Zero. He’s the first to admit he’s “just too nosy to quit.”
“I love what I do. I don’t like it, I love it.” As long as listeners keep tuning to C-FAX Newsline with Joe Easingwood and the third station owners in four years continue the format, he’ll keep talking “as long as I’m capable of it.”
His numbers put him at No. 1 in the 8:30-11.a.m. weekday time slot, with 36,404 listeners age 12 and over during the five days of programming. That’s nearly 7,000 more than closest commercial rival, The Ocean. C-FAX stats don’t include publicly funded CBC Victoria, but the C-FAX share of all listeners during those hours is 16.6 compared to a range of 12.4 to 7.2 for CBC, according to BBM Canada.
So what makes Joe tick? And ticked off? We thought we’d ask.
How long has the mic been his best friend?
Since age 10.
That’s when the Langley lad, the youngest in a family of 10, first noticed that he couldn’t be heard over the clamour until the radio news came on. Then his siblings fell silent. He knew then that “the magic box” was his future.
So off he traipsed, nervy even then -- walking six kilometres alone to CKNW to see how it was done.
“In those days, if you made enough of a pest of yourself, they let you in behind the glass wall,” he says.
The station let him sweep the floors and file records in return for movie passes until fate smiled on him 60 years ago with 10 words: “Do you want to read the lost-and-found announcements?”
He was hooked. “Absolutely.”
He’s 70 but there is barely a worry line on his forehead. The beard is less bushy than it once was and the hair not so thick. But he’s still trim after losing 45 kilograms at the same time he quit smoking. Just to prove wrong the experts who said you shouldn’t try both at once. “My stock answer is ‘70 is the new 50.’ “
He has kept the weight off and hasn’t touched a smoke in 35 years. When he gives something up, it’s gone for good, including golf.
Joe the Giver
Grateful for the good things in life, he’s committed to fundraising for people who aren’t as fortunate. He drives a BMW, but doesn’t look the type in his blue Santas Anonymous sweatshirt and brown pants. The first subject he wants to talk about is how much money for charity he has netted with his Joe’s Notebooks of recipes and tips since 1963.
“We must have raised over half a million dollars after expenses.”
Joe for Mayor?
“They wanted me to run for mayor -- the boys in the back room,” he says of the November election. He was flattered and tempted -- “Because the city needs leadership,” he says modestly.
It wouldn’t have been his first political foray. Back in 1983, he ran under the Social Credit banner for provincial politics but declared, “I do not plan to be a lap dog in the Social Credit Party.” He campaigned against party policy for a renters’ tax credit. He didn’t win.
Over the years, he has been approached by Liberals, Socreds and the NDP. But all the meetings would drive him up the wall. He likes action: “I get bored easily.”
A fan of everyday Joes and Janes
Easingwood believes in everyday people with common sense. “They’re the most fun and the most intelligent.” He thinks the country might be run better by 25 housewives “or whatever they’re called these days” than the current bunch. “They know the value of a dollar.” He feels a rant coming on: “That’s what I get paid for.”
He tries not to intimidate ordinary callers. “The only types I get riled at are people who are spending the taxpayers’ money. And that’s politicians.”
The professional provocateur
He’s got his opinions -- he expressed them monthly in the Times Colonist for five years. But on-air, he’s interested in debate, calling himself “the professional provocateur” to keep things astir. He loves the instant feedback of live radio. “If I say something dumb on the air, I’ll hear about it from my listeners.”
What was his biggest on-air disaster?
He keeps trying but can’t think of one. Station manager Terry Spence passing by can’t come up with one either. Easingwood even leaves a couple of phone messages for a reporter saying he’ll keep trying to recall one.
OK, maybe it was the time a politician tried to grab his mike at an on-air all-candidates meeting and knocked an extremely petite female candidate dangerously close to a wicked hinge on the studio door. “That’s probably why the guy lost by 300 votes.”
Joe’s nightmares
They’re specific to radio hosts with 8 a.m. live shows: “It’s seven minutes after eight and I’m still in bed.”
His most interesting guest
It wasn’t a politico, a hero such as Rick Hansen or a star like Bob Hope or Mitzi Gaynor. It was a gibbon, as in ape, back in the 1970s at CJVI, where a naturalist dropped by for regular chats.
“The station had spent a lot of money redoing my talk studio, new microphones and the whole thing. The gibbon got sort of rambunctious, climbed onto the mike and peed on it.”
He laughs.
“So $1,000 right there in a new microphone.”
He laughs harder.
His biggest radio disappointment?
“I never got to interview [former prime minister Pierre] Trudeau.”
Showing a very big guy the door
Legendary B.C. premier W.A.C. Bennett, in his early days, was “a great one for wandering off the topic,” Easingwood recalls.
Three minutes went by and he hadn’t coughed up whatever Joe wanted to know. So he said, “ ‘Mr. Bennett, we’re done. Thanks for coming in.’ That’s the only time I’ve ever had to do that.”
He heard from his bosses about it, but the majority of listeners who called were on his side.
If people won’t get to the point, he threatens to hang up. “I don’t like wimps.”
To him, a wimp is someone who hasn’t got a clue but thinks he does.
Joe gets around
He has been across Canada taping shows, including with the last living father of Confederation, Joey Smallwood, in Newfoundland; covered St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland and the fall of the Berlin Wall. He has led travel groups to New Zealand and Southeast Asia and Britain and vacationed in Normandy on the 50th anniversary of the D-Day assault. “I saw more Canadian flags there than I ever have in this country.”
Joe’s biggest fault
“I can’t stand incompetence.”
Both his parents were nurses, moving from L.A. to B.C., where his dad opened a radio repair shop, sometimes taking payment in salmon and sacks of potatoes when need be.
The family moved to Victoria in 1952 to allay Joe’s hay fever. That was good. Even better was that Victoria had two radio stations. “I started hanging around at CKDA and CJVI, where I got my first full-time job in 1955.”
Joe leaves Vic High
He dropped out after Grade 11 at Vic High, taking his final year by correspondence over the next two because the temptation of a full-time radio job as technical producer was too good to pass up. He went on to do everything from sales to program director responsible for everything that went on the air for more than 25 years.
Despite his imposing delivery, his formal broadcasttraining consisted of a weekend-long speech workshop in the mid-1950s.
The big jump in 1981
“C-FAX made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Lots more money than I was making.”
Is it now more than six figures? Under his contract, he’s not allowed to say. His three-year contract comes up for renewal this summer.
Advice to young radio hosts
“You need to be a nosy person.” And able to get to the point and encourage others to.
“Be yourself” -- not somebody whose radio persona you admire. “And don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s a serious business but don’t take it seriously.”
Words to live by?
“Straight ahead” and “Don’t call me if you’re a wimp.”
How many producers help with his shows?
None.
No one else thinks up ideas, guests or anything.
“That’s why I’m so happy here at C-FAX,” he says. “You’re responsible for your own show and if it works, you’re fine and if they don’t, that’s your problem. I just love that freedom.”
He scans three or four newspapers a day to keep things current and has a roster of regulars -- a political commentator, a dermatologist, a horticulturist, a comedy duo of physicians and a panel of a “few good young Victoria women.”
Joe the freelancer
Easingwood doesn’t have an office at the station -- he freelances from his Oak Bay home, although he doesn’t call it work. “I’m arranging shows all the time in my head and making phone calls ... The blessing of e-mail [is] you can do it whenever you want.”
Joe and TV
He has been offered TV talk shows more than once, but no thanks. He likes the way radio can change in a minute. If guests don’t pan out, he thanks them and announces, “Now we’re going to open the phones.” You can’t do that with TV. It’s all live -- which suits his cut-to-the-chase personality. “I’ve never taped.” Except a few minutes once with a prime minister passing through. If a politician demurs, he demands: “Are you frightened of talking to taxpayers?”
Love in his life
He and wife Dawn have been married for 45 years. “Dawn is always right and we get along perfectly,” he says. They don’t have kids but dozens of nieces and nephews are on the scene.
He’s in the book
Unlike a lot of well-known people, Easingwood’s phone number is listed.
“That goes with the job,” he says. He gets the odd wacky caller, but so what?
Awards, he’s had a few
In 2006, Easingwood got the Radio/TV News Directors Lifetime Achievement Award for “outstanding service and continued excellence” over his career; in 2004, the Public Education Award from the Canadian Dermatology Association; in 1997, the Broadcaster of the Year, from the B.C. Association of Broadcasters; and in 1982, the University of Victoria made him an honorary alumnus.
And radio?
“It’s still a magic box. You can take it anywhere ... People still love the live human voice.”
