In this week’s issue… Saluting a small-town radio vet – Bell moves CP24 – Scott heads west – Burlington gets Air 1, “Experimental Radio” – Family Life heads down I-86
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*We don’t often write about Wingham, Ontario, way up there north of London on the way to the Bruce Peninsula – but in a holiday-shortened week on this side of the border, we lead with small-town CANADA news this week because of a very rare change there: after 34 years, Phil Main signed off Friday morning at Blackburn Radio’s three-station cluster.
After starting in college radio in London at Fanshawe College’s CIXX in 1977, Main tried a career at his family’s hardware store in Goderich but found himself bitten by the radio bug. He started at CKNX (920) and CKNX-FM (101.7) as a fill-in in the early 1980s, went back to the hardware store, then turned a demo tape for a summer replacement job into a full-time gig doing mornings on CKNX-FM starting in 1990.
Over the decades, he changed dial positions a few times, moving to the AM side in 2005 and then to new sister station CIBU (94.5 the Bull) in 2011, where he’s been ever since.
In an interview with the Goderich Signal Star, Main observed that he’s seen two kinds of jocks over his long career – the ones who blow in and out of town with a “suitcase full of tricks, and then there’s the guy who settles into a community, becomes the friend you call to emcee; the guy you trust, and that’s more in keeping with who I am.”
Wingham and the region have been lucky to have Main as that second kind of hometown radio hero – and we wonder if there will be a next generation like that in small towns like Wingham that deserve that sort of local radio?
And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!
If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!
In this week’s issue… After NAB, hope and confusion - WZLX, WBEB relaunch morning shows - WJTO, WLAM stay alive for now - MBC takes over Bell stations - Remembering Mimi Griswold, Herb Squire By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME...
In this week’s issue… Fear and Uncertainty in Las Vegas - Memory Stations to sign off - WNED, WBFO rebrand - Najman out at WDEV - Zoomer expands in Ontario By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT...
A visit to many of the sites in Pennsylvania's Poconos, plus Bold Gold's stations in Scranton
In this week’s issue… Remembering Pittsburgh's Quinn - Seven Mountains enters Harrisburg - My launches new brands - Ryan out at B101 - More cuts at Radio Vermont - Another AM deleted
