CJMS (1280 AM)

CJMS was a

The station went on the air on April 25, 1954. CJMS got an FM sister station in 1964 as CJMS-FM (later CKMF-FM) began operations. The AM station adopted a highly popular Top 40 format in the 1960s and became the flagship of the (now-defunct) Radiomutuel network in 1969. The Top 40 format remained popular until the late 1970s, but it started to lose listeners rapidly in the early 1980s due to the increasing availability and popularity of FM radio.

CJMS, along with other Radiomutuel stations, switched to a

The merger deal was publicly announced on Friday, September 30, 1994 at 9:15 AM, and in each of the six markets where the two networks competed, programming on the station slated to be closed immediately stopped and was replaced with continuous music fed directly at the transmitter site. The music continued until 6 PM, when all six stations targeted shut down. The last song played on CJMS was Michel Fugain's "Tout va changer" ("Everything will change").

In every market the station with the best signal was kept, and even though CJMS 1280 had a full-time 50,000-watt signal, it was no match compared with CKAC's clear-channel status on a lower frequency (730 kHz). Thus CJMS became one of the very few 50,000-watt AM giants to shut down in North America's radio broadcasting history.

As most of CKAC's new programming was actually composed of shows, hosts and journalists previously heard on CJMS, it led some critics to nickname CKAC as "CJMS 730" or "Le CJMS renouvelé à la fréquence 730" ("The rejuvenated CJMS at 730 on the radio dial"), and some pre-1994 CKAC fans still claim today that it is CKAC which actually really died in 1994.

From 1999 to 2020, there was a new station using the call sign

• CJMS was the world's first French-language station to broadcast in AM stereo. The station used the C-QUAM system, starting in June 1983, until it ceased operations.

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