Alexander Bridge
Submitted: May 6, 2014
I arrived in Sudbury in September of 1967, after leaving my graphic arts job in the promotion department of The Montreal Star in Montreal, just as Expo 67 came to an end.
For the past year I’d been lead graphic designer for the newspaper’s coverage of this world’s fair event. It had been a year of wonder for me, but I decided I wanted to get out of print media and into radio and TV. But given the fact of my age and no real experience in either radio or television, I knew it would not happen in the Montreal market.
So in the fall of that year, I applied for and got a job at CKSO, hired by then Station Manager, George Lund. I was given the lofty title of Promotion Director for CKSO Radio & TV. My humble starting salary was $75 a week. I had taken a cut in pay to get into the electronic media and despite that was excited about a career change. I was single and 24 year old.
I sold my best friend a 1960 red Alpha Roma sports car and bought a used Volvo sedan, knowing the latter would fair better during the long winters ahead in Northern Ontario. Sudbury at that time was a somewhat desolate place for a young man just arrived from the bright lights of Montreal. The Sudbury of 1967 was a far different place than the Sudbury of today. I could not find an apartment at first, rentals were in short supply, so I lived for nearly 6 months in a rooming house, along with 4 other male renters… all of whom were miners. The bathroom we shared was a dark, sordid dungeon. The 4 other men worked at INCO.
CKSO was for me, at the time, a wonderful work place. It was filled with energetic, interesting people, a hard-a** radio and TV sales force, and an assortment of new on-air types, plus a small collection of veteran on-air from major market stations.
Shortly after arriving in Sudbury, one such veteran from Toronto befriended me. Hartley Hubs had worked in radio for years, most recently as the chopper traffic reporter for CHUM AM. For a young man just discovering radio and TV, I was really intrigued by this season broadcast veteran. We shared stories, mostly his, at the Nickel Range and other drinking establishments. His stories were coloured by his imagination and were fascinating to me, to say the least.
Another CKSO broadcaster I remember from my time there was Michael (Mike) Connor. Mike was a pro when it came to broadcasting. He had what we call ’class’, a real gentleman. We worked together, drank together and on occasion I’d be invited back to his place to enjoy a home cooked meal prepared by his wife Lynn.
Beside the day-to-day promotion work I handled in this one-man department, I was charged with coming up with new events to help promote the station. I helped the sales department organize the 2nd Las Vegas Safari, a promotional event to increase TV ad revenue in the slow summer months of 1968. The concept was that for a fixed media package an advertiser got a return ticket to Vegas, free hotel, meals and some gambling chips. The advertiser could use the ticket for themselves or pass it along to an employee. We did a contra deal for the flight and hotel, paid back in commercials on CKSO, so the station’s cash outlay was virtually nil. As a result, the summer months were sold out for TV spots and we filled a plane heading south, with eager gamblers, and sent Peter Orfankus, the station’s photographer, to document the fun in Sin City.
I also organized the first Walkathon in Sudbury in 1968. That first year, I did the 26 mile walk twice in one day to help promote the soon to be annual event. I also helped promote the CKSO Hockey team- the ‘Good Guys’, whose major rivals were a group of fast skating priests known as the ‘Flying Fathers’. These games between our team and the priests were very well attended, mostly sold out games at the Sudbury Arena. But the priests did their far share of promotion too, with a little planning; they rigged a dummy dressed as a nun, on an overhead trip wire, above the arena ice. Every time the ‘Flying Fathers’ scored- across the rink ‘flew’ the flying nun!
Ralph Connor, eager to bring some culture to Sudbury had me organize some performance events. We brought an off, off Broadway production of ‘Stop The World I Want to Get Off’ to Sudbury. As well as the UK rock group, The Troggs, and later Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Diamond. Got to spend some time with Lightfoot and Diamond doing show intros. A hell of a lot of fun for this young man back then.
In March of 1968, a well-liked Sudbury lawyer by the name of Jim Jerome was running for MP for the Sudbury riding. He brought with him on one of his many Sudbury junkets, another young man about to make a name for himself too in Canadian politics- Pierre Trudeau. They filled the town with excitement as they buzzed around doing CKSO interviews and meeting the locals. Jerome won the seat, Trudeau won too and he and his Liberal Party ruled for 11 years. In 1974 the PM appointed Jerome, Speaker of the House.
The late 1960s were great times for anyone associated with CKSO. To everyone’s surprise, Hub Beaudry left the station in 1969 to make a name for himself in TV in Ottawa. Along with his sports duties, Hub had hosted a kids’ TV show called Hub’s Club. When he left there was a hole in the time slot. As Program Director now, I went to Ralph Connor and George Lund to try and find some money for a new hire. No dice. So I ended doing the children’s show myself, along with all my administrative duties. Years later I’d reprised the show ‘Smart Alec’ at CJOH TV, CTV’s flagship station in Ottawa. The program was a huge hit. Bushnell Communications seeing it as a moneymaker had us do a network pilot. However it did not make the cut nationally.
There’s lots to remember from those days in the north. And although I never knew him at the time, Joe Spence, a CKSO alumnus and I, later would work together in Ottawa when the CBC launched a pilot program on radio to test the waters for creating nationwide, commercial free radio on the network. CBO Morning was the beta test site for commercial free radio in Canada and proved the concept could work. Joe Spence did sports, Mac Atkinson read the news and I hosted the 3-hour early AM show and did all the interviews. It was intense; all live, and fast paced and filled with surprises for everyone daily. We 3 enjoyed some of the best part of our radio careers back on that program. Today, still friends, we continue to stay in touch.
Little did I know in 1967 that my life would change as a result of my early years at CKSO. It led to other exciting work in both radio and TV, both in Canada and US, private broadcasting, aboriginal programming and work with the CBC. Now retired, living in a small coastal village in Nova Scotia, I still think about all those memories, many worn smooth, like a stone you might find on a beach.
