Toronto radio station goes all 'gay'*

1st commercially licensed outlet for homosexuals debuts today

Proud-FM 103.9, billed as the world's first commercially licensed GLBT
radio station, goes on the air April 16. Personalities include Mary Jo
Eustace and her former What's For Dinner cooking show costar Ken Kostick
doing the breakfast show.

Defining the first same-sex station

Apr 16, 2007 02:30 AM
Raju Mudhar
Entertrainment Reporter
Toronto Star

As of tomorrow morning, Toronto will get a chance to hear just what a
gay radio station sounds like. Claiming to be the world's first
commercially licensed radio station to specifically target the gay,
lesbian and transgendered communities, Proud FM 103.9 hits the local
airwaves at 6 a.m. The station's arrival caps a 10-year wait for such a
license, but almost as impressive are the folks who are going to be –
ahem – manning the booth.

Ken Kostick and the (still non-gay) Mary Jo Eustace are a known
commodity, as the pair hosted more than 600 episodes of the cooking show
What's for Dinner. Now the two are taking their schtick to the audio
airwaves with a morning show called What's for Breakfast. As they sit in
the offices of the new gaydio station at Church and Wellesley, it's
obvious their easy chemistry is no act. The pair finishes each other's
sentences, but despite their long-standing relationship, there's still
room for unpredictability.

Eustace is talking about switching to a new medium: "At the same time,
because we have a 13-year history, you know it feels like ..."

"Don't even go down that road," interrupts Kostick.

"What?" she says.

"You're going to say that it feels like being married," he says.

"No. Been there, done that. It doesn't feel like that," she quips.

"And what's your response?" he asks.

"My response is that it feels a bit like when we started What's for
Dinner, how fun it was, and how much fun we had everyday, it was kind of
unique," she says.

Eustace is still tabloid fodder, after her ex-husband Dean McDermott
began a public affair with actor Tori Spelling while the couple was
still married, but Eustace is certainly not above making fun of herself.
The broadcast duo gets into another bit where Kostick needles her about
how the show's early call time means she's been wearing the same clothes
for three days, including a gorgeous yellow jacket. She sheepishly pulls
out the latest issue of Hello! magazine, and the jacket's there – in a
two-page spread featuring Eustace.

So far, Proud FM's website proudfm.com has been airing a loop of music
along with some promotional clips, as the on-air personalities work on
their acts. For Kostick and Eustace, it's been an easy transition – they
like to bring up the fact that years ago, Eustace outed Kostick on
television long before it was fashionable ("We though it was an
obviousity, but not to all the viewers. Many thought we were married.
Can you believe that?" she says). Although as they've been pre-taping a
few pieces and preparing for tomorrow's debut, there have been a few
slips of the tongue that come with the new gig, although none of the Don
Imus variety.

"My favourite is this, `you're listening to What's for Dinner.' But
that's understandably hard to kick after 600 shows," says program
director and operations manager Rob Basile. "It's What's for Breakfast now."

But does Toronto need a queer radio station? Eustace says yes. "We're
not as liberal as we like to think. On certain radio stations we
couldn't talk about some of the things we talk about, and how we express
ourselves. And this is a different forum. There is going to be some
leeway, and there is a different voice," says Eustace.

"I think what it's going to do is push the envelope with all the other
radio stations," says Kostick. "I'm going to be able to say, `Hey, I
think Justin Timberlake is pretty hot'."

For Deb Pearce, the midday deejay, the new station is allowing her to be
herself. Formerly on the morning show at Jack FM, she says while she was
encouraged to be out, she didn't really want that to be the focus of her
on-air persona.

"(At Jack FM) I didn't want to be looked at as a lesbian, I wanted to be
thought of as the talented woman on the morning show. So now I'm exactly
who I am and I don't have to change pronouns, I don't have to pretend I
have a boyfriend or say I went for dinner on King West last night,
instead I'll say I went to Drag Idol on Church St. It's just a sense of
honesty that I enjoy," she says.

"This feels like sort of an arrival. And almost a validation, it's
important there's enough of us that exist to have a radio station built
about taking about our issues, or gay people talking about any issues."

Basile says that "We want everyone, the core audience and our mandate is
to serve, represent and be a voice for the gay audience, but it's not
exclusive to the gay audience. And this is my programming philosophy for
the radio station ... It's going to serve that community but it's going
to be inclusive for everyone. So it won't be gay talk all the time, but
it'll be a good radio station first and foremost that's going to address
issues as they arise."

Ten years ago, they wouldn't have had the chance. In 1997, Toronto's FM
airwaves were said to be full. Today, new engineering allows for more
stations closer to each other on the dial without interference, and
Basile points out that's the main reason that Proud could get a license
at all. Now they'll be operating a low-power FM service, whose signal is
meant to be heard from their Church St. HQ to Toronto's inner suburbs.
The station's co-owner Evanov Radio Group owns several stations in the
GTA as well as Halifax and Ottawa, including its flagship Z103.5
(Today's Hit Music) right next to Proud on the dial.

And once they're on the air, what will they sound like? Gay artists such
as Elton John and stereotypical gay-community favourites like Madonna
and Cher will be part of the Proud playlist. But Torontonians hoping to
hear prominent, catchy local queer acts – the church-folkies in Hidden
Cameras and the Polaris prize-winning Final Fantasy come to mind – will
probably be disappointed. The current promos don't make Proud sound all
that different from stations like Mix 99.9, using the so-called "hot AC"
format – uptempo pop for the adult-contemporary market.

"Do we have to go `we're gay, we're gay, we're gay!' Wouldn't that be
just as annoying as someone saying `we're straight, we're straight,
we're straight!'" says James Collins, Proud's music director. "We all
like the same music. It's not different – we might like a bit more
kitschy stuff. We're a little more liberal than what the average station
will play. Yes, we'll play more dancey stuff, and we're playing lots of
openly gay artists and closeted gay artists, but it's just not
discussed, like no one says we're playing Erasure, he's gay."

Collins says that the station will decide whether they play
gay-unfriendly artists, such as ones who make homophobic statements, on
a case by case basis. But Collins says that it's more important that the
artist fits the sound, which he describes as upbeat and feel-good music.
Enter Maggie Cassella.

The comedian is going to be in the afternoon drive slot from 3 to 7
doing an odd sort of hybrid talk show: interviews, callers, music and of
course Cassella's rants, last seen on her show Because I Said So in 2002
on Star TV. She'd rather people think of her more as a loudmouth than a
lesbian.

"It is what it is, and they hired me to do what I do," she says of her
new gig. "To be honest, I've never had any issues since I moved to this
country," said the American ex-pat. "It's never been about me being a
lesbian, it's been about me being a woman who's loud and aggressive and
that doesn't always work on television, but with radio, every time I
check myself, they say no, no, no, don't check yourself."

For listeners, it's a chance to hear how different sexual orientations
sound. Or to find out if it sounds different at all.