CJOY marks historic milestone with 75th anniversary – Guelph | 24CA News
It was June 14, 1948, that CJOY went on the air in Guelph.
Wally Slatter acquired a license in 1947 to broadcast on a frequency of 1450 kHz at 250 watts. He and Fred Metcalf co-managed the station below CJOY Limited. It was, on the time, the primary and solely radio station in Guelph. It would transfer up the dial in 1960 to 1460 kHz at 10,000 watts in the course of the day and 5,000 watts at night time.
CJOY is marking its seventy fifth anniversary on Wednesday and the radio station stays a fixture within the Royal City.
“My wife is a big fan of the oldies and the clock radio would be set to CJOY each morning,” stated Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie. “I remember the birthday club in the morning and that was always fun.”
So many individuals have come by the doorways at CJOY through the years. Among them: Lloyd Dafoe, Howard Manning, Cam Langford, Guus Hazelaar, Dave Hannah, Neil Clemens, and Larry Mellott. Mellott, the previous program director and afternoon drive host, has been on the radio station on two completely different events since 1974 and continues to do play-by-play for the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm.
Long-time broadcaster Michael Kane recollects his time at CJOY. He says he remembers when his mother was doing print advertisements for a neighborhood division retailer and in addition did voice work on the radio station.
“I would follow her there and got to know some of the people,” stated Kane who started his broadcasting profession at CJOY in 1967. “I eventually got a job as an operator where I played the music and commercials at the station while the announcer was on location.”
Kane talked about his first break in radio the place he crammed in for the in a single day announcer and the way that result in a 50-year profession in broadcasting.
“Gord Fields, who was a program director at the time, called me and asked if I can do ‘a double’ and stay all night,” Kane stated. “It was a sweet memory for me at CJOY.”
Over the final 75 years, CJOY has stored the group knowledgeable of occasions occurring in Guelph, throughout Canada and world wide.
“I remember being in the library at the station the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and found out before anybody else,” Kane recalled. “Jimmy Rogers was on the air that day and got a hold of (newsman) John Stubbs and they went full-court press on the news.”
Kane added that when the news broke, he needed to be there for that.
The radio station was first positioned within the downtown on Wyndham Street. Then in 1972, the studio and places of work had been moved to its present location on Speedvale Avenue East.
The station additionally modified fingers just a few occasions. Slatter and Metcalf bought the station together with CIMJ-FM (recognized in the present day as Magic 106) to Kawartha Broadcasting Co. Ltd in 1987. Two years later, Kawartha Broadcasting could be integrated into a brand new entity primarily based in Montreal known as Power Broadcasting Inc. Corus Entertainment would purchase the property of Power Broadcasting in 2000.
CJOY continues to broadcast on the AM dial and is one in all a small handful of AM radio stations in Canada that play up to date music.
“The music, the DJs, the people who do the news, it’s been a staple in the community and I have always enjoyed it,” stated Guthrie. “There is still a very local connection and that is important.”
Corus Entertainment stays the dad or mum firm of CJOY and Magic 106 together with Global News and GlobalNews.ca.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
