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CASBY Awards

The CASBY Awards were a Canadian awards ceremony for independent and alternative music, presented annually by Toronto, Ontario radio station CFNY, currently branded as 102.1 The Edge. CASBY is an acronym for Canadian Artists Selected By You.

The awards were first presented in 1981 under the name U-Knows, a pun on Canada's mainstream Juno Awards. The concept was developed by David Marsden, the program director at CFNY at the time, when he heard the Juno nominations announced on CBC radio, and included was Long John Baldry — who was newly resident in Canada but had already been in the music business for almost 20 years — as most promising vocalist.[1]

They were renamed the CASBYs in 1985, after a listener contest.[2] The 1985 ceremony, hosted by Carole Pope and Paul Shaffer,[3] also marked the first time that the awards were broadcast nationally by CBC Television.[2] In the first year, voter ballots were distributed exclusively by the Canadian music magazine Graffiti.[4] In later years the awards expanded the distribution, printing ballots in a number of major market daily newspapers across Canada.[4]

The 1987 ceremony featured a rare public performance by XTC,[5] although their performance was videotaped in advance of the ceremony.[6] That year's awards were also marred by several organizational snafus, including the wrong winner being initially announced for Album of the Year.[6]

The award's bid for national prominence faltered in the late 1980s, particularly after CFNY's short-lived shift to a more mainstream music format also affected public perception of the awards' identity.[7] During that era, some alienated listeners even picketed the awards ceremony.[8] Beginning in 1993 the awards were pared down to just three categories,[9] and after 1996, amid a sense that the awards had effectively lost their purpose, the awards were discontinued.[10]

They were then revived in 2002, and were presented each year until 2017.

  1. ^ "U-Know awards make the move into the big time". The Globe and Mail, April 20, 1985.
  2. ^ a b "A festive air to CASBYs' launch". The Globe and Mail, April 25, 1985.
  3. ^ "Shaffer, Pope hosts of awards show". The Globe and Mail, March 21, 1985.
  4. ^ a b "CASBY music awards to return". Ottawa Citizen, April 2, 1986.
  5. ^ "Casby show brings XTC out of hiding". The Globe and Mail, June 19, 1987.
  6. ^ a b "The CASBYs turn into a comedy of many errors". The Globe and Mail, June 22, 1987.
  7. ^ "CFNY music boss tunes ear to the future". Toronto Star, November 3, 1989.
  8. ^ "Hit songs miss the mark for disgruntled radio fans". The Globe and Mail, March 17, 1999.
  9. ^ "Take the Q, please". Hamilton Spectator, November 25, 1993.
  10. ^ "CASBYs struggle for identity: CFNY's awards show used to have attitude. Now it's just a concert". Toronto Star, December 5, 1996.

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