we were in Ajax and didn't know anybody else except people we worked with. Sad in a way, but it bound us all together.

One interesting thing happened when I was at CHOO. We got postcards in the mail from people who would listen to our little AM radio station somewhere in the world (on the skip, when our signal would bounce off the ionosphere a long distance) and they would send us a letter saying "I listened at such and such a time. Here's what I think I heard..." and then we would verify what they sent us, send them an official card from the radio station called a QSL card. I remember seeing a note that we have gotten from a military guy, an army guy, in Finland. He was in northern Finland cutting wood in the military, and listening to Ajax Ontario on his radio in northern Finland.

How would you compare CHOO to its competition in those days?

I can remember talking to some of the people at CFGM Richmond Hill and really got the sense they thought that they were the cream of the crop. They were big into the Toronto market and they felt that they were so much more professional than we were at CHOO. And I resented that. I think we did a great job. No I don't think that we were maybe as slick and didn't that play quite as much new country as they did, but I do think that we had a very loyal listenership in the Durham region and that counts for a lot.

Do you think a CHOO type "country gold" station could exist today in the same general GTA market?

I'm not certain whether a country gold station would would sell in Toronto right now. I think with the availability on the Internet of country streams of many varieties, that a country radio station probably would have an uphill battle in competing against the online country music where you can fairly well customize the types of things you hear.

Who were your favourite musicians to play? Any memorable meetings with your favourites?

I can remember doing a country show where we had Marty Robbins and a number of other older country artists and really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to them backstage and find out in the case of Marty Robbins what a wonderful person he was--very personable, quite genuine. I recall as well the fun of having musicians come visit the station where they would autograph albums or pictures and we would have a chance to do interviews. There were so many artists from all across Canada dropping in.

What were CHOO's strengths? Its weaknesses?

One of the strengths of CHOO was that it was a regional radio station. We would be played in local stores and businesses, and people liked to listen to their local station. We had a good strong news and sports department and the people on air at the time were able to relate very much with the people living in the region.

One weakness we had was not being able to broadcast really any further than the Don Valley Parkway. So people commuting into Toronto would have to switch to another station once they were into Toronto, and they wouldn't always change back to us.

As PD you had extra responsibilities. What vision of radio did you try to bring to the station?

I suspect the truth of my being the PD, or program director, was that everyone else there already had been program director and didn't want to do it again! However, I tried to run a station that would allow people to have some creativity on the air but not be too far afield in what they did. It was great when we had opportunities to have artists come in and do interviews. We would do a daily public affairs program and try to find things that were interesting around the Durham area and have people come and do interviews. If I were to be doing it today of course I'm different, I'm hopefully a little more mature, and I certainly would have interviews, different people on, and looked a little more broadly at some of the topics that we could've covered-- but all of that is hindsight.

What do you think of radio today generally vs during the CHOO era?

I started with college campus radio, and there was a certain freedom at CHOO and in radio generally at the time, where you had some flexibility in what you played. Your playlist, as long as you met your Canadian content, you were free to play what you wanted to--or what listeners called in to request. Now it's all set out of head office and there's very little individuality and flexibility in what the radio station can play. There seems to be high repeat factors in songs, and very little opportunity for spontaneity.

Do you ever miss being in radio?

Sometimes when I look back at what I did in radio, and the way radio was 30 years ago, I miss radio. There is a certain creativity in broadcasting. I miss certain writing programmes and weekly countdown shows, certainly miss the fun people & there were some characters, but generally I don't miss the long hours and the poor pay that we got for radio at the time. I moved on to doing other things in my life. For a while, six years, I worked for an NG0, in Winnipeg; then I went to library school in London, at Western, then spent 18 years as a librarian and it was fascinating work. So do I miss radio? Sometimes. Do I regret having changed to other jobs? Not in the least.

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After CHOO, Tom first went to CHOW for 2 years, then 4 1/2 years at CKTB/CJQR. Thank you, Tom Edge, for patiently answering all my questions via email and perhaps more importantly for so many of the positive memories I have of my time at CHOO. And I know I'm not the only one who worked with Tom who feels the same way.

PHOTOS (ABOVE): LEFT: John Ellis & Tom at CHOO. RIGHT: John Nelson Born & Tom at CHOO. Both photos circa 1978-80. Photos courtesy Library & Archives Canada and Tom Edge. More photos of Tom at CHOO to come!

NEXT: The hitherto untold story of CHOO Radio's very FIRST Program Director back in 1967...