By Andrew Macdonald
- Frank Cameron Dead Age 85 – 67-year Long Broadcast Career, Including Seaside FM
Knowing New Glasgow native, Frank Cameron was in failing health, I was still shocked when community radio station, Seaside FM announced his death on the airwaves on Jan 20th, 2024.
Cameron logged 67-years in the broadcast business, most of his adult life with CBC, where he retired in 1995. He joined Seaside FM in 2005, 105.9 on the FM dial.
His bio on Seaside states:
It all started at a 250-watt radio station in New Glasgow. While in high school, Frank hung out at CKEC and begged for work. He said, “my knees were full of scratches from being down on them so often.” Finally, after he got out of high school, the station hired him.
He spent a year learning his craft, and he was lured to the Town of Truro in 1956. Frank spent three wonderful years at CKCL.
In 1959, he moved to the big city of Halifax and went to work for the oldest radio station in the province. He spent eight years there and when the station went Top 40 (or Top 60), Frank enjoyed the notoriety and the station garnered 65 per cent of the available Halifax radio audience.
While at CHNS, he was offered a television show at CBC Halifax. The show was a national program called Music Hop and the Halifax version was known as Frank’s Bandstand.
In 1967 Frank traded in his 45’s for a full-time job at the CBC. He did radio and television for almost 30 years until he retired from the Corporation in 1995. But Frank wasn’t finished. He returned to CHNS for another ten years.
In 2005, he decided he had enough and left CHNS. Frank was 67 years old. Along came Wayne Harrett, GM of Seaside FM and asked if he would like to volunteer at the community station.
Frank retired from Seaside FM over the summer of 2023, when ill health forced him to give up the mike.
On November 8th, 2023, 105.9 Seaside FM highlighted the illustrious and legendary career of Frank Cameron on a four-hour “Frank Cameron Retirement Tribute show”.
The above is a bio of Frank Cameron on Seaside FM.
Instrumental in the development of musicians Bobby Curtola & Anne Murray, Cameron’s mainstay job was at the CBC, starting in the 1960s.
He joined Seaside FM in 2005, after running into the station founder at a Dartmouth grocery store.
“They ran into each other at a grocery store and Wayne (Harrett) put the idea to Frank. I guess the story goes, ‘When are you going to come to Seaside’ and ‘Frank said how much are you paying me’. Wayne said, ‘We are volunteer run’ and Frank said, ‘I am not going’ and a week later he started. That took place in 2005,” says radio station general manager, Riley Murphy.
Frank Cameron is dead at age 85. He has been on Seaside FM since 2005 and is a former CBC toiler. (Seaside FM image).
Cameron turned 85 last December, the same age as former NS Premier John Hamm and 1960s Halifax Herald journalist, Lyndon Watkins, who also worked for the Globe and Mail in the 1970s, and helped found The Halifax Daily News in 1979.
Riley Murphy is the 27-year-old who took over as station GM of the not-for-profit community radio station, in 2021 following the death of the radio house’s founder, Wayne Harrett.
Riley Murphy is 27 and the general manager of Seaside FM, 105.9 on the dial in Eastern Passage. (Seaside FM image).
Murphy is one of only two people paid at the station. The rest are volunteers.
Cameron hosted the Coffee Club Show, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and last summer appeared twice a week. Last spring, Cameron did three shows a week.
Gail Rice, a veteran broadcaster and former sports journalist, hosted the tribute show to Cameron on Nov 8th, 2023.
Speaking before that event took place, Riley Murphy said: “The whole broadcast will be dedicated to Frank. There are going to be a lot of clips that we have sourced from his colleagues and friends. Maybe some call-ins, and memories that people will share about Frank, some old clips I have been able to find from his time at Oldies 96,” Murphy tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“It will just be all about Frank that day.”
From Pictou County, Cameron’s dad was a highways engineer and worked on the construction of HWY 7, which runs from Dartmouth to Antigonish.
There has been a real sea change of the guard at Seaside since the death at age 60 of the station’s founder, Wayne Harrett. He founded the radio station in 2001 in the bedroom of his Eastern Passage home.
The format is easy listening and there is a focus on East Coast artists, older classic country music and early 1960s rock and roll.
I have tuned into the station since 2014, when I began a home office regime, and listen to the music daily – only turning it off when I conduct phone interviews.
A lot of veteran Halifax commercial radio announcers migrate towards Seaside FM, which also plays religious music on Sunday morning, including a gospel radio show hosted by Wayne Adams, the former John Savage cabinet minister, who recently celebrated his 56th year of marriage to his wife.
“We have a lot of new announcers, well not new to broadcasting, but new to the Seaside audience: Ken Sanders, a former music director out in Alberta and his career then led him to Nova Scotia. Sandy B. (last name, Buchan) is another newer announcer who has taken over a lot of the responsibilities here. He is on the Friday coffee club. He works at EHS Ambulance Service in his day job.
Rod Little is a military man, now retired, who used to broadcast for his military colleagues in Germany.
Another volunteer broadcaster, Charles Hsuen, who is from Ontario recently celebrated 35-years on the airwaves. He has also worked for CKDU, and appears Thursday on Seaside, with his neat show Evening Solitude, running 6: from 05 p.m. to 8 pm.
Hsuen plays Broadway tunes and is big on Frank Sinatra. He also educates his audience, relying on a personal data bank of knowledge.
Murphy who was mentored by Harrett, is a graduate of the fine radio and television program at Dartmouth’s waterfront campus of NSCC (Nova Scotia Community College).
A paid employee, Murphy is also now assisted by a newish paid employee John Langer, who does Seaside FM’s PR duties and also reads newscasts. He is from Dartmouth, while Murphy is from Eastern Passage.
Murphy surprised his listeners after he announced he just got married the other month. As far as I can tell he has not yet taken his honeymoon. Murphy broadcasts the Rolling Home Show, which runs weekdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Langer “wears a lot of hats around here, more than just those two jobs.”
Seaside began a 50-50 draw a few years back and the Rafflebox draw sometimes totals close to $100,000 with a lucky winner taking half that amount.
Raffle Box is an online 50-50 raffle founded in Halifax.
The 50-50 monetary proceeds have allowed Seaside FM in recent years to buy its broadcast house in Eastern Passage.
“Before we used to do the radiothon (to raise money), and that was ten days of the craziest busiest time at Seaside, and now we do the 50-50,” Murphy tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“We can give back more with the 50-50. We are able to give back to more people and do it more efficiently.”
Seaside FM has a mature audience, who would be older than me and I am 56. But increasing more and more, the little station is reaching into twenty and thirty-somethings.
“When we hold events there are people in their 30s showing up to our dances. We have a dance scheduled for Nov. 18th, 2023 – and I would say 10 per cent will be in their 30s,” Murphy tells The Macdonald Notebook.
Cameron had a fine collection of Eastcoast, Canadiana and American music.
Singer Anne Murray gave veteran broadcaster Gail Rice some words to say during the Frank Cameron tribute show.
Cameron largely discovered Murray, who has a home on the Halifax Waterfront, buying a few years ago through realtor Carolyn Davis Stewart. Davis Stewart is a Seaside FM advertiser and is now close friends with Murray, who is from Springhill but lived a lot of her adult life in Ontario.
The tribute showsaw an appearance from the Shamrocks, and even retired CBC Information Morning host Don Connolly went on air at Seaside FM and chatted about his warm memories of Cameron.
Connolly’s aunt, now late, the gracious Jean Hadley Graham was married to Pierre Trudeau Senator Al Graham. So Connolly is a first cousin of top-rated housing developer David Graham.
I asked Murphy if he has approached Connolly to do a radio show on Seaside FM, given every great commercial radio announcer eventually migrates to the community station.
“I have reached out but I have not heard anything back,” adds Murphy.
The number of listeners online at the station, “we have about 18,000 listeners per month” – and 8,000 of that figure use the smartphone app, TuneIn. He thinks, and it is an estimate, but the station’s engineer believes the FM radio reach is 40,000 listeners.
The station engineer is Gordon Heffler, who also has an in-depth radio show, Look for a Star, airing Sunday nights at 6 pm to 8 pm and repeated Tuesday between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m..
His knowledge of music runs deep. I remember a few years ago, he had a two-hour broadcast on Sir Cliff Richard, the 1960s UK sensation, and I recall telling a friend, who had a Caribbean mansion next door to Richard, that there was an upcoming show on him.
Murphy took over the station when he was only 24. “I could not ask for a better career.” He is now 27.
He was mentored by the founder, Wayne Harrett. “I spent a lot of time with him when I was at college and even after. We had a great relationship and we were always talking on social media. And if I had any questions about the industry or needed anything, he was the first person I’d go to,” adds Murphy.
With the Internet, Seaside FM has listeners all over the globe, and Murphy puts a pin in a world map when they hear from one of these far-flung locales.
“Recently I had a lady call in from Nunavut, a listener. I have a map of the world and a flag is in the location of every place I have been called, and we are in every continent now. We have ex-pats and some dedicated listeners from across the world that happen to stumble upon the station.”
One of the Seaside FM shows is re-broadcast on the community station in Amherst and also in Australia. That is Ian MacPhee’s show, Music Unlimted, which runs at 5 a.m. Saturday and Sunday and 9 am Monday and Friday. MacPhee records his show from his home.
For an archived Notebook story on how Frank Cameron in the 1960s gave Bobby Curtola his big break, click here.
For a recent story on Seaside FM’s Dartmouth General Hospital Foundation radiothon, which featured Denis Ryan and Seaside FM’s Rod Little, click here.
For a 2021 Notebook article on Riley Murphy becoming the new general manager at Seaside FM, click here.
For a 2021 Notebook story on the death of Seaside FM’s founder, Wayne Harrett, at age 60 click here.
