David Marsden, Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Famer and legendary programmer of Toronto’s CFNY, has died. He was 85.
Marsden passed away Friday, following complications from a fall.
Born in Toronto and raised in Stratford, Marsden’s interest in music and radio started early, producing sock hops and managing local band, The Revols. He got his start in radio at CFCO Chatham, which was followed by stints at CHLO St. Thomas, and then CKEY-AM Toronto under the on-air handle of “Dave Mickie.” He went on to appear on CBC-TV’s Music Hop and CHCH-TV’s Mickie A Go Go.
In the late 1960s, he moved to Montreal’s CKGM-AM, where he first used the name David Marsden. From there, he made the move to CHOM-FM before returning to Toronto to work at CHUM-FM.
He arrived at Brampton’s CFNY-FM in 1977 and became the struggling station’s Program Director two years later. The groundbreaking alternative station was rooted in the tag line “The Spirit of Radio,” which Marsden coined and Rush (who Marsden was the first in the world to play on the air) later paid tribute to on their 1980 album, Permanent Waves.
The station’s influence informed not only the alternative format, but boosted artists in the genre with events like the U-Know Awards, a pun on the JUNO Awards. They were renamed the CASBYs (Canadian Awards Ceremony for Independent and Alternative Music) in 1985, the same year the ceremony was broadcast nationally for the first time on CBC-TV.
After wrapping up his run at CFNY in 1988, Marsden brought “The Spirit of Radio” to the West Coast and Vancouver’s Coast 1040 (CKST-AM) in the early 1990s, before returning to Toronto to launch online radio hub, Iceberg Media. He went on to host free-form radio show, “The Marsden Theatre” on Oshawa’s The Rock (CKGE-FM) for over a decade in the 2000s.
Marsden’s final venture was online radio station, NYthespirit.com, launched in 2012, that continues to carry a format informed by the same rigorous curation he insisted upon at CFNY-FM.
Marsden told Broadcast Dialogue – The Podcast in 2020, that it never occurred to him he would reach the age of 80, but that he had no plans on retiring.
“I”m not going to sit down and retire, I’m just not going to do that,” said Marsden. “Because I honestly believe retirement is for those who didn’t like their job and I happen to love my job. I love what I do. I love music. I love the people.”
“David will be remembered as a kind, introspective and passionate leader,” said business partner Igor Loukine, in a statement. “His commitment to new ideas and supporting new Canadian talent will be sorely missed. The team at NYthespirit.com remains entirely committed to keeping David’s vision alive, and the station will continue to broadcast in his honour, maintaining the independent musical ethos he championed his entire life.”
Ivar Hamilton, who worked alongside Marsden at CFNY as Import Music Director and served as one of the executive producers on the CFNY: The Spirit of Radio documentary, told Broadcast Dialogue that Marsden’s legacy is the hundreds of thousands of listeners who remain enduring fans of station.
“David was an incredible visionary broadcaster who let the DJs play what they wanted in a library with 20,000 songs that extended to Jazz, Blues, folk, classical, imports and local independent music,” said Hamilton. “David also encouraged the team at CFNY to be themselves and take chances and be creative, not only with the music but with all programming.”
