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Village Squire, 1978-04, Page 18TELEVISION RADIO Sometimes the big time isn't worth it Cliff Robb, current farm broadcasting head at CKNX radio and television at Wingham is something of a parable of the times. He grew up on a farm, tried to make a living at it, went broke, turned to urban methods of earning a living and found success, went up the ladder of success then decided city life wasn't for him and moved back to smalltown Ontario. Today he's quite happy to have left the "big time" of C.B.C. radio for the small town radio and television station. He sees his job as an important one, one of building a bridge of understanding between the producer of food and the consumer. The two groups have gone farther and farther from each other in recent years. Even in Western Ontario, the breadbasket of the province, he says, consumers outnumber producers and they must be helped to understand what's going on in the land, what living on the land means. He knows himself, of course although in recent years his job has taken him away from the country. He grew up on a farm near Kingston. His father was a writer and a poet who had a manager run the farm, while he contributed articles to such publications as Canadian Countryman and wrote books championing the cause of the North American Indian. Cliff, however, was more interested in the farm than in writing. He spent a lot of time with the men working in the fields. He joined a calf club and talked at every opportunity to the farmers. He served overseas during the Second World War and then came home with the urge to start farming on his own. He bought his father's farm, married a girl from Kingston and settled down to be a farmer. He found out that it takes more than enthusiasm to make a farmer however while he was good with his dairy cattle, he was a disorganized kind of person and found trouble with such things as finding the time to get his crops off. PG. 16. VILLAGE SQUIRE/APRIL 1978. He lasted 10 years before the financial bind of the 1950's that drove thousands of other Ontario farmers from the land pushed him to the wall. He discussed his plight with an older farmer he knew who said if he were in the same position. he'd get out of farming quick. He was too old himself, the neighbour said, but Cliff was a young man with a young family and should get while the getting was good. Cliff's father was the man who came up with an alternate career opportunity. He noted his son had the gift of gab and could write fairly well and pointed out that there was a big need for farm broadcasting on the local radio stations. He suggested Cliff try to convince one of the ,stations to give him a job. Cliff prepared a few samples of the kind of thing he would like to do on a farm program and his idea was accepted. In the fall of 1955 he went on the air with a morning show that didn't even have a sponsor. The show attracted the attention of a local garage operator who offered to sponsor it. He soon had a noon -hour show as well and he quit farming altogether. But in the fall of 1962 he moved on to CHEX in Peterborough, leaving his family behind in Kingston until he could move them in the spring. Before then, however, he had a telephone call from CKNX offering him a chance to take over the job of farm broadcaster on both radio and television. He took the job and moved the family instead to Wingham to what he recalls as the happiest years of his life. The station in those days was still run by the Cruickshank family with the legendary Doc Cruickshank still an ever-present sight. Still, when the opportunity came to move up the ladder to a job with the C.BC., he took it. He had successes in the huge corporation. He asked for a Sunday morning slot from seven -to -nine a.m. Others in the corporation laughed at him. Sunday morning was the traditional dog time of the week. He went ahead anyway and produced a two-hour farm information package that rolled up an impressive listening audience of 200,000 people. the highest ever for that time period. At 9, ' when the show finished, the audience figures for the next show dropped to 40,000. Some things in the big time were not so good. Two years after joining C.B.C. he had a stroke. He recovered but then several years later he had to have a hip joint replaced and complications set in. The notorious political infighting of the corporation took its toll tooas he was constantly losing staff and having his budget cut. After 10 years with the corporation he decided he'd had enough and began to look for a way out of the city. He looked first to eastern Ontario, His old home country but nothing was in sight quickly. He was visiting his son Dave who works for the McLean Bros. newspaper chain in Seaforth and went out for a drive with him and ended up in Wingham where they drove around and saw the old home and passed by the CKNX station. They saw some cars parked outside (it was on a Saturday) and decided to go in to say hello. Among those present was Ross Hamilton the station manager. They chatted for a while and Cliff told of wanting to leave Toronto and was offered a job back with his old station. He just laughed and said no at first. thinking still of moving back to eastern Ontario. But after some thought he decided to take up the offer and came back to Wingham which hadn't had a formal farm editor for several years. Slowed up by his physical problems. wearied by the political battles at the C.B.C. he still has a boyish enthusiasm when it comes to talking about his job. He feels that farm broadcasters haven't done a very good job over the years and points out that in the 1950's there were 30 to 40 in Ontario and today there are only five. If they'd been doing their jobs properly, he says. today they'd still have those jobs. In most ways he doesn't regret moving from the big time back to small town media but does miss having the staff and large budget that he had in Toronto. Today doing many of the things he wants to do can be difficult. One thing that the budget hasn't hurt however, is the verve he brings to his farm broadcasts. He's a man who has given a lot of thought to where farming has gone and should go and isn't completely happy with some of the trends he sees today. He's lively and opinionated in his broadcasts and has given CKNX a strong farm voice again for the first time in many years. Like so many people who went to the city and found it wasn't the life they really wanted, Cliff Robb seems happy to have left the rat race behind. Many of his listeners are glad he did too.