Humble & Fred is a Toronto-based Canadian podcast, featuring co-hosts "Humble" Howard Glassman and Fred Patterson.
Available as a podcast since October 2011, the daily comedy-talk presentation was first launched over two decades earlier as a morning zoo commercial radio show that aired from 1989 until 2005 on three different Toronto-area corporate-owned radio stations: initially at CFNY-FM, where the show held significant market share throughout the 1990s and early 2000s during the station's "102.1 The Edge" alternative rock format, followed by moving to their corporate owner's newly rebranded AM talk radio asset Mojo Radio in 2001, and finally ending up on Mix 99.9 FM in 2003 before being cancelled two years later.
History Background What would eventually become the Humble & Fred show was initiated in 1989 by the incoming CFNY-FM program director Danny Kingsbury, who—on behalf of the station's new corporate owner Maclean-Hunter—looked to stabilize CFNY's morning show situation that had been in flux ever since the long-running Pete n' Geets show went off the air in late 1987.
Once Pete n' Geets left, the vacated morning slot was taken over by the twenty-seven-year-old MuchMusic VJ Steve Anthony who began on December 14, 1987, by doing the morning drive time show in parallel with his music television job; due to a non-compete clause in his MuchMusic contract, in order to accept the CFNY offer, he had to obtain MuchMusic's permission. Different professional and personal factors—such as having to fill the beloved morning duo's shoes, choosing to devote more attention to his TV job than his radio gig, and maintaining a party lifestyle that on multiple occasions resulted in him missing work in the morning as well as facing the radio station's sudden switch to a Top 40 format—led to Anthony's relatively quick departure from CFNY by the end of 1988. A number of hosts were then given the CFNY morning slot, including Scot Turner and Randy Taylor, none of whom panned out either, which is when the newly arrived program director Kingsbury began seeking a more permanent solution.
CFNY's 1987-1989 morning show instability was just one of the many consequences of the station's ownership turmoil that also led to frequent management personnel changes, as well as tinkering with its on-air format throughout the same period. In August 1987, as part of its internal management structure realignment in preparation for the coming sale, the station's corporate parent Selkirk Communications (under control of its largest stakeholder, Southam Inc.) decided to move longtime program director David Marsden to the director of operations position. Taking over the PD post was his longtime deputy and on-air personality Don Berns (also known as DJ Dr. Trance), who was initially allowed to continue the "Spirit of Radio" concept that Marsden himself had largely created and fostered over the years. During fall 1987, Rogers Communications' Can$400 million bid for the takeover of Selkirk was accepted. However, due to being adjudged by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to be holding an excessive number of FM radio assets as a result of the takeover, Rogers was ordered to divest the FM radio stations acquired from Selkirk in order to comply with Canada's media ownership concentration laws. Rogers thus placed CFNY in an escrow while looking for a third party buyer. During 1988, in an attempt to boost the ratings for achieving a better price ahead of the imminent sale spin-off, Marsden was released altogether while CFNY's alternative format playlists began to be injected with Top 40 hits. Simultaneously, on the personnel side, sales manager Jim Fonger was installed as the new director of operations to oversee the Top 40 switch. The Top 40 experiment began quietly over the 1988 Labour Day weekend, leading to acts like Taylor Dayne, Martika, and New Kids on the Block being rotated heavily. Within months, the entire playlist was filled with mainstream acts like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Janet Jackson, and George Michael, resulting in angry reaction from CFNY's listeners. The format change was officially announced in December 1988, with alternative music getting relegated to evenings and weekends; Berns resigned his program director duties shortly thereafter, though staying on as DJ. Even though the format change quickly led to station's overall listener ratings increasing from CFNY's average 500,000 to 700,000, this new audience was shown to be mostly composed of those who listen for very short periods of time that were thus of limited appeal to advertisers, as CFNY's market share dropped from 5.2% during fall 1988 to 4.6% in spring 1989. Since it failed to bring in new revenue, in addition to alienating CFNY's loyal listener base, the Top 40 experiment was discontinued by summer 1989, only seven months after implementation. Shortly prior, the sale of CFNY to the Maclean-Hunter conglomerate had been finalized, and the new owner ordered a return to the alternative format. Maclean-Hunter placed the station under its Key Radio division headed by Hal Blackadar, who immediately fired the inherited management, while bringing in radio broadcaster Reiner Schwarz to be the new director of programming and operations at CFNY. Schwarz hired Jamie Crookston as the new general manager, who, in turn, hired Danny Kingsbury as the new program director.
In summer 1989, when Kingsbury offered him the CFNY morning show in Toronto, twenty-nine-year-old radio DJ and comedian Howard Glassman had been working for a year at Montreal's Standard Broadcasting-owned CJFM-FM, hosting a program with Jeff Lumby. CFNY's original offer was for both Glassman and Lumby to move to Toronto to host the proposed Jeff & Howard Show—with an additional plan of attaching Fred Patterson as the sports guy, a role he had been performing on previous CFNY morning shows with Turner, Taylor, Anthony and even before that on Pete & Geets. However, at a meeting in Montreal during which Kingsbury and Jim Fonger presented the CFNY offer to Lumby and Glassman, it became apparent that Lumby wasn't willing to move to Toronto while Glassman called Kingsbury back to express interest in coming over by himself. Patterson was then flown to Montreal in order to be introduced to Glassman and to determine whether they mesh enough on a personal level to broadcast together on a daily basis. Soon after, the deal was made.
In addition to bringing in a new morning man, the station also promoted its overnight host Alan Cross by moving him to the afternoon drive time shift, and hired Dani Elwell as the new evening host Mondays through Thursdays from 8pm until midnight, giving her the freedom to musically program the last hour of her shift—named Alternative Bedtime Hour—as she pleased.
CFNY 'Toronto's Modern Rock' years (1989–1991) The 5:30-9:30 a.m. morning drive time program began in August 1989 on CFNY-FM with Glassman as the sole host and Patterson as the sports anchor. In addition to comedy bits and musical numbers, the program featured two news and sports updates per hour. As the comedic banter between the host and sports anchor became an increasingly prominent feature of the show, Patterson was eventually promoted to full co-host. Another frequent on-air contributor was the show's producer Dan Duran, who, while simultaneously working at CFNY and Humble & Fred, also pursued side jobs as voice performer, TV personality, and aspiring actor.
The new morning show posted solid ratings from the get-go despite facing some opposition even from the station's staff, including the afternoon drive time host Alan Cross, who wasn't a big fan of Humble & Fred at the time. With the legacy of the "Spirit of Radio" concept looming large over CFNY, and especially with all the organizational turmoil the station had experienced over the two years since legendary program director and creator of "Spirit of Radio" David Marsden's 1987 removal, many of the remaining staff were intent on seeing CFNY continue to be run the way it had been under Marsden. They mostly saw the station's new morning man Glassman and his show as more examples of conventional corporate trends being injected into CFNY, generally treating him with contempt. Though Marsden's "Spirit of Radio" concept had officially been laid to rest—with CFNY FM 102 "Toronto's Modern Rock" now used in promos and playlists being rotated more often than before—the station still retained a lot of its old essence, playing The Pixies, New Order, and Depeche Mode while also championing the emerging Madchester scene as well as Nine Inch Nails' debut Pretty Hate Machine.
In 1990, CFNY program director Kingsbury was lured away by Western International Communications, taking the VP of programming position that put him in charge of CHOG (newly rebranded as 'AM 640 The Hog') and CFNY's main competitor Q107. Reiner Schwarz, who had already been performing the general manager duties as well due to Crookston being on long-term disability leave as a result of getting hit by a car, took over the vacant PD post at CFNY.
In May 1991, only a year and a half after taking the CFNY job, Glassman left the station for CKFM-FM, citing dissatisfaction with CFNY's overall organizational structure and the way it was being run day to day:
Patterson remained at CFNY, getting paired with Skot Turner while Maie Pauts acted as the third voice on the newly launched show to replace Humble & Fred. Simultaneously, the station experienced a significant dip in the ratings—going from a 4.8% market share in spring 1991 to 3.1% in the fall of the same year. As the ratings showed no improvement in late 1991, a dramatic format change began to be considered, even switching to country, by station owner Maclean-Hunter. In late January 1992, one day ahead of the public release of the ratings book showing CFNY's further market share slide, Maclean-Hunter's top executive Hal Blackadar fired general manager Crookston and program director Schwarz. Simultaneously, the morning show setup was also dismantled, with Turner being fired and replaced with a temporary host alongside Patterson.
With the new Blackadar-installed management—general manager Vince DiMaggio and program director Stewart Meyers—CFNY responded to the commercial success of grunge; with emerging bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden dominating the charts, the station decided to focus its alternative format on the American acts from this musical genre, along with a rebrand to "CFNY 102.1 The Leading Edge". The format change was accompanied with a large reduction in staff, either through resignations or layoffs, including departures of some well known on-air personalities such as Chris Sheppard, Lee Carter, and Dani Elwell. Dissatisfied with the changes at the station, Elwell famously resigned on the air in August 1992 followed by reading out her resume, while Carter wrote a scathing rebuke of the station's new direction from an insider's perspective that was published by a Toronto alternative weekly newspaper.
Humble returns to CFNY, 'The Edge' years (1992–2001) At the end of 1992, only 19 months after leaving, Glassman returned to CFNY.An Interview with Humble HowardSpirit of Radio page for Humble Howard His return was facilitated by Patterson, who had survived the layoffs, as well as the new general manager DiMaggio and program director Meyers, who sold Glassman on the idea of a new format despite him not originally being interested in going back.