CKY AM/FM Radio Staff Reunion 2012 (Includes CITI-FM & CLEAR-FM)

04/25/2025

Jim Coghill was born Aug 27 1935 and raised in the North end of Winnipeg. He attended Faraday and Isaac Newton schools. He started working at CN Telegraphs. But in the 1950’s he began his radio career at CFOB in Fort Frances. In the 1960’s he joined CKRC in Winnipeg, then CKY where his smooth sound made him their “Man About Midnight”. In the 1970’s Jim moved to CJOB where he cared listeners with “The Night Owl”, “Midnight Blue” and “All That Jazz”. Jim was involved with the Winnipeg Press Club and Beer and Skits. He was also involved with the Eric and Jack Wells Foundation, Children’s Aid, Schmockey Night, Age and Opportunity, Newsmen’s Bonspiels and many other baseball and curling leagues. His last 8 years was spent spinning tunes on “Cog’s Corner” at CHNR.

03/22/2025

Upcoming Winnipeg Radio Reunion

Join us Friday, June 13th at The Metropolitan Entertainment Centre in downtown Winnipeg for the 2025 WPG RADIO REUNION GALA!

03/03/2025

Check out details for the “Winnipeg Radio Reunion” scheduled for Friday 13 June 2025

Join us Friday, June 13th at The Metropolitan Entertainment Centre in downtown Winnipeg for the 2025 WPG RADIO REUNION GALA!

03/02/2025

In 1963, at age 14, I was recruited as a CKY "Teenage Tipster" by the then CKY Promotions Manager, Dave Lyman.

My job was to call in school news, take music surveys and report intra-mural sports scores from my junior high school.

I became very good friends with both Daryl Burlingham and Chuck Dann. I spend many, many evenings at the station, acting as a "go-fer", attending remotes, dances and the CKY radio booth at Champs Chicken on Henderson Highway. They helped me prepare tapes of "hits" to use at our school dances. They would insert comments between music tracks such as "This is Chuck Dann from CKY Radio - who is the girl in the corner with the cute knees???!"

I was there the night in 1964 when the two of them recorded the first four tunes Burton Cummings and the Deverons. (“Blue is the Night”)

I was with Daryl at the North-end "Y" when he proclaimed the "Un-named" instead of the Deverons as the winner of the "Battle of the Bands"! That was also the night that Daryl met Rick Honey (drummer of the Unnamed); the two of them became lifelong friends who died within days of each other.

Suffice it to say that I was "hooked" on radio for the rest of my life! I worked at CKY engineering parttime while finishing school from 1965 to 1969 and then fulltime till I completed moving CKY AM and FM to our television facility at Polo Park. I was CKY's Director of Engineering at age 25 when I when I created my own consulting company in 1974.

But back in the spring of 1965, I and a friend, Doug Shackell, decided that instead of sandbagging the Red River for our Easter Holidays, we would hitchhike through the States to Montana, then up to Calgary and home. We wanted to tour radio stations along the way so Daryl provided a letter of introduction.

I just came across that letter - almost exactly SIXTY YEARS later!

I remember it like it was yesterday.

11/16/2024

1960

10/23/2024

Arguably Canada's most legendary Program Directors of all time - all together in one shot. L-R. Gary Russell, J Robert Wood, George Johns, Chuck McCoy.

All influenced greatly by growing up in and around Winnipeg - the Liverpool of Canada - listening to Canada's Friendly Giant CKY.

- Reg Johns

10/03/2024

Reg Johns reports today that his brother George Johns passed away this morning, on his 83rd birthday.

For those of us who knew George, we will miss his stories, his humor, and certainly his zest for life.

08/26/2024

The 1956 Vendo 110 Coca-Cola 10¢ vending machine from the Portage & Main CKY studios has found a home after 50 years in storage and courtesy refurbishment by Coca Cola.

Anyone alive who worked at CKY AM/FM prior to 1974 will have been intimate with this machine‼️