The radio is always on at our house. I have
a Panasonic portable that gets carried from room to room. And the compact
wood-cabinet Tivoli on the kitchen counter can fill the whole house with
good sound -- even on AM.
In late December, I got a call at home from the BBM, the outfit that
measures radio audiences. Radio stations use those numbers to sell time
to advertisers.
The BBM had gotten to my name in the phone book and wanted to know
if I would fill out a diary for a week. Being a radio junkie, I told
them I'd be glad to.
My booklet soon arrived, along with a shiny toonie for my troubles.
I did my job dutifully and sent the book back on time.
We listen to CBC out of Toronto most of the time. In the comments section
of that diary, I wrote that Hamilton is way overdue for a station of
its own -- we're the largest city in Canada without one.
But I do twist the dial a little, too. So my diary showed spurts of
CHML. And Toronto's Q107. And CKOC, Oldies 1150, Canada's oldest station,
second only to CFCF in Montreal.
I like CKOC every now and then because it sounds like the radio I grew
up with in the '60s. That would have been CKLW, the Big 8, the powerhouse
Top 40 station in Windsor; it was number 1 across the river in Detroit,
too, heavy on the Motown.
CKOC, established 86 years ago, shook the city by switching to rock
'n' roll -- the devil's music -- in the spring of 1960.
And on Valentine's Day, 1992, CKOC announced it wasn't going to play
one more new song. They were going back to The Beatles and Elvis and
the Supremes. The slogan: "The station that played them then plays
them again."
No more Clearasil ads. It's age-spot removers now.
I got an e-mail from CKOC the other day saying it was going to do something
new, one time only.
Instead of the Big 500 -- the countdown that always sees songs such
as Pretty Woman, Satisfaction, Hey Jude at the head of the list -- it's
going to do the top 1150 songs.
CKOC has a short playlist. If you hear a favourite -- House of the
Rising Sun, for instance -- you won't have to wait long to hear it again.
So how is it going to come up with 1150 hits?
To find out, I've parked myself in the office of Ted Yates, music director
at CKOC.
He's 55. When he was a lad, working the bread and cookie aisle at Dominion
in Toronto, he used his earnings to buy 45s -- 12 every week, 66 cents,
plus three cents tax. He still has every one of those records -- about
6,000.
He knows every song, every artist, every date. I get nowhere trying
to stump him.
But he clams up when I ask how many songs are on the hot rotation,
the A-list, the big, big hits that get played over and over.
It seems that's proprietary information, like Colonel Sanders' secret
herbs and spices.
"But playlists are much shorter than they were 10 years ago,"
he says. "Research shows the listener wants familiarity more than
ever.
"You can't take the risk of someone tuning into another station
or turning you off altogether."
But they'll step away from the formula a teeny bit during this countdown,
which starts this Friday at noon and continues for three extended weekends
until reaching number 1 sometime on Sunday, March 2 -- which happens
to be the last day of the current BBM rating period.
A couple of hundred listeners respond with e-mails, each nominating
three songs for the big list.
Yates knows enough about music to massage the rest of the list. He'll
throw in a fistful of what he calls "spice gold, something for
variety." Songs like Deck of Cards, Mother-in-Law, Pied Piper,
Sixteen Candles.
There will be lots of one-hit wonders, but not Disco Duck. Or Dominique,
by the Singing Nun.
No argument with him on those, but he admits Baby Sittin' Boogie is
not on the list -- a serious omission in my view.
He won't play Etta James' At Last. "Maybe if we were doing the
Top 2000."
He won't play the Crewcuts' Sh-Boom, from 1954. "Sounds too dated."
