People who know me from my long and happy life at NTV and broadcast news might think I’ve spent my whole media life in television. Not so. Television has certainly been a great ride but my start in broadcast media actually was in radio.

My first radio job was with VOCM in the newsroom, and I worked the late shift there at first finishing up my day at midnight. It was there I got my first hosting gig reading the midnight news. “The last news of the day, the first news of tomorrow” is what the promo said. That is where the door opened even further to other spots on-air. I did some hockey “colour” with George McLaren and Rod French – Newfoundland senior hockey and the Allan Cup. I did some games of the infamous Barrie Flyers- St. John’s Capitals series. That was great. I also did some late night and early morning DJ work. Announcers is what we called ourselves. I would get off the news desk at midnight on a Friday night and walk around to the other studio and sit into the big audio board and start the All-Night Show. That ran until six in the morning. Playing music for people was really cool.

How much did I love DJ work? When I moved to CJON a couple of years later, part of that opportunity I asked for was a chance to keep my hand in and do some CJON on-air TV reading AND some AM radio work as well. Geez, it was like I had died and gone to heaven. I did TV news and radio news and other stuff. I did a Canada-Honduras soccer game once with Carl Lake. I hosted the Little Miss Mount Pearl Pageant, and I did a few CJON radio shifts including some Saturday night rock shifts. I have tapes but you can’t hear them. It was like I had won the lottery. I read TV news and radio news with John Nolan and Bob Lewis and Vince Gallant. Eventually I moved on to FM radio when OZ started but that didn’t last long although I had fun there too.

Eventually I became exclusively a television person, but I can tell you there is part of my heart that will always remember AM radio. It was another world. That was a place where you were really part of the community working in a universe that was filled with opportunity. Now radio in the 1970s was a place filled with odd characters. Some were gifted and some were not. They all shared a trait though and that is they wanted to be on-air. They craved attention like it was a drug. Radio was one of those places where you could start at the bottom and get to the top if your worked hard and hung in there. There was certainly less structure in those days and a better chance to play whatever you wanted. Certainly, that was true in the Midnight to 6 a.m. shift because even program directors, station managers and other bosses have to sleep too so overnight you had a longer leash. That situation had to change. I understand that because it was too free- form in those early days, but it was such fun.

Just so you know at three in the morning you are the only person in the building, but you can go the washroom or make a cup of noodles if you play The Wreck of the Edmund FitzGerald or MacArthur Park. You will have time.

It was a different world. Someone in the radio business said correctly it was a little unhinged. It was all of that. TV News is where I eventually found home, but I tried to keep my hand in the strange world of AM radio. Thirty years ago, it was a magical world of music and program logs and sponsor carts and public service announcements. I learned it all and drank it all in. Then the formula for success could be reduced to a simple command. Identify the station with the call letters as in CJON 930; give the time; give the temperature; identify yourself and roll the next record.

To wit “CJON radio … 2.35 on a Saturday morning ….20 degrees in the capital city under cloudy skies with sunshine later in the day…. my name is Jim Furlong, and these are the Beatles.” That’s all there is to it.

As an old program director said to me on time; “Always remember, Jim, nobody cares what YOU actually think about anything!” They listen to the station for the time, the temperature, and the music. Do I miss those days? Yes, of course. They were filled with an innocence but also with a bunch of stuff mostly of excesses bad for me. It was a world of poor diet, long hours with not enough sleep, and tension by the truckload. It was also a wonderful way to make a living. People listened to be entertained. Hopefully you made them feel better in some way. You connected. I used to tell people that of you listen to enough songs on the radio you will eventually hear YOUR story being told. Guaranteed.

You can contact Jim Furlong at jfurlong@ntv.ca