Niagara’s morning man calls it a day
CKTB’s Tim Denis retires after 47 years: ‘It’s time to hand things to the next generation’
Tim Denis walked into his first shift at CKTB nearly 30 years ago and knew he was in trouble.
In the room was a telephone and a microphone. He prepared about an hour’s worth of material. The problem?
“It was a six-hour show,” he says. “I had one newscast and the rest of the time I had to talk.”
He doesn’t remember how he got through it, but recalls wanting to quit about three weeks later. “I was getting out of radio. I was looking for anything I could do to get out.”
Alas, he didn’t find another job. He didn’t realize it yet, but he was home.
For three decades, Denis was practically the voice — and face — of Niagara radio. The companion for thousands of early mornings.
But on April 30, after 47 years in the business, he finally hangs up his headphones. Denis announced his retirement during Wednesday’s broadcast, starting what he knows will be an emotional final month on the air at AM 610.
“I’m going to be a mess that (last) day, to be quite honest,” he said. “It sounds like a bad sitcom, but broadcasting has been my life.
“I walked into that first studio … I could never have envisioned what was going to happen 47 years later, sitting here saying goodbye to it.”
A career synonymous with Niagara radio started, appropriately enough, at CHOW in Welland. Just 17, Denis did a weekly show for high school kids. It led to a full-time gig in Simcoe in 1979, doing the night shift. He then came back to do mornings at CHOW for three years.
His next stop was QR FM in St. Catharines, the country station that eventually became the hard rock HTZ-FM. It operated, as it does now, out of the former Merritt House on Yates Street, now known as the “White House of Rock.”
It would eventually be Denis’s permanent digs, but there were a few more pit stops first. He moved to Kitchener for the morning show at CKGL, then three years later took a shot at a music career in Nashville. He even had a top-10 country album in1985 that featured a duet with a pre-stardom Shania Twain, then known as Eileen. “She did all right,” Denis quips. While chasing music, Denis was still doing nighttime radio for a Michigan station. But he eventually came back to Niagara to be with his young daughter. After three years at CHSC, he was lured to CKTB 610 in 1995.
He wouldn’t move again. “I enjoyed being a jock, I played everything from classic rock to country, but this was talk,” he says. “It gave me a chance to stretch a little bit. I got super heavily involved in the community and I had family here.
“It just kept me here. I had chances to go to Toronto and I had a job offer in Vancouver, but no. The people I know who had those jobs have ulcers or they’re out of the business. I said nope, I’m going to put roots down.”
Those roots went incredibly deep. Denis has been involved in virtually every charity, every major event in this region for three decades. His morning show — still the top-rated in Niagara — is like a town hall gathering. Politicians, businessmen, athletes, celebrities, even other media have gotten out of bed at his invite to chat on-air.
Like all great hosts, Denis can be a calming influence. The voice of reason.
He stayed at the station for 48 hours after 9/11, much like his radio predecessors did during the blizzard of ‘77 in Niagara. During the early days of the pandemic he was often the only person at the station, putting his own fears aside to keep listeners informed.
Through constant layoffs and ownership changes, Denis was a constant, his belief in AM radio never wavering.
After Bell Media sold 45 of its radio stations last month, including CKTB, Bell’s chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcomson said they were “not viable anymore.”
Oakville-based Whiteoaks Communications Group clearly disagreed, buying CKTB along with Niagara sister stations CHTZ FM and CHRE 105.7.
“There are all these owners who are buying all 45 of these stations who believe that it is a viable business,” says Denis. “And believe me, they’re very successful businessmen and they would not be getting into a business that wasn’t viable.
“If you look at numbers, AM/FM radio is still the No. 1 medium that people turn to during the course of a week.”
But starting in May, morning listeners will turn to someone else in Denis’s chair. His replacement will be announced soon, but Denis is content that his choice is the one the station went with.
It will be an adjustment, he realizes. His body may still wake him up at 3:30 a.m. even if his alarm doesn’t. The itch will still be there some days, eager to discuss what the day brings.
But now there will be more time for grandkids. For directing local theatre shows. He’s even a licensed wedding officiant now. There’s plenty to do, it just won’t be in front of a mic anymore.
“If I wasn’t at the age I’m at (65) … I probably wouldn’t be leaving,” he says. “But I also realize that, like a lot of things, it can be a young person’s business and it’s time to hand things to the next generation.”