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CINW (AM)
Encyclopedia
CINW was an English language
Canadian radio station
located in Montreal
, Quebec
.
Owned and operated by Corus Quebec
, it broadcasted on 940 kHz with a power of 50,000 watt
s as a clear channel (class A) station, using a slightly directional antenna
solely for the purpose of improving reception in downtown Montreal. CINW's previous incarnation, XWA, was Canada
's first regularly operated commercial radio station, first signing on in 1919.
CINW, along with French-language sister station CINF, ceased operations at 7:00 p.m. ET on January 29, 2010
.
XWA (for "Experimental Wireless Apparatus"). Experimental broadcasts continued from that date from the Marconi Wireless Company at 173 William Street (later re-numbered as 1017) after such time as the station began regular programming on May 20, 1920. As such, it has a claim to being the first commercial broadcaster in the world
, although other stations, most notably KDKA
and WWJ
, have made similar claims. Its call letters were changed to CFCF on November 4, 1920. While the meaning of that call sign
has never been officially confirmed, it is generally believed to be "Canada's First, Canada's Finest".
After numerous changes of frequency
, and a three-year period in which it shared time with CKAC on 730 kHz from 1925 to 1928, CFCF landed on 600 kHz in 1933 and stayed on that frequency until 1999. The station was an affiliate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
's Dominion Network
from 1944 to 1962.
Some of the notable personalities from the CFCF era include newsman Gord Sinclair, morning hosts Ted Blackman
and Al Boliska, sportscasters John Robertson
and Dick Irvin, Jr.
and 1960s Rock and Roll
DJ, Dave Boxer.
CFCF changed its format from full service
to adult standards
in 1986. Call letters changed to CIQC in September 1991 as the station, and its FM sister CFQR-FM (now CKBE-FM), were sold to Mount Royal Broadcasting (later Métromédia), with the TV station keeping the CFCF-TV
callsign, and at the same time the station started an ill-fated country music
format, which lasted only until March 1993, at which point the station switched to news/talk
programming with on-air personalities such as Howard Galganov
.
During the 1997-99 period, CIQC was the home station of The Travel World Radio Show, hosted by veteran travel broadcasters Stephen Pickford and Willem Bagchus, which became the first Montreal radio show to be carried in US syndication when it was picked up in simulcast by the Westminster,MD-based Liberty Works Radio Network in August 1999. The program was profiled in the October 15/2000 edition of L'Actualite magazine for its efforts in promoting Canadian and Quebec tourism to a US audience.
CIQC received permission from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to switch to 940 kHz, on a signal vacated by CBC Radio One
's CBM-AM (now known as CBME-FM
). With this move, the station would technically increase power from 10,000 watts (daytime) and 5,000 watts (nighttime) to 50,000 watts full time by June 1999, even though CBM-AM had the current 50,000 watt signal in use since 1978. These technical changes were implemented on December 14, 1999, and call letters were changed at the same time to the current CINW, to match the new all-news format introduced that same day.
The station initially wanted to use calls CKNN for its new format and frequency but was denied permission after they illegally used these call letters during testing on 940 kHz in the weeks preceding the frequency change. The 600 kHz transmitter was shut down on Easter Sunday 2000 (April 23), after four months of simulcast
. CINW 940 News had a sister station CINF Info 690, for French-language all-news in Montreal.
CINW ended its all-news format in September 2005 to pave the way for news/talk programming. The first day of the revamped format was September 14, 2005. In a throwback to the CIQC days, the first live guest on CINW, at 06:47 EDT with morning man Barry Morgan, was Stephen Pickford, who had hosted Travel World on CIQC from 1997 to 1999. Their most popular broadcasters were Joe Cannon
, Jim Duff and Charles Adler
. One of 940's first announcers was Debbi Marsellos, a native Montrealer who was mainly a traffic reporter but also anchored the news and did some hosting. Debbi started working at 940 News from its inception, coming from CJAD. Patrick Letang was the 940 News Business Editor until he died on December 6th, 2006
format effective June 14, citing difficulties operating in the Montreal market. The most recent ratings report prior to the change had placed the station sixth among Montreal anglophones with a 3.8% share; nonetheless it was one of the lowest-ranked commercial English-language stations in the market (just ahead of CKGM (The Team 990)), and was well back of spoken-word rivals CJAD and CBC Radio One
.
The switch took place at 9:40 AM on July 1, 2008, marking the return of oldies to anglophone radio in Montreal since CKGM flipped to The Team in 2001.
In addition, CINW carried some non-music programming on occasion, such as the overnight Coast to Coast AM
program; following CINW's closedown, the program would be picked up by Astral Media
-owned CJAD in March 2010.
Later that year, Cogeco
acquired Corus' Quebec stations; the sale included the transmitter sites and equipment in Kahnawake used for CINF and CINW, but not the licenses, as they were submitted to the CRTC for cancellation.
stations for the Montreal area, in conjunction with Transports Québec
. The English language service was to broadcast at 940 kHz, the former frequency for CINW. Both stations were expected to sign on in fall 2011, with broadcast hours from 4:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays, and from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends. Interestingly, while new licenses were to have been issued for both stations, the new licensee for the new station is "Metromedia CMR Broadcasting Inc.", which was the prior licensee for CINW. On July 8, 2011, these applications for 690 kHz and 940 kHz were withdrawn to a later date. On July 29, 2011, the CRTC began taking other applications for the two frequencies, leaving Cogeco's plans for the stations in doubt.
On September 7, 2011, the CRTC announced the applicants for the 940 frequency; competing against Cogeco is Paul Tietolman, the son of broadcaster Jack Tietolman, who planned to use 940 for an anglophone news-talk formatted station.
On November 21, 2011, Tietolman was awarded the frequency, but for the francophone news-talk format that he originally applied for 690.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
Canadian radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
located in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
.
Owned and operated by Corus Quebec
Corus Québec
The Corus Québec network, previously known as the Radiomédia network as it used to be called until May 2005, was a French-language Canadian news/talk radio network serving most of Quebec...
, it broadcasted on 940 kHz with a power of 50,000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s as a clear channel (class A) station, using a slightly directional antenna
Directional antenna
A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates greater power in one or more directions allowing for increased performance on transmit and receive and reduced interference from unwanted sources....
solely for the purpose of improving reception in downtown Montreal. CINW's previous incarnation, XWA, was Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's first regularly operated commercial radio station, first signing on in 1919.
CINW, along with French-language sister station CINF, ceased operations at 7:00 p.m. ET on January 29, 2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....
.
XWA, CFCF, CIQC
The station that eventually become CINW started out on December 1, 1919 under the call signCall sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...
XWA (for "Experimental Wireless Apparatus"). Experimental broadcasts continued from that date from the Marconi Wireless Company at 173 William Street (later re-numbered as 1017) after such time as the station began regular programming on May 20, 1920. As such, it has a claim to being the first commercial broadcaster in the world
Oldest radio station
The title of oldest radio station is disputed by several in Europe , and in the United States and Canada.Several potential contenders for the title of "oldest radio station" are listed below, organized by sign-on date:-Stations:...
, although other stations, most notably KDKA
KDKA (AM)
KDKA is a radio station licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Created by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation on November 2, 1920, it is one of the world's first modern radio stations , a distinction that has also been challenged by other stations, although it has claimed to be the first in...
and WWJ
WWJ (AM)
WWJ is Detroit, Michigan's only 24-hour all-news radio station. Broadcasting at 950 kHz, the station is owned and operated by CBS Corporation subsidiary CBS Radio. The station first went on the air on August 20, 1920 with the call sign 8MK...
, have made similar claims. Its call letters were changed to CFCF on November 4, 1920. While the meaning of that call sign
Call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...
has never been officially confirmed, it is generally believed to be "Canada's First, Canada's Finest".
After numerous changes of frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
, and a three-year period in which it shared time with CKAC on 730 kHz from 1925 to 1928, CFCF landed on 600 kHz in 1933 and stayed on that frequency until 1999. The station was an affiliate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
's Dominion Network
Dominion Network
The Dominion Network was the second English-language radio network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from January 1, 1944 to 1962.It consisted of the CBC-owned CJBC radio station in Toronto and a series of 34 privately owned affiliates from coast-to-coast...
from 1944 to 1962.
Some of the notable personalities from the CFCF era include newsman Gord Sinclair, morning hosts Ted Blackman
Ted Blackman
Ted Blackman was a well known Canadian media personality in the Montreal area.Blackman's career started as a disc jockey at high school and teen club dances in the 1950s...
and Al Boliska, sportscasters John Robertson
John Robertson (journalist)
John Robertson is a retired Canadian media personality.A good amateur baseball pitcher, Robertson had a tryout in 1950 with Major League Baseball's Washington Senators. When his playing days ended, he would stay around the game as a reporter, in later years writing newspaper columns on the...
and Dick Irvin, Jr.
Dick Irvin, Jr.
James Dickinson Irvin, Jr. is a retired Canadian sports broadcaster and author. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988 under the broadcasters category1...
and 1960s Rock and Roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
DJ, Dave Boxer.
CFCF changed its format from full service
Full service
Full service is a term that has many different uses. In general the term implies that the customer will receive as much service as is reasonably possible.-Gas station:...
to adult standards
Adult standards
Adult standards is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.Adult standards is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly those persons over 50 years of age, but it is mostly targeted for senior citizens...
in 1986. Call letters changed to CIQC in September 1991 as the station, and its FM sister CFQR-FM (now CKBE-FM), were sold to Mount Royal Broadcasting (later Métromédia), with the TV station keeping the CFCF-TV
CFCF-TV
CFCF-DT is a CTV-owned and operated station located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada...
callsign, and at the same time the station started an ill-fated country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
format, which lasted only until March 1993, at which point the station switched to news/talk
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
programming with on-air personalities such as Howard Galganov
Howard Galganov
Howard Galganov was briefly a political activist and radio personality in Montreal during the late 1990s...
.
During the 1997-99 period, CIQC was the home station of The Travel World Radio Show, hosted by veteran travel broadcasters Stephen Pickford and Willem Bagchus, which became the first Montreal radio show to be carried in US syndication when it was picked up in simulcast by the Westminster,MD-based Liberty Works Radio Network in August 1999. The program was profiled in the October 15/2000 edition of L'Actualite magazine for its efforts in promoting Canadian and Quebec tourism to a US audience.
Move to 940 kHz
CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
's CBM-AM (now known as CBME-FM
CBME-FM
- External links :* * at Canadian Communications Foundation...
). With this move, the station would technically increase power from 10,000 watts (daytime) and 5,000 watts (nighttime) to 50,000 watts full time by June 1999, even though CBM-AM had the current 50,000 watt signal in use since 1978. These technical changes were implemented on December 14, 1999, and call letters were changed at the same time to the current CINW, to match the new all-news format introduced that same day.
The station initially wanted to use calls CKNN for its new format and frequency but was denied permission after they illegally used these call letters during testing on 940 kHz in the weeks preceding the frequency change. The 600 kHz transmitter was shut down on Easter Sunday 2000 (April 23), after four months of simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
. CINW 940 News had a sister station CINF Info 690, for French-language all-news in Montreal.
CINW ended its all-news format in September 2005 to pave the way for news/talk programming. The first day of the revamped format was September 14, 2005. In a throwback to the CIQC days, the first live guest on CINW, at 06:47 EDT with morning man Barry Morgan, was Stephen Pickford, who had hosted Travel World on CIQC from 1997 to 1999. Their most popular broadcasters were Joe Cannon
Joe Cannon
Joseph Cannon or Joe Cannon may refer to:*Joseph A. Cannon, former chairman of the Utah Republican Party and former chairman of Geneva Steel...
, Jim Duff and Charles Adler
Charles Adler (broadcaster)
Charles Adler is a Hungarian-born Canadian broadcaster who, when he was a child, was smuggled in a backpack out of Hungary by his father during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Charles grew up in Montreal, where he started his broadcast career while attending McGill University...
. One of 940's first announcers was Debbi Marsellos, a native Montrealer who was mainly a traffic reporter but also anchored the news and did some hosting. Debbi started working at 940 News from its inception, coming from CJAD. Patrick Letang was the 940 News Business Editor until he died on December 6th, 2006
AM940 Montreal’s Greatest Hits
On June 6, 2008, the station announced that it would drop its talk programming and move to an oldiesOldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
format effective June 14, citing difficulties operating in the Montreal market. The most recent ratings report prior to the change had placed the station sixth among Montreal anglophones with a 3.8% share; nonetheless it was one of the lowest-ranked commercial English-language stations in the market (just ahead of CKGM (The Team 990)), and was well back of spoken-word rivals CJAD and CBC Radio One
CBME-FM
- External links :* * at Canadian Communications Foundation...
.
The switch took place at 9:40 AM on July 1, 2008, marking the return of oldies to anglophone radio in Montreal since CKGM flipped to The Team in 2001.
In addition, CINW carried some non-music programming on occasion, such as the overnight Coast to Coast AM
Coast to Coast AM
Coast to Coast AM is a North American late-night syndicated radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics, but most frequently ones that relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was created by Art Bell and is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. The program currently...
program; following CINW's closedown, the program would be picked up by Astral Media
Astral Media
Astral Media Inc. is a Canadian media corporation. It is Canada's largest radio broadcaster with 83 radio stations in eight provinces, and is a major player in premium and specialty television in Canada, including The Movie Network, Super Écran, Family, Teletoon, Canal D, Canal Vie, VRAK.TV,...
-owned CJAD in March 2010.
Closure
Corus announced on January 29, 2010, that CINW and sister station CINF would cease broadcasting as of 7:00pm local time that day, due to unsustainable ratings. Regular programming ceased at 10:00am and was replaced with a loop of an announcement of the closure of the station from general manager Mark Dickie. At 7:02pm eastern time, after 90 years on the air through various callsigns and formats, broadcasting abruptly ceased. The pre-recorded loop announcement was cut off mid sentence, foregoing any official sign-off. The licenses for both stations have been returned to the CRTC for cancellation and approved the revocation of both licences on June 8, 2010.Later that year, Cogeco
Cogeco
Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian media and communications company. The name is an acronym for Compagnie Générale de Communication .-History:...
acquired Corus' Quebec stations; the sale included the transmitter sites and equipment in Kahnawake used for CINF and CINW, but not the licenses, as they were submitted to the CRTC for cancellation.
Future of AM 940
In May 2011, Cogeco announced that they have planned to sign on two new AM traffic information radioHighway advisory radio
Travelers Information Radio Stations , are sometimes also called Highway Advisory Radio Stations by Departments of Transportation in the United States. These radio stations are licensed low-power AM radio stations set up by local transport departments to provide bulletins to motorists and other...
stations for the Montreal area, in conjunction with Transports Québec
Transports Québec
Le ministère des Transports du Québec , known by its short form name Transports Québec, is a Quebec government ministry responsible for transport infrastructure and law in Quebec, Canada....
. The English language service was to broadcast at 940 kHz, the former frequency for CINW. Both stations were expected to sign on in fall 2011, with broadcast hours from 4:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays, and from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends. Interestingly, while new licenses were to have been issued for both stations, the new licensee for the new station is "Metromedia CMR Broadcasting Inc.", which was the prior licensee for CINW. On July 8, 2011, these applications for 690 kHz and 940 kHz were withdrawn to a later date. On July 29, 2011, the CRTC began taking other applications for the two frequencies, leaving Cogeco's plans for the stations in doubt.
On September 7, 2011, the CRTC announced the applicants for the 940 frequency; competing against Cogeco is Paul Tietolman, the son of broadcaster Jack Tietolman, who planned to use 940 for an anglophone news-talk formatted station.
On November 21, 2011, Tietolman was awarded the frequency, but for the francophone news-talk format that he originally applied for 690.
External links
- http://www.marcdenis.com/chart.asp?chart=ckgm-boxerwithbeatles.jpg&cap=boxerwithbeatlesPhoto of DJ Dave Boxer with Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and Ringo StarrRingo StarrRichard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
(1965)] - CINW(CFCF)-AM history at Canadian Communications FoundationCanadian Communications FoundationThe Canadian Communications Foundation is a history of Canadian broadcasting for radio and television chronicles and documents. It also provides a history of radio and television stations, including networks, programs, broadcasters and many others....
