Bill Kehoe

Bill Kehoe - CKSO TV - Cambrian Broadcasting SudburyBirthplace
Pembroke, Ontario

Birthdate
May 13, 1928

Deceased
March 18, 2004

Photo Credit
Canadian Communications Foundation


Bill Kehoe is one of the true pioneers of the broadcast industry and certainly part of the history of radio and television in Sudbury. Bill is credited with being CKSO Television’s very first news anchor when it signed on in October of 1953. Kehoe was part of the team on the 25th of that month when CKSO TV first hit the airwaves, broadcasting from the Beatty Street Hill location. Simultaneously setting another precedent Bill Kehoe’s news broadcast was unique to Canada as no other privately owned broadcaster would have such bragging rights of being there first with this kind of local programming.

Kehoe arrived in Sudbury to work on CKSO Radio in November of 1952. At that time the station was located on Elgin Street behind the old Nickel Range Hotel. His broadcast career may well have been short-lived for mispronouncing the city’s name, Sudbury - making the ‘bury’ sound like ‘berry’. The radio station manager Wilf Woodill promised he would be looking forward to working on television if he learned how to say the name correctly, otherwise he’d be fired! Woodill kept his word. CKSO TV opened in 1953 and Kehoe’s new TV career was born. When construction began at the new Ash Street location, Bill was even there to help out.

In the pioneer days of television broadcasting, nothing could be taken for granted. CKSO’s local programming including news was live. There were no production aids and everything was done in black and white.

Bill Kehoe would move on to Ottawa. He had hoped to gain employment pending CRTC approval of a new license, however the applicant lost out to another proposal. Bill did join the CBC staff in Ottawa in 1961. At that time, Lloyd Robertson was the chief local news announcer with CBO CBOT - he became the host of the television program “Afternoon Edition”. Bill would enjoy a successful career with CBC TV and Radio in that city.

In a 2001 interview Kehoe told a Sudbury newspaper that for him and people like Judy Erola and Basil Scully, television was so new to them that they were appearing on television before ever setting eyes on a TV set.

In recent years he began working on his autobiography, which also chronicled early television in Sudbury. He passed away at his home in Ottawa on March 18, 2004 at age 75 leaving behind his wife, Bonnie McGlade and children David, Peter, Tom, Anne-Marie Kehoe-Martel, John, Jennifer and Judy.

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