MuchMusic icon Ed the Sock has officially joined Durham Radio’s 94.9 The Rock (CKGE-FM) Oshawa, reviving the classic overnight radio format.
The All-Night Show!, which the station has been testing out for the past two weeks, will air live Wednesday to Sunday from midnight to 5 a.m., taking listener phone calls and texts all night long.
“Radio has pretty much given up on the all-night shows, letting the jukebox take over,” said Program Director Doug Elliott, in a station announcement. “We see this as a major opportunity to inject a strong personality in a daypart that has been ignored for years.”
Ed (aka Steven Kerzner) is no stranger to the time slot, first introduced to viewers of Newton Cable in 1987 on The Late Late Show, which eventually landed on Citytv in the ’90s as Night Party.
“I got my start on late-night TV and that’s my ‘hood,” said Kerzner. “The subversive vibe of being awake while the city sleeps, sharing the night with the shift-workers, eccentrics and insomniacs – these are my people!”
Steve Macaulay, VP of Sales at Durham Radio, said the company believes that the overnight audience has long been under-served.
“I had this idea that there’s a huge untapped market in Durham and the GTA of overnight shift workers, insomniacs, and the like, that just aren’t being serviced much by radio broadcasters anymore,” said Macaulay. “And for radio to better compete with all the streaming audio options out there, I believe we need to go back to what radio can do best – provide companionship on a personal level, with a personality that is local and live, right in our communities. We’re providing a product that is unavailable elsewhere.”
Ed the Sock has most recently been heard on Z103.5 (CIDC-FM) Toronto, alongside former Much colleague Rick Campanelli, in a run of guest appearances on the morning show, in addition to Sauga 960 AM (CKNT-FM) Friday afternoons which airs the Ed and Red Podcast, Kerzner co-hosts with his wife Liana.
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