Welcome to JJ-365 Salutes. Over 2018, we pay tribute daily to one of “The Good Ones”. Today we are shining the light on Ross Kentner.

I came to know Ross a bit when overseeing Barrie/Collingwood for CORUS Radio East. “The Beach” radio station owned by Bayshore was licenced for Wasaga Beach and competing for our local and regional revenues. They even moved to the outskirts of Collingwood actually into the PEAK’s previous building!

In 2012 there was a hearing for a new radio licence in the area and we were all in there. The CRTC eventually awarded the licence to Canadian media giant Moses Znaimer to open a radio station in Collingwood. Among their holdings MZ Media Inc. operates Classical 96.3 in Toronto and Classical 103.1 in Cobourg. Their Collingwood station win was achieved on the promise of focusing on Classical music. 

Ross and I had many conversations over this time but make no mistake that we were competing against each other and the rest of the hopefuls. In that time, I came to know more about him, and appreciate his tenure and stature in the business. 

To properly bring you to speed and salute Ross, here follows an excellent article by Scott Dunn of the Owensoundsuntimes.com:

Ross Kentner will sign off his 56-year career in the radio business Friday. the radio business Friday.

Kentner is just the third general manager of the Owen Sound-based radio conglomerate, Bayshore Broadcasting, which began in 1940 with CFOS-AM.

“When I started, and actually for quite a long time after I began at the radio station, there were two railways and a telegraph office in Owen Sound,” he said Monday, shortly after talking on the CFOS Open Line call-in program with Dave Carr.

Kentner’s long experience was helpful in winning competitive bids to establish new FM radio stations, an alternative growth strategy to being swallowed up by larger media companies, he said in an interview.

Bayshore Broadcasting now includes two FM stations in Owen Sound, and FM stations in Wasaga Beach, Goderich, Orillia, Shelburne and as of this coming July 1, Muskoka. It’s a point of pride for Kentner, 76.

But Kentner may be best remembered for his distinctive, nasal-resonant voice, telling us about local history as the Georgian Bay Explorer or sharing his opinions in Making Waves editorials on Owen Sound air waves.

He started as a volunteer at the station while still in high school in 1960, working in the radio control room at night, sometimes hitching rides to Owen Sound to get there.

Kentner drew his first radio paycheque as an announcer working the evening shift in 1961 at CFOS. His parents had moved the Kentner family to Meaford from Toronto in 1956, when young Ross was in Gr. 10.

He had career options presented to him which didn’t interest him as much as the excitement of radio did.

His dad, Carl, offered to teach him barbering so he’d always have a trade. And his boss at a summer job in Meaford at a furniture store, which doubled as a funeral parlour as they did in those days, offered to show him the ropes there.

But Kentner’s older brother, Barry, had taken a job with CFOS and that’s how Kentner caught the radio bug. Barry Kentner had moved on as news director by the time Ross was hired at the radio station as a $45-a-week evening announcer.

“Dad was the guy who kept telling me, over and over ad nauseam, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be the manager some day,’” recalled Kentner, who as a 19-year-old was dubious about that.

Kentner worked for five years as a radio announcer. In those days, announcers spun the records, read the news and even read commercials live. “So much was done live on the air.”

Today it’s common for announcers to be pre-recorded and shared among stations in separate communities.

A big part of the satisfaction of the job was in getting the timing right, like when he’d cue up songs, talking through the introductory bars and end just as the singer began.

The very same RCA console which he used, of 1940s or ‘50s vintage, is kept in the Bayshore Broadcasting boardroom.

Full of dials, knobs and toggle switches, the old electronic console was used at the station until 1988, when it was retired as CIXK-FM or 106.5 was added to the stable of stations in 1988.

Kentner said he concluded there were more talented radio announcers than he would ever be, so he looked more towards management. When a news director’s job became available, he got it and kept it for eight years.

He introduced greater separation between the news side of the business and announcer/operators, he said. He got more reporters hired and avoided having them read commercials for the most part.

He was news director when The Sun Times and CFOS used to share news stories. On the air the news was “from the CFOS-Sun Times newsroom.”

Kentner would arrive at work at 5:15 a.m., stop in at the Sun Times to fetch the news from overnight and rewrite it for broadcast on the air. CFOS-originated stories were provided to the paper in return.

The radio station “was the child of The Sun Times” because it was founded by Sun Times owner Howard Fleming.

About 1974, Kentner was elevated to the station’s broadcast manager and in 1985 he was named general manager, when Douglas Caldwell bought the station and renamed the company which held it Bayshore Broadcasting Corporation.

Caldwell, who still owns the company, bought the station from the Bill Hawkins, who also was CFOS’s first announcer and later, its general manager.

CFOS’s first station manager, Ralph Snelgrove, became its second general manager, whom Kentner succeeded.

“I just had great, great mentorship, I am so blessed. Bill Hawkins was just marvellous and certainly gave me everything to be successful in management,” Kentner said.

“I have been so privileged to work with so many gifted young people and dedicated young people. It was just a labour of love to be able to mentor them and bring them on.

“Really, I could have gone years ago. I just really need to get up and go to work in the morning. Still do.”

A come-and-go event marking Kentner’s retirement will be hosted at Bayshore Broadcasting headquarters in Owen Sound this Friday from 11 to 3 p.m.

Thank you, Scott Dunn of the owensoundsuntimes.com.

In closing....in a time when most of the independent broadcasters have been gobbled up by the multinationals, Ross and his team kept their heads down and quietly expanded their radio chain. Getting a licence is not easy and it takes someone with knowledge and understanding of the process, and who has good standing with the CRTC to pull these acquisitions off. Ross Kentner is all of that and more. Humble beginnings, long service to industry, and a man who just loves the industry. He will miss it I am sure, and of course he will be missed. You did it Ross!

Congrats to Ross Kentner, the legend, on being one of the “The Good Ones”. Feel free to like and share Ross’s positive story. Who is the subject of tomorrow’s JJ-365 Salutes? Stay tuned!

Jim Jj Johnston is the CEO, President and Chief Talent Coach for JJIMS INC. and works with talent in many different industries worldwide. JJ can be reached at JJ-IMS.COM.