CKGM
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CKGM (
On September 4, 2012, CKGM officially began broadcasting on 690
While it was still broadcasting at 980 kHz, CKGM was known for being a legendary and influential Top 40/CHR radio station from 1970 to 1986. From 1941 until 1999, AM 690 in Montreal was the home of CBF, the flagship station of the CBC's French-language radio network, now known as Ici Radio-Canada Première.
Current programming
CKGM airs local shows on weekdays, with TSN Radio programming heard evenings and weekends, and ESPN Radio programming late nights. Local shows include Melnick in the Afternoon with Mitch Melnick, Campbell vs Gallo with Sean Campbell and Mitch Gallo from 10am-2pm. The Morning Show with Conor McKenna and Shaun Starr, and The Weekend Game Plan with Matthew Ross & Dave Trentadue. These shows mainly focus on Montreal Canadiens analysis, especially during hockey season, but also address all the major sports in North America.
CKGM is the English-language flagship station for the Canadiens, with lengthy pre and post-game coverage for each game. TSN Radio 690 also carries network national feeds of the
On June 22, 2011, Bell Media announced it had signed a deal with the Montreal Canadiens for CKGM to become the Canadiens' official English-language radio broadcaster for the next 7 seasons.[3]
Live sports
TSN Radio 690 is the flagship station for the following teams' radio broadcasts:
- Montreal Alouettes (CFL) [4]
- NHL)[3]
- MLS) [5]
TSN Radio 690 also features live coverage of the following:
- MLB Baseball (select games, including some from the Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals)
- NFL Football (select games)
- Indycar(auto racing)
- NHL Playoffs hockey
Notable staff
- Elliott Price
- Mitch Melnick
- Chris Nilan ("Knuckles" Nilan)
- Sergio Momesso
History
Early days
CKGM was founded by
On July 16, 1963, an FM sister station, CKGM-FM, later known as CHOM-FM starting in 1970. After a few weeks of simulcasting CKGM, the FM station adopted a beautiful music format on September 1.
In 1963, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through a window, but was faulty and did not ignite inside the studios. Only three people were in the studios at the late night hour, including Jim Turner, on the air in the control room just a few metres away.
In 1965, CKGM hired open-line host
In 1968, CKGM moved from 1455
.CKGM became the
Top 40 era
On January 1, 1970, CKGM changed its format to become a full-time Top 40 station. The ratings quickly climbed, with CKGM beating direct competitor
Legendary morning drive time host Ralph Lockwood, formerly of CFOX, made his debut on CKGM on October 2, 1972. He would remain with the station until late 1981.
In 1975, CKGM introduced "La Connection Française", referring to a trio of bilingual personalities (Rob Christie, Marc Denis[6] and Scott Carpentier) which used both English and French on the air and played songs of both languages. As CKGM remained an English-language station, this resulted in French-language stations complaining to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and even refusing to observe quotas of Francophone music. On-air bilingualism would remain a distinctive CKGM feature until stringent CRTC regulation forbidding it (and also enforcing quotas on the Francophone side) went into effect on January 1, 1980.
CKGM got a record-high number of listeners among English-language stations in Montreal according to the Fall 1976 BBM ratings that were released on December 13 of that year, thanks in part to the large numbers of Francophones who listened to the station. (Almost 40% of CKGM listeners were French-speaking.)
During its Top 40 era, CKGM was one of a handful of Canadian radio stations to carry the
Sale to CHUM Limited
On August 20, 1985, CKGM and sister station CHOM-FM were sold to
The station returned to a Top 40 format at 5 p.m. on February 10, 1989, changing its call sign to CHTX in an attempt to distance itself as far as possible from its earlier days as a Top 40 station that even included adopting a new phone number. CHTX identified itself on-air as 980 Hits, and also referred to itself as "the station that plays the most music allowed by law" (in reference here to CRTC regulations that limited hit music on FM stations). Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some listeners wondered if there was, in fact, a legal limitation on the number of songs radio stations can play.
On September 14, 1990, at 5 PM, CHTX moved to 990 kHz,
Another format change occurred on May 24, 1991, with the new format being
ON January 15, 1996, the station returned to its original CKGM call sign, as the station moved to a talk radio format known as "Talk Radio With Attitude." The station aired mostly syndicated talk shows. For that reason, the station got low ratings, with fewer than 100,000 listeners. The CKIS call letters moved to a Calgary radio station formerly owned by Rawlco, and as of 2009, are now used on a Toronto radio station.
When the
The Team 990
In September 2000, shortly after the CRTC made changes to radio ownership regulations allowing a single company to own up to four stations in a market, CHUM announced it would trade CKGM and sister station
However, a few months later, the CKGM portion of the deal was cancelled.[8] The company immediately announced that CKGM would be added to the list of CHUM-owned AM stations switching to an all-sports format on May 7, 2001, joining the new "The Team" network and identifying itself as "Team 990". CKGM became the radio flagship of the Montreal Expos a few days later, marking a return of baseball on English-language airwaves. The station would broadcast the last Expos' games as a Montreal franchise in 2004.
Even in the very last days before the switch to the new format, the largely automated CKGM continued to air a promo criticizing "those talk stations" (in addition to always playing the same songs in the very same order).
While most Team stations returned to music programming (generally oldies) on August 27, 2002, CKGM was one of the few stations where the all-sports format survived, and locally produced programming was increased.
The Team 990 was anchored by the afternoon drive show hosted by Mitch Melnick. Its morning show featured veteran broadcaster Elliot Price and Shaun Starr (Denis Casavant left in November 2011 to pursue his career at
Other popular programs included the Delmar Cargo Habs Post Game show, which came on after each Montreal Canadiens game.
In the summer of 2007, Matthew Ross, host of Game Points, set a station record by hosting a 10.5-hour marathon program.
Sale to CTVglobemedia
On June 22, 2007,
CKGM files for frequency swap
On September 7, 2011, the CRTC announced the applicants for the 690 kHz frequency previously occupied by
On November 21, 2011, CKGM's relocation to 690 was approved by the CRTC.[11][12][13][14] The changeover took place on September 4, 2012, and its on-air branding was renamed TSN Radio 690.[15] Following the switchover, CKGM began a 90-day simulcast period, as requested and approved by the CRTC. On the week of November 27, 2012, CKGM began running an announcement on a loop on 990, reminding listeners to tune to 690; the announcement also mentioned that CKGM would cease operations on 990 entirely on December 1, 2012. Sometime after this simulcast period had ended, the 990 frequency was transferred to Evanov Communications, who planned to launch its new LGBT-oriented station, CHRF ("Radio Fierté"), at 990 in early 2013.[11] However, due to technical considerations, Evanov applied for, and was awarded, the 980 AM frequency instead (the frequency previously used by CKGM), with a launch date of 2014.[16] Evanov originally applied for the new station to broadcast on 690.[11]
TSN Radio
On October 3, 2011, Bell Media announced that the Team 990 would be relaunched (along with CFRW in Winnipeg) under the new TSN Radio banner, thus becoming known as TSN Radio 990 effective October 5, 2011.[17] It was renamed TSN Radio 690 after CKGM moved its frequency to 690 in September 2012.
On March 16, 2012, Bell Media announced its intent to acquire
Prior to hearings in May 2013 regarding a modified proposal to acquire Astral Media, 15,000 listeners signed a
After 45 years in the same building, CKGM relocated in September 2013 its studios to 1717 René-Lévesque Boulevard East to join the rest of the Bell Media cluster in Montreal.
References
- ^ "Blue Jays Radio Network | Toronto Blue Jays". MLB.com.
- ^ Channel Listing
- ^ a b Bell Media Site – Bell Media Radio Archived 2012-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "TSN Radio 690 becomes the new home of the Alouettes with multi-year broadcast rights agreement | Montreal Alouettes". Archived from the original on 2014-11-11. Retrieved 2014-07-06.
- ^ "Impact - News". Archived from the original on 2002-02-08. Retrieved 2015-04-27.
- ^ "Marc Denis Bio". Retrieved 24 February 2014.
- ^ Decision CRTC 90–72
- ^ CHUM press release, March 9, 2001
- ^ Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-571, September 7, 2011.
- ^ Fagstein: "Clear Channel Cagematch: CKGM frequency change", November 3, 2011.
- ^ a b c "Making waves: Montreal broadcasters in flux". The Gazette, August 11, 2012.
- ^ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-721, November 21, 2011.
- ^ Fagstein: "CRTC gives clear channels to TSN, Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy", November 21, 2011.
- ^ The Gazette: "Two new AM radio stations approved for Montreal", November 22, 2011.
- ^ TSN Radio in Montreal Moves to AM 690 on Tuesday
- ^ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2013-648, December 4, 2013
- ^ Bell Media Launches TSN RADIO in Montreal and Winnipeg
- ^ Astral Shareholders Approve Acquisition by BCE Archived 2014-08-08 at the Wayback Machine, Broadcaster Magazine, May 24, 2012.
- ^ "TSN Radio 990 to become a francophone station". Canadian Press. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (2012-07-10). "Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2012-370 (item 2)". Retrieved 2012-07-10.
- ^ "Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2012-574". CRTC. 18 October 2012. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
- ^ "TSN Radio 690 Montreal Thanks Listeners for Support". Broadcaster Magazine. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- ^ "Bell resistant to CRTC's TSN 690 proposal". Montreal Gazette. Archived from the original on 8 May 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- ^ "Rogers tells CRTC it is willing to buy TSN 690". The Gazette. Archived from the original on 4 July 2013. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
- ^ "CRTC approves Bell-Astral merger". CBC. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
External links
- TSN 690 Montreal
- CKGM-AM at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the Canadian Communications Foundation
- CKGM in the REC Canadian station database