Ross Crain

Ross Crain - DJ CKWX Vancouver 1954-55; CJOR Vancouver 1955-56; CKWX 1956-60; CFCF radio/TV Montreal and CFOX Montreal 1960-65; writer/analyst Market Development Department CBS TV Network Sales New York 1966-69; Toronto: Research Director CTV Network 1969-71; Research Director TV Division All Canada Radio and Television Ltd. 1971-74; Marketing Manager BBM and Membership Director/VP Toronto Chapter American Marketing Association 1974-75; Research Director Calendar Magazines 1975-77; Marketing Research Manager The Globe and Mail 1977-79; Project Manager ADCOM Research 1979-80; Project Director Newspaper Marketing Bureau 1980-82; Instructor Marketing Department School of Business Administration Ryerson Polytechnic Institute 1982-83; Professor Business Management Seneca College 1983-97; Vancouver: retired/volunteer textbook recorder Crane Resource Centre Production Unit for the blind and visually impaired UBC Vancouver 1997-current.

After graduating from Magee High School, Vancouver, in 1950, I attended UBC where I was more interested in broadcasting (with the University Radio Society) than I was in studies. I dropped out and took a summer job at CKWX which turned into a permanent job doing the all-night show, Concert Under the Stars, a classical music program. In June 1955, I moved to CJOR where, at the same time, Red Robinson was a teenager who came in after school (King Edward High School) to do his show Theme for Teens. I never really caught on at CJOR and moved back to the all night show at CKWX, which had moved into new studios at 1275 Burrard Street and gone to 50,000 watts in 1956. In 1960, it was decided that my term at CKWX was over so my wife of 6 months and I moved to Montreal where Laurie Irvine (who remembered me from CKWX) hired me at CFCF Radio. I also did some television work, hosting a nightly game show on CFCF-TV. In 1962, I decided to continue my education and enrolled in Commerce at McGill University where I got my B. Comm. in 1965. While doing so I worked at CFOX on the Montreal Lakeshore. My wife and I moved to New York City in June of '65 where I obtained an MBA from Columbia University. In October 1966, I joined the CBS Television Network Market Development Department where I analyzed audience data and wrote sales presentations. We returned to Canada in June, 1969, to Toronto, where we lived for 28 years and where our son was born. I worked. mostly as a research director, for CTV, All Canada Television reps, BBM, Calendar Magazines, The Globe and Mail, Adcom Research, and the Newspaper Marketing Bureau. Then, in 1983, I turned to Academia and, after one semester at Ryerson Technological Institue, I became a professor and spent fourteen years at Seneca College of Arts and Technology, teaching Business Management. I retired in 1997 and returned to Vancouver.      "Ross Crain"

I was delighted to read the message referring to his origins on the CKWX Concert Under the Stars allnight shift, where he replaced Bob Gillies, the program's first host. Crain got out of radio and made a pretty good something of himself, which all too few of us were smart enough to do. This is certainly the F. Ross Crain I knew at UBC Radio and at CKWX. He was nice enough to have me over to his Angus Drive home in West Pt. Grey in 1954 to watch the Army-McCarthy Hearings from KING or KOMO Seattle... my yagi antenna didn't get high enough to provide a stable picture in those pre-cable days. Ask Ross to tell you about the night he started the allnight show in the production room at CJOR so he could have access to concert records that weren't in the CKWX library at 543 Seymour Street. (Y'see there was a broadcast land line between the two stations to facilitate the exchange of produced commercials. And Ross had friends at the station in the Grosvenor Hotel basement!)

"Ron Robinson - CKWX - the 50's"