Osoyoos DJ celebrates milestone morning show
EZ Rock’s Jackson reaches 2,500 shows
EZ Rock’s Brock Jackson celebrated his 2,500th local morning show Thursday, a span in Osoyoos that stretches back more than 13 years.
Over that time, Jackson has become a fixture in the community, helping listeners open their eyes each weekday morning and engaging the community in the big way through the rest of the day.
“I consider myself the big easy chair in Osoyoos,” says Jackson in an interview before the big morning. “I love being able to make a difference and be able to get out there and be part of some of the big stories but still live in such a great small community.”
Standing 6-foot-6, Jackson might not be the best fit for a radio booth, but both he and company he works for have made adjustments.
“I fill up the studio, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh. “They reconfigured my control board in there because when I started whenever I had an interview I had the person sitting right next to me and we had some uncomfortable knee-touching going on.”
He’s also weathered other changes as the industry has gone from the days of the disc jockey to a digital-based system.
“I do have a little bit of creative control, but it’s certainly not like WKRP in Cincinnati,” he says.
What hasn’t changed is Jackson’s approach to small-town radio.
“I’ve always tried to maintain a local focus, talk a lot about local events that are going on,” he said. “And there are some moments that come along where I may be doing a morning show in Osoyoos, population 5,000, but it can have a pretty good reach and impact.”
Jackson’s day begins at 4:15 a.m. — when the alarm goes off at home just north of Osoyoos. He’s in the studio by 5 and on air between 6 and 10.
But his role in a community of 5,000 means his work’s not done when he gets off the air.
“After the show ends, I put on the marketing hat. The morning I get to play radio and the rest of the day I work in the business of radio.”
It’s that mix that has allowed him to remain in the community so long, he says.
“Working in small-town radio is a pretty tough business. There’s a lot of Kraft Dinner,” he said. “But it’s different for me. So many people that I talk to in radio say I’m so lucky to live in Osoyoos.
“This is where they all want to come. They want to live here and stay here.”
Jackson’s contribution to the community is well-known, especially in local sport circles. A fitness buff, he regularly participates in local fundraising events and has also shared a good chunk of his time with local hockey and youth sports.
Jackson also spent eight years as the in-rink voice of the Osoyoos Coyotes and doubled that effort by looking after their game-time music duties as well.
Although EZ Rock’s programming after 10 a.m. comes from its Penticton studio, Jackson has had opportunity to come back into the station and provide live coverage of local events.
“When we had the Oliver fire a few years ago, I went back into the studio in the evening and I tried to give live updates,” he said. “People wanted to know what was happening and even if I didn’t have the updated information, they wanted to hear somebody talking about it, someone who could say, ‘I’m here with you and I’m concerned about this just like you.’”
His Osoyoos stint — five days a week over 11 years — has consumed much of Jackson’s radio career. But he actually started on a different path, enrolling at Ryerson University in Toronto with a career in journalism in his sights before eventually moving his studies back to Langara College on the West Coast.
A radio internship as part of that program got him moving in a different direction.
“I was at News 1130 in Vancouver when it first launched, when it flipped over from a music format,” he recalled. “I sort of got the radio bug there. But I was more interested in the music side of things, rather than the news side.” That led to more studies at BCIT. After graduation, Jackson headed to Penticton and SUN-FM and EZ-Rock. Except for a year that he and partner Geraldine Manossa spent in Edmonton, he has been on the air in the Okanagan.
He arrived in Osoyoos in 2005 and spent three years behind the microphone before a brief sojourn in Alberta’s capital. He was back for good in February 2010.
“It just flows,” he adds. “Brock is really easy to work with.”
With 2,500 shows in the book, Jackson is asked to ponder how much longer he’ll be on the air in Osoyoos. That, he answers, is up to the Radio Gods.
“In the grand scheme of things, I’m still pretty young. As long as they keep the electricity going into the studio, I’ll keep doing it. It’s a great gig and Osoyoos is a great community to work in.
“Why would I want to leave?”