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CFNY-FM is a Canadianmarker radio station, broadcasting at 102.1 FM. While the station's official city of license is Bramptonmarker, Ontariomarker, it targets the entire Greater Toronto Area, with studios located at 228 Yonge Street in downtown Torontomarker, and its transmitter in the CN Towermarker. As of December 2007, the station holds a 3.8% share of its market area.

For some time in the 1980s, the station was free-format. This rarely translated into profits, however, and after being sold and re-sold several times to larger and larger media companies, the station now plays a conventional modern rock format with the branding 102.1 The Edge. The radio station is currently owned by Corus Entertainment.

The station's current program director is Ross Winters, who succeeded Alan Cross in September 2008 after Cross transferred to Corus' interactive media division, Splice Media.

History

CFNY originally started operating in 1961, as an FM rebroadcast of an AM station, CHIC. When two brothers named Leslie and Harry Allen Jr bought the station in the 1970s, they started playing album rock music in the evenings, while simulcasting the AM programming during the day. The nearby Humber Collegemarker provided a steady stream of young employees, who were encouraged to play their own selections. Eventually, the owners decided to give the station a brand of its own, creating CFNY in 1977.

Prior to CFNY, the call letters were CHIC-FM, with a transmitter power of 857 watts ERP mono, just enough to just cover the town of Brampton. Up to around 1975, the CHIC AM control room operator spun LPs from the third turntable in AM master control. Nonstop full play of each side of the LP was the norm - with just a break by the AM operator for ID and to flip the LP over. The music was picked by the AM operator prior to their shift. Any type of music was picked from the library randomly. This was the beginning of CFNY. Listeners loved it and at times requested more of the same, which was obliged. Sometimes missed by the operator, the LP would finish and listeners would call in to complain of the dead air.

In 1976, a new FM studio was built just up the road from the old studio in Brampton on a very limited budget. Engineers Mike Hargrave Pawson and Steve Martak built the new studio and a new transmitter site in Georgetown to increase the coverage from 857 watts to 100 kW ERP.

In July 1977, CHIC-FM officially became CFNY-FM. The phrases "Canada's First New Youth" and "Canada Fucks New York" have been cited as backronyms for the call sign. Anyone working there at the time was fired, and a whole new team was brought in. David Pritchard, CFNY's first program director, previously a late night DJ at CHUM-FM, gave the station a little more structure and hosted specialty programs of reggae and blues music, and a nationally syndicated (and popular) Beatles show. Unfortunately, conflicts between Pritchard and the Allens led them to fire him for refusing to, as he put it, turn the station into a conduit for "shallow hit-oriented Pablum". David Marsden, who had started as an announcer, became program director of CFNY in 1978.

The Spirit of Radio

Things started to change when David Marsden became program director. The station started to sound like a "slick" version of a college radio station. At the time, alternative was still very new, but it was also in 1978 that New Wave and punk rock took off and soon the station became known as one of the few commercial stations which played alternative music. Canadian punk act Forgotten Rebels paid homage to CFNY in the liner notes of their 1979 album In Love with the System.

Fans started referring to it as the Spirit of Radio, which was used as their catchphrase for some time and also inspired the Rush song "The Spirit of Radio". Unable to mention CFNY directly on the Permanent Waves album containing the track for fear of alienating airplay on other stations, the band instead ensured the catalog number of the album was 1021 - a nod to the station's 102.1 FM frequency. Fans were loyal but few and with a measly 857 watts of power, broadcast from a house in Bramptonmarker - a suburban city northwest of Toronto - the problems of attracting new listeners were many. With only a small broadcast range, the station used unconventional promotional strategies, sending out its DJs to host regular new wave dance parties both to build a community among its fans and to supplement the station's limited advertising revenue through admission fees. In 1979, the original owners were involved in an unrelated court action and forced to sell the station. The new owners started the process of moving the antennae to the CN Towermarker in 1983.

With the Canadian economy in recession and interest rates high, the new owners sold the station to media conglomerate Selkirk Communications. At first, Selkirk did not change the format and completed the move to the CN Tower. By 1985, the station had reached new heights of popularity, capturing over 5.4% of the Toronto area listeners and becoming internationally famous for its music mix. By this time, the station's dance party tradition had evolved into a large video dance party, hosted by Martin Streek, which regularly toured throughout Southern Ontario and expanded the station's influence well beyond its actual broadcast range. For a brief period, it was also available on satellite across North America, although this also led to the introduction of more "popular" music.

The station was particularly well respected for introducing new acts which other stations wouldn't play because they were too 'small' in the early 1980s; Canadian artists such as Martha and the Muffins, Rough Trade, Blue Rodeo, Jane Siberry, Singing Fools, 54-40, Skinny Puppy and Spoons were among the acts championed by CFNY. CFNY also created Canada's first independent music awards, the U-Knows (a pun on Canada's mainstream Juno Awards). In 1986, the station held a listener contest to rename the awards, which were re-dubbed the CASBY Awards, for "Canadian Artists Selected By You".

Format change and listener rebellion

In 1988, the station turned its first profit. However, this was not enough for Selkirk, which sought higher ratings. Late that year, the station switched to a mostly top 40 format, leaving its alternative format for weekends and late night. At first, there was a listener rebellion. Their phone-in show at noon was an all-request hour and invariably the requests were for alternative songs. However, the management soon put a stop to this, telling DJs to refuse such calls and only select requests from the top 40. Soon, most of the staff resigned or were fired.

Loyal listeners soon began signing petitions and filed an intervention with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) opposing the station's 1989 licence renewal. Radio analyst reports suggested that 100,000 new listeners had been gained by the change. However, this hid the fact that the market share dropped considerably, to 4.3%.

Evolution to modern rock

In 1989, Selkirk was acquired by Maclean-Hunter, which was committed to returning the station to an alternative format. Instead of reviving the old free-form programming, however, Maclean-Hunter tweaked the station's programming to create a more conventional modern rock station. In the early 1990s, the station again became an important outlet for new Canadian music, with acts such as Barenaked Ladies, The Lowest of the Low, Rheostatics, and Sloan counting CFNY as their first major radio supporter. However, with alternative rock being the decade's dominant genre, CFNY did not sound as distinctive compared to other radio stations as it had in the 1980s, so it never fully regained its former level of influence and respect.

The change also masked, rather than solving, morale problems at the station — in 1992, DJ Dani Elwell resigned from the station by reading her résumé over the air.

When Maclean-Hunter was purchased by Rogers Communications in 1994, CFNY was one of the stations sold off by Rogers to Shaw Communications, which in turn spun its radio holdings off to Corus Entertainment, CFNY's current owner, in 1999.

In the mid-1990s, the station dropped its old branding, becoming 102.1 The Edge. Later it became Edge 102 before reverting to 102.1 The Edge. "The Edge" was a common brand name for alternative and modern rock radio stations during the 1990s, and was created by a U.S. consulting firm named Jacobs Media. Although CFNY remained the station's official call sign, it was not mentioned on-air for many years. In August 2005, however, the station began airing some new identification breaks which used both the CFNY calls and the Edge branding. (Canadian radio stations are officially required to mention their call letters once an hour, although this rule has not been heavily enforced by the CRTC in recent years.)

CFNY is available nationwide in Canada on the Bell TV satellite TV system, channel 955; Shaw Direct channel 866; and via Rogers Digital Cable on channel 929 in the GTA and 954 in other areas of Ontario.

In 2001, a spin-off television channel was created and modelled after 102.1 The Edge. Edge TV was a digital cable specialty channel own by The Edge's parent company Corus Entertainment. The channel was taken off the air in 2003 due to insufficient distribution.

International reach

102.1 The Edge has long been an international station, as its signal is strong enough that, like many other Toronto radio stations, it is widely available in two of the top fifty media markets in North America. Its signal from Toronto beams from the CN Towermarker throughout the Buffalomarker-Niagara Fallsmarker NYmarker market, in addition to Toronto. CFNY pulls a share of between 0.6% and 1.1% in the Arbitron radio rating in Buffalo.

In addition, the station broadcasts streaming audio over the Internet.

The Edge is also available on Bell TV as part of the music channel package. The station also appears in the music mix of a number of cable distributions systems around the country. This gives the station not only a regional coverage, but a number of listeners over all of Canada.

As a result of these factors, CFNY frequently promotes itself as one of the most listened-to radio stations in the world — the station did, in fact, rank tenth in a 2002 Arbitron survey of the world's most listened-to Internet radio streams.

The Dean Blundell Show

The Dean Blundell Show is a morning radio show consisting of hosts Dean Blundell, Jason Barr and Todd Shapiro discussing ongoing news and events in a cynical fashion.

Controversies

Jackass co-stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius were guests on the show on March 26, 2004, in order to promote their "Don't Try This at Home" tour, leading to the "suspension" of Blundell, Barr and Shapiro for the following day. During the interview, Pontius and Steve-O used multiple expletives on the air. Steve-O also proceeded to urinate on the floor and perform a stunt called "Unwrapping the Mummy", all in front of a live studio audience.

Recurring guests

  • Members of the Conservative Party of Canada are frequently interviewed.
  • "Lesbian Lu" visits every Tuesday to talk about her experiences as a homosexual woman.
  • Sex therapist Dr. Laura Zilney; every Wednesday morning.
  • "Gay Jeff" - a gay friend of Todd Shapiro – every Thursday morning; though occasionally on other days as well. Jeff and the hosts discuss topics related to the gay community; however, these discussions usually lead to the hosts questioning Jeff about his sexual exploits or opinions and perceptions as a gay man.
  • "Psychic Nikki" is in on Friday mornings and discusses her psychic visions regarding celebrities, the show's hosts and callers. Todd, Dean and Jason often playfully joke about her predictions.'


Past recurring guests

  • The "Blind Movie Reviewer", Derek Welsman, appeared most Thursday mornings. Legally blind (he has stated he can see about 10–12%), Welsman, who was also an commercial producer for the radio station, talked about a movie he had "seen" recently, from the perspective of a blind person. Each movie reviewed was assigned a score of one to five "blurries", and each review ended with Welsman's catch phrase, "and that's the way I see it!" Derek moved on to Astral Radio Toronto in November 2007. His last review for the Edge was Thursday, November 8, 2007. He ended the segment by returning to his home planet of Myopia with his commanding alien officers, Ray Charles and the blind girl from the Lionel Ritchie "Hello" music video.
  • Gino Empry was a recurring guest until early 2006 when he got so upset that he used profanities on the air, forcing the morning show to end their on-air relationship with him. Empry often fought with Todd and then made up.
  • Eduardo, a frequent caller who would demand free offerings and get extremely upset when Dean, Jason and Todd made it difficult for him to do so. Often resorting to hanging up on the morning show, the three would call him back many times, until full arguments would break out. Eduardo gave up on the Dean Blundell show and now often calls an easy listening station.
  • Frank the Video Store Guy called in to the show and had a stereotypical Indian accent very similar to Apu from the Simpsons
  • Josey Vogels - a "sexpert" who left the show to concentrate on publishing books in late 2008.
  • "Spencer the Cripple" usually talked with the guys on Monday mornings - to talk about his experiences in life. Usually, the segment led to the subjects of bowel movements, his diet and sexual dysfunction. He was fired in March, 2009.
  • Adrian Abrantes, a 23-Year Old from Mississauga. He was fired in October 2009.


Contests

More so than any other of the regular shows on the station, the Dean Blundell Show regularly runs a variety of contests, which often lead to much larger prizes than the other shows' contests. Contests have included:
  • The "Moderately Paid Employee Program" in which the winner, Adwoa Nsiah Yeboah, was awarded a position at the station as its traffic reporter.
  • "The Mister Man-Boobs Contest".
  • "The Cougar Hunt"; "The Edge Ultimate Ugly Contest" and the "Buns of Steel Contest"
  • A series of Wheels, loosely following the 7 Deadly Sins. Each of these "Wheel" contests consists of a series of random challenges (oft-repeated challenges involving stunts done in front of the live tapings of Breakfast Televisionmarker; getting onto other radio stations to promote the show/contest and marketing the radio station) - determined by the spin of a wheel, which skewed either to a certain number of selected Inside Edge members, or as an open challenge to all listeners. The winners of these challenges are given one or more spaces on the final spin of the wheel, where the person landed on wins a giant prize. To date, there have been Wheels of Greed, Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, and most recently, Pride.
  • The "$50,000 Gong" - loosely based on The Gong Show - in which listeners come to the Edge studios and present their talent (either by demonstrating something sufficiently impressive or sufficiently disgusting) to the on-air personalities; whom hit a gong if they don't like it. The listeners who don't get "gonged" qualify for the final round, where one listener will be awarded $50,000. On October 27, the Edge announced that James McAndrew was the winner, with his "fart on command" talent.
  • The "Edge Youtube Challenge", in which listeners post videos on YouTube. The videos must include the Edge logo and "102.1 The Edge" in the video title. Four prizes of $1000.00 and 1 grand prize of $5000.00 are to be rewarded.


The show also has a number of recurring games, with smaller prizes. These include:
  • Stump The Show, where callers try to stump the hosts with a question. Due to a convoluted series of rules (including not being able to say "um", "uh" or "no"), this game is generally won by the show, rather than a caller (in which case no prize is awarded).
  • "Wha' Happen?"; in which callers try to impress the hosts with strange stories of problems in their lives. Blundell, Barr and Shapiro tend to prefer stories dealing with flatulence, sexual mishaps and the like.
  • "What's Wrong With You?"; a similar call-in contest to "Wha' Happen?", except listeners share interesting and often disgusting, crude or sexual stories about what's wrong with them or their family.
  • "The Very Next Prize"; Dean and the guys name a list of prizes to a caller. After one of the prizes the caller says "STOP" and receives the very next prize. If the caller is unlucky he will get the NOTHING slot. This contest was inspired from an incident in February 2008 where a woman accidentally called for a contest on another radio station called "Press Your Luck." Dean offered her a number of prizes in the first envelope including a trip for 2 to the Barbados, and when she said stop, he went to "the very next prize", which was a slice of Havarti cheese.


Other on-air personalities

Alan Cross

Alan Cross started at CFNY in October 1986 doing the overnight show. He held the position of program director for the station from 2004 to 2008. He continues to host the The Ongoing History of New Music, which runs Sundays at 9:00 a.m. and is rebroadcast Mondays at 11:00 PM. Cross is also now the host of a daily half hour show, ExploreMusic, which broadcasts at 7:00 p.m. The show is as the title suggest and attempts to bring a diverse selection of music to listeners. Since the shows are only half hour segments there is a large online portion where fans can listen and explore more of what they hear on air. As well, he creates a daily, minute-long segment of the Ongoing History, that is played sporadically during the day's commercial breaks (as well as via a podcast); upwards of 5,000 segments have been produced.

Dave "Bookie" Bookman

Dave "Bookie" Bookman
Dave Bookman currently works the evening timeslot, from 7:00 p.m until 11:00 p.m, though he joined the radio station in 1991 (and is one of only two on-air personalities from that time that are still at the radio station), as a street reporter for their no longer existent Live in Toronto show. Bookman often talks about his love of sports, soap operas and independent music, and also often has interviews with various artist, sports commentators and movie reviewers. As well, he is often given brand new music to premiere, or concerts to announce on his show.

Bookman currently runs two regular contests:
  • "Bookie's College of Musical Knowledge", a trivia game involving three categories (generally about or related to music, but occasionally about other subject matters, most notably The Simpsons), three answers and three contestants. The first contestant picks the category, and gets a question and three multiple choice answers to choose from. If answered wrongly, the question is posed to the second, and then the third, contestant. Before getting answers, Bookman always inquires as to where the contestant is calling from, and recommends a nearby place to visit, if he knows of one.
  • "Tums Up or Tums Down" is a new contest, which began on 12 July, 2006. Two players relay something they feel passionately for or against, giving it a rating of "Tums up" or "Tums down" accordingly. Bookman, and two others (usually his producer Adam Ricard, and another station staffer, John "JD" Davies) then vote, by "secret ballot" – they each write down their choice, and then reveal them to the other judges – on which player's answer was best, with the majority vote getter being the winner. On the off-chance that there's a tie (very occasionally a judge will abstain), a coin has been flipped to select the winner. The contest is not currently sponsored by the antacid company; rather, the phrase is just used as wordplay.


Bookman also hosts Bookie's Free Nu Music Nite, Tuesday nights at the Horseshoe Tavernmarker, and the Indy Hour program, an hour dedicated to independent music programming, Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. Bookman is himself a former musician, who formed the band The Bookmen with Tim Mech in the early 1990s.

Josie Dye

Josie Dye generally is on-air from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Her show consists mostly of music, interspersed with stories that Dye either finds in the news or relates from her own personal experience. "The Nooner", an hour-long All Request period between noon and 1:00 p.m., also takes place during Dye's show, to which she often assigns an arbitrary theme (previous themes have included gay music to correspond with Toronto's Pride Week, cover songs, and live sessions, which she has stated is her favourite theme). She also runs a small survey every day in order to pick the last song played on The Nooner, which is generally between two choices, and relate to the theme, if there is one for that day. In early 2009, The Nooner segment changed to The 90's Nooner, in which all songs played and requested must have been released during the 1990s. Josie plays several games with the listening audience during The 90's Nooner (including 90's Trivia).

Dye runs two regular contests:
  • "Guess this Edge Artist", in which she gives a series of three or four bizarre clues pointing towards a musician or group, whose music is played on the radio station. In order to win, players must call in (other forms of entry, such as email, are not accepted) with the correct answer.
  • "90's Trivia", a contest that takes place daily during the Nooner. A wheel is spun and lands on a particular category (some include TV, music, etc.) and the answer for that category keeps with the "90s" theme (e.g. if it is movies, then the answer has to do with a move from the 90s). Two callers are on the line, and one is given first crack at guessing the answer she alludes to through the clue that she provides, if unsuccessful, the other gets a chance. If neither of the two are successful, she gives successive clues at which point if someone knows the answer they must say their name to "buzz in" and give what they think is the correct answer.


Josie Dye also hosts the live-to-air broadcast from Republik nightclub, Friday nights from 2:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m.

Darryl Spring

Darryl Spring started at CFNY in June 2005 and hosts some overnight shows along with Saturday Evenings (Countdown to Club 102 at the Phoenix). Darryl also has some interactive contests like the Edge Artist Showdown and the Album Title Challenge. On occasion he'll fill in for club DJ Craig G. Spring, along with Edge DJ Shawarma used to host a live-to-air show Saturday Nights around 2am.

Darrin Pfeiffer

Darrin Pfeiffer, the drummer for the Americanmarker pop punk band Goldfinger, joined CFNY in 2005 after moving to Toronto with his Canadian-born wife Vicky Anderson, however they are currently separated. He currently hosts the overnight slot on Sundays. Darrin was born in the suburbs of nearby Buffalo, NY (in Akron), where CFNY broadcasts very clearly and enjoys a small but cult following among alt-rock fans of the WNY region.

Adwoa Nsiah-Yeboah

Adwoa Nsiah-Yeboah, winner of the "Edge Moderately Paid Employee" contest in February 2005, reports on traffic during the morning and drive home time slots.

Adam Ricard

Adam Ricard hosts overnight and weekend shifts at 102.1 the edge.

George Stroumboulopoulos

George Stroumboulopoulos originally started at CFNY as a street reporter for the now defunct Live in Toronto radio show. After the demise of the show, George left CFNY for the national exposure of MuchMusicmarker, and eventually ended up at CBC hosting The Hour.He subsequently returned to CFNY to host the nationally syndicated The Strombo Show from 5pm to 8pm on Sundays. The Strombo Show was a combination of music, celebrity guests, and calls from listeners. Stromboulopoulos left the station again in summer 2009, taking The Strombo Show to CBC Radio 2marker.

LoriAnn Villani

LoriAnn Villani currently hosts the overnight show from 12am-5:30am Tuesday through Thursday. She can also be seen and heard at the Phoenix every Saturday night and the Velvet Underground on Sunday, taking over after Martin Streek was let go.

Fearless Fred

Fearless Fred hosts the afternoon drive on from 2-7. Fred started working at the station in August 2009. He replaced Bookie in the afternoon drive slot, Bookie now hosts the evening time slot from 7-11 p.m.

Past personalities

  • Steve Anthony
  • Carlos Benevides
  • Mary Ellen Beninger
  • Don Berns
  • Brother Bill
  • Ron Bruchal
  • Kevin Brauch
  • Lee Carter
  • Reggie Cecchini
  • Nick Charles
  • Rick Charles
  • Daddy Cool
  • Sandra Crawford
  • Pete Cugno
  • Jim Duff
  • Dan Duran
  • Scott Eagleson
  • Dani Elwell
  • Alan Ericson
  • Brandon Davis
  • Phil Evans
  • Norah Fountain


References

  1. The percentage of people 12 and older tuned to the station
  2. [1]
  3. Bill Reynolds, "A rock 'n' roll original: DJ Martin Streek symbolized CFNY's unlikely resilience". The Globe and Mail, July 11, 2009.
  4. [2]
  5. Arbitron Press Release


See also



External links




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