The Magic Behind the Microphone

While there is a perfectly sound technical explanation for how programming created in a small studio emanates and somehow fills our radios right out of thin air, I prefer to think of it as magic. And nowhere was that magic more evident than in the early days of 1050 CHUM. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of CHUM, I had the pleasure of reminiscing with the legendary Geets Romo and taking a behind the scenes look at how dramatically technology has evolved.

When CHUM was launched by Allan Waters in December 1954, its transmitter was a modest 250 watts and only broadcast dawn until dusk. Located on the Toronto Islands, its power was gradually increased to 10,000 watts transmitting around the clock. In the early sixties, a new tower was constructed in Clarkson, Ontario beaming out a blistering 50 Kilowatts. The tower remains there to this day, although a new Harris solid state version was installed last year which boasts 89% power efficiency. An important development since that end of the year power bill can be a killer for AM stations.

Little sister (now big brother) CHUM-FM, as a classical station, broadcast from the famous neon tower atop 1331 Yonge St with only about 1,000 watts. By July 1968, when it was ready to rock, the transmitter was relocated to Bloor & Jarvis with 100 Kilowatts, power worthy of the energy being created at the transformed station. Still, it was on a building which had other troublesome skyscrapers in the vicinity. The answer came in 1976 with the advent of the CN Tower. There the new transmitter still resides, albeit in a solid state, power efficient form. Interestingly, its 40Kilowatts delivers the equivalent of 100 Kilowatts due to its height of 1500 feet.

The real fun was taking place inside the studio in the early mono/analog days. As someone who used to work with reel-to-reel tape decks which made editing a nightmare, I can say the changes since then have been dramatic and welcome. Early on, the commercials were recorded on three-inch reel-to-reel decks. They used Ampex 601's. When it came to production, the idea of mulitracking was no more than a gleam in some madman's eye, although CHUM did come up with a workaround. They had three tape recorders. You put the voice on one, the backing track on another and mixed them down to the third deck.

Inside the booth the jocks used turntables with 78's, then 45's and ultimately 33 1/3 RPM records. 1050 CHUM, the bastion of hits, relied on 45's while CHUM-FM, a renegade rocker gravitated toward LP's. Geets laughingly remembers the Gray tone arms that ran into significant trouble when the temperature changed. The jocks (like many of us at home) would put a quarter on the tone arm. If you wanted to get some serious level, you might use 50 cents.

By 1963, carts with 7 1/2 ips tape were used for commercials. This allowed for more orderly cueing. By the late 60's/ early 70's the AM station was putting all the music on carts as well. CHUM-FM stuck with LP's. By 1982 Sony CD players were brought it for the music, bringing with them much more technical reliability. The era of the hard disk began with a DOS version in 1995. Today's RCS or Scott systems deliver precision automation of all programming elements with pristine hard drive storage. Commercial production is done on the industry standard Pro Tools systems as well as Vox and Cool Edit Pro.

For many of us the magic is still symbolized and embodied by the microphones used. In the early days, it was the RCA77DX, a ribbon mike. It is such a strong symbol that you can see one on Larry King's desk to this day. You could also find the RCA74, the famous square mike in the studios. Today it is the dynamic RE20 or the condenser Neumann U87, one of my personal favourites.

Despite all of this technical talk, the real magic was an intangible. Something that can't be coded, given a power rating or a serial number. Or perhaps it could. The number was 1050. Happy birthday CHUM.

A force in television

Of course, CHUM has gone on to be a major force in television as well as radio, with 12 television stations and 21 specialty channels including MuchMusic (which just celebrated its 20th anniversary) and Bravo. I had the pleasure of reminiscing with Bruce Cowan, Director of Broadcast Technology for CHUM Television. CITY-TV itself was responsible for many Canadian television firsts. CITY was the first private broadcaster with a "live-eye" news remote truck. It was the first station to make use of ENG tape as opposed to film. It was one of the early adopters of stereo sound. They were also an early user of 1" VC helical scan videotape. And bringing it back around to radio, they were the first to broadcast a music concert simulcast with a radio station when they partnered with CHUM-FM for that initiative. Another major development of note was CITY-TV's launch of its HD service in March 2003. MuchMusic was one of the first stations to use satellite technology for distribution to cable companies across the country.

In the early days CHUM stations worked with 3/4" videotape. Over time they made the transition to Beta SP, SX and Digibeta. Oddly enough you will still find a few 3/4" machines getting use in the newsroom. The major development in recent years has been the transition to hard drive. All content of 5 min. or less (for example, commercials) is digitized to an Mpeg 2 format and delivered via server from a hard drive. Videotape is still used for longer material.

In early 2004, Bruce initiated a 3 year project during which CHUM Television will move the content in its vast videotape library to a digital system based on Sony's SAIT format.

He has installed a PetaSite system from Sony of Canada Ltd. and has been feeding content into it ever since. The system features four SAIT-1 drives, an Ethernet hub, a terminal server and a PetaSite control unit. The robotic data tape archive will hold 1000 tapes, each one of which will store up to 500GB of uncompressed data on a single-reel.

David Bray is Sr. vice-president of Hennessy & Bray Communications.