The Voice of Mid-Western Ontario Signs-Off

Phil Main in the Cool FM broadcast booth.

At 10 a.m. on Friday, November 29, there was a seismic shift on Mid-Western Ontario airwaves as the “Voice of Mid-Western Ontario” turns off the mic for the last time at CKNX radio.

Since 1990, the jocular and ever ebullient voice of Phil Main, the CKNX's morning man, has been coming through Mid-Western Ontario radios in homes, offices, barns, cars, trucks, tractors and just about anything that carries a receiver anywhere near the CKNX broadcast area.

Main's absence will truly end an era of local radio broadcasting.

Main was born in Welland in 1959, the son of Joan and Phil Sr., and moved to Goderich when he was six. He attended Victoria Public School and then in Grade 7 moved over to Robertson Memorial PS.

He was a boisterous student who liked to make people laugh. One Gr. 7 teacher told him that “you won't get paid for talking” but, still, she encouraged him to channel his energy into performing. Main said, “there's just something addictive about making people laugh.”

At GDCI, Main credits teachers Warren and Eleanor Robinson, Philip McMillan and John Smallwood for taking him under their wing and encouraging his creativity in the performing arts.

Main learned guitar, wrote music, did comedy and entertained, often with friend, Rob Bundy, at area churches and other venues. He also became an accomplished wedding singer.

His future career at CKNX radio was foreshadowed by his broadcasting GDCI school announcements about once a month for CKNX in 1977.

Main said he got the “acting bug” in high school but was talked out of it by his parents “who thought it might be a better idea if I did something that had a regular income” and they said “y'know, maybe, radio would be better.”

Main successfully completed his training at Fanshawe College where he met some “incredible teachers” like Jack Richardson who discovered such legendary bands as The Guess Who and Bob Seger.

When Main successfully graduated from Fanshawe in 1980, his first radio job was as the nighttime DJ at Hamilton’s CJJD but left after about eight horrible months.

In November 1980, Main'’s first job at CKNX was a swing shift going between FM 102 and AM 920. After almost three years of the swing shift, Main convinced himself that he could make a lot more money and be happy doing something else and left CKNX radio in early 1983.

He tried his hand at helping run Mains Hardware, the family business in Goderich on Kingston Street; played in bands on the side hoping for a music career but life on a tour bus did not suit his “home body” instincts and yearning to be a part of a community.

He called John Chippa, an old CKNX radio friend, about making a demo tape in the studio to get back on the air. Chippa asked him to leave a copy for the CKNX program director because she needed a summer replacement announcer.

In March 1990, Main was doing his show when the program director informed him that the morning had quit. Main grabbed the opportunity and asked if it would be “stupid for him to apply”? She said, “consider the next couple of weeks your audition” and Main was hired for the morning show.

On April 2, 1990, Main went on as CKNX's morning man. A position he did not yield until 34 years later.

Of his longevity on CKNX radio mornings, Main said there were “two types of morning radio announcer, the guy” who comes to town “with the suitcase full of tricks that comes in and lasts a couple of years, his ratings blow up, then he gets tiresome and goes to the next town” and does the same thing in the next town but never stays long “and then, there's the guy who settles into a community becomes the friend you call to emcee; the guy trust and that's more in keeping with who I am,” Being a big part of a community, like mid-Western Ontario, is a big part of who he is.

As for ratings, Main does not really “believe in them, too much” because “from my experience, they're not all that accurate.”

Although he had “some books”, or ratings, “that weren't like anything they ever had as far as numbers go, numbers in the 100,000 rage which is crazy” where the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement reported listener comments like “best show ever”, “we love these guys”, and then you read comments like “Phil Main sucks”, or “I can't listen to this station”.

Main said, “you have to take everything with a grain of salt” and “you wouldn't do this job just for the accolades.”

If Main did not realize it then, but when asked to lend his name and support to such noble projects as MADD, Kids Help Line; United Way, emcee a local hospital fundraiser; or be the guest speaker at a service club, church or event, he had become a big part of the mid-Western Ontario community. He also never lost love of performing live appearing at venues big and small all over the area and releasing several CDs.

In 2005, CKNX FM 94.5 The Bull went on air as a classic rock station and Main was switched over from FM 102 to AM 920. The format was initially changed to a talk station. “Those first few months were really rocky” according to Main. Old listeners thought we changed the format. It took time to win them back.

Main was told “to make it work” and he did for nine years when he was called to COOL FM 94.5 where he has been permanently ensconced as the morning man for the last 11 years.

Over the decades, Main has learned many lessons about live air.

“Our Program Director came up with some great contest games for our show. Notty Scotty being the best known where Main asked Scotty a question and listeners had to say whether it was Scott or Not,” remembered Main.

“This thing was probably the first huge thing in my career where you'd go places where people wanted autographs because it was the guys who did the Notty Scotty thing. Prizes weren't huge but people loved it.”

Right on the heels of that success, one of his program directors came up with an idea for a new contest called Guess What's in My Hand? A couple weeks in, somebody guessed something not so appropriate live on the air and Main was so taken aback that he said 'what was that again? So, he repeated it. So, Main responded with something stupid like 'I remember my first beer too’ and felt like he just bailed and thought he was getting fired.

Yet, it is not the on-air gaffs that Main's reign as CKNX morning man is remembered for but the Conway Furniture Store commercials and the mid-Western Ontario School and Bus Report.

For generations, anyone involved with mid-Western Ontario winters tuned in to the radio to hear if their bus was running or, better yet, the school was closed. Everyone knew a bus report was on its way when they heard the first few chords of The Guess Who's 'Bus Rider'.

Future mid-Western Ontarians will experience the fun and suspense of waiting until Main read your school's name on the radio now that the Bus Report has moved on-line.

After 34 years, Main is looking forward to no more 4 a.m. mornings and moving back to Goderich with his wife, Ally, and getting back involved in the Goderich community.

Main's moving farewell address posted on Facebook a month ago sums up his last few days on the air with:

“I could make this an even longer, drawn-out, teary goodbye but I'm not going to do that. My closest family and friends who mean so very much to me and my friends in the radio business, know who they are. I believe they understand the depth of my love and gratitude for them. It's time to go home now.”