Thursday, March 26, 2009

Bye Bye Chum :-(


Toronto AM music station 1050 Chum has dropped their Oldies format and gone All News. Chum have been a music station since 1957 when they began as (what was then called) Top 40. They flipped to Oldies over 20 years ago and have been primarily a music station for the most part of the past half century. They were the station that brought Elvis and The Beatles to the city.
In the 70s, they gave away $1,000 in cash to listeners who answered their phone with the words "I Listen to Chum" (might sound familiar to you if you remember Sunshine 101 Dublin in the 80s)!
chum building toronto.
I understand the business part - music on AM is almost impossible to pull off, but at the same time I'm really sad to see a grand old dame of North American radio fade away like this. It was the same with LG73 in Vancouver - a powerhouse CHR station, now pumping out traffic bulletins 24 hours a day (although their call letters 'CKLG' were adopted by JackFM Vancouver, in a nice nod to the past).

The newly formatted station is called CP24. It changed over a 5am local time today.