- CKAC
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CKAC 
City of license Montreal, Quebec Branding Radio Circulation 730 Slogan La circulation, en tout temps. Frequency 730 kHz (AM) First air date September 22, 1922 Format Traffic information Power 50,000 watts Class A Transmitter coordinates 45°30′50″N 73°58′24″W / 45.5139°N 73.9733°WCoordinates: 45°30′50″N 73°58′24″W / 45.5139°N 73.9733°W Callsign meaning Canadien-Kilocycle-Amérique-Canada Owner Cogeco
(591991 B.C. Ltd.)Sister stations CHMP-FM, CKOI-FM, CFGL-FM, CKBE-FM Webcast CKAC webcast Website http://www.radiocirculation.net/ CKAC is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, currently broadcasting a traffic information format as Radio Circulation 730.
The station broadcasts on 730 kHz on the AM band with a power of 50,000 watts as a clear channel (class A) station, using a slightly directional antenna pointing east (towards Montreal) with the same pattern day and night.
CKAC is owned and operated by Cogeco. Their studios are located at Place Bonaventure in downtown Montreal, and their transmitter is located in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac.
Contents
Previous hosts
Previous hosts on the station included : Michel Langevin and Gabriel Grégoire (morning show), Mario Langlois (mid-mornings), Jean-Charles Lajoie (early afternoons), Michel Villeneuve (afternoon drive), Jean Chartrand (early evenings), Ron Fournier (late evenings), Marc Bryson (weekends) and Jacques Fabi (general talk, weekday nights).
History
Early days
CKAC is famous for being the first French-language radio station in the entire world. The construction of the station was announced on May 3, 1922, and it started to regularly broadcast on September 22, 1922, as reported by daily newspaper La Presse, which created the station and owned it until 1969.
While some sources indicate that the station started to broadcast on October 2, 1922, that date actually refers to an official inauguration concert, and not to the actual beginning of regular programming.
The station was originally on 360 metres (833 kHz) and had a power of 2,000 watts. In 1925, the station switched to its current frequency of 730 kHz, using a power of 1,200 watts. It shared time with CFCF (now CINW) until 1928, at which point it became the only station on that frequency. Power was increased to 5,000 watts fulltime on October 19, 1929, using an omnidirectional antenna from a new transmitter site located in Saint-Hyacinthe. CKAC applied to increase its power to 50,000 watts the following year, but this application was denied by government authorities.
The station became an affiliate of the CBS network in 1929. This affiliation was established to broadcast concerts from renowned American orchestras on CKAC. CKAC also created its own orchestra that year, which would produce concerts aired on American stations twice a week until 1933. (CKAC did keep its CBS affiliation until the late 1940s.)
Radio dramas appeared on CKAC in 1931 and would continue to be heard for many years thereafter, until they were phased out as television was introduced and became popular.
Golden age
In 1950, CKAC increased its daytime power to 10,000 watts (nighttime power remained at 5,000 watts), and the station began to broadcast 24 hours a day.
On October 1 of that same year, CKAC began to air the "Le Chapelet en famille" (the "Family Rosary Hour") as recited by archbishop Paul-Emile Léger in the Marie-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral, and this program proved so popular that competitors actually lobbied hard to get permission to simulcast that program, to no avail. (The program disappeared in 1970 as religious practice declined precipitously in the late 1960s in Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec and ratings were down, but this provoked many complaints among still devout Catholics.)
On March 13, 1958, CKAC raised its power to 50,000 watts fulltime, using a directional antenna pointing east using two towers, as it moved to its current transmitter site located in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, just west of the Island of Montreal. The station now had one of the best signals in Eastern Canada, which was quite an exceptional situation for a privately owned station. In the early days of radio in Canada, the CBC used its dual role as regulator and broadcaster to ensure that most of the country's clear-channel allocations went to CBC-owned stations.
CKAC faced serious competition which intensified in the 1960s as new French-language stations such as CKVL (opened in 1946), CJMS (opened in 1954) and CKLM (opened in 1962) were attracting listeners. While none of these stations had a signal nearly as impressive as CKAC (especially considering nighttime signal restrictions), this was not yet a problem for these stations as urban sprawl was still minimal.
However, CKAC quickly regained the top ratings spot in 1970, due to the crucial role its highly regarded news service had in keeping listeners informed during the October Crisis, in which the terrorist and separatist Front de libération du Québec movement kidnapped and murdered provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte.
The station was sold from Power Corporation (which bought La Presse and CKAC in 1968) to Telemedia in 1969, and CKAC became the flagship of the new Télémédia network, which also included CHLN 550 in Trois-Rivières, CHLT 630 in Sherbrooke, and the now-defunct CKCV 1280 in Quebec City, CKCH 970 in Hull (now Gatineau) and CJMT 1420 in Chicoutimi (now Saguenay).
From 1970 until the late 1980s, CKAC was regularly one of the very few stations in Canada to attract over one million listeners according to BBM ratings and regularly made millions of dollars in profits every year, as it was home to such famous and renowned hosts as long-time morningman Jacques Proulx, mid-morning host Suzanne Lévesque and 1980s midday host Pierre Pascau.
CKAC became the French radio flagship of the MLB Montreal Expos (who became the Washington Nationals after the 2004 season) in 1972 and broadcast post-season games in addition to all (or in the last years, most) Expos regular-season games until 2003, with legendary play-by-play host Jacques Doucet describing over 5,500 games.
The station got an FM sister station in 1977, when Telemedia launched CITE-FM on 107.3 MHz. (The two stations became competitors in May 2005; for more information, please see "Recent decline and sale to Corus Entertainment" section.)
Unlike most other privately-owned clear channel (class A) radio stations in North America, CKAC never converted to AM stereo.
Telemedia/Radiomutuel merger
CKAC ran into ratings difficulties in the early 1990s, mostly because of a resurgence from CJMS. These difficulties had a disproportionate economic impact on CKAC because of the recession that was particularly difficult in Montreal, and Quebec in general. In addition, radio in Quebec was generally suffering from the appearance of the new (TQS TV network, which provoked a severe advertising price war.
CKAC logo from the Radiomédia era; used from 1994 to 2005.
Because of these factors, Telemedia merged its Quebec AM radio operations with Radiomutuel on September 30, 1994 to form the new Radiomédia network, and six AM stations across Quebec closed that very same day at 6 PM, including competitor CJMS 1280. Radiomutuel acquired 50 % of CKAC, with the remainder still being owned by Telemedia (both companies continued to compete on the FM side).
While CKAC survived thanks to its superior signal (compared to CJMS), most of the new programming included hosts from CJMS, and the merged newsroom was dominated by former Radiomutuel journalists.
The merger did help CKAC to regain many of its lost listeners and market shares, but still CKAC did not dominate in ratings as it used to do. Even the format switch of competitor CKVL to all-news radio in late 1999 did not prop up CKAC in any significant manner. CKAC actually started to lose significant numbers of listeners to Première Chaîne (CBF-FM 95.1) in the early 2000s.
Decline and sale to Corus Entertainment
The last CKAC logo before the station's switch to all-sports; used from 2005 to 2007.In 2001, Astral Media (successor of Radiomutuel) got permission from the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to buy Telemedia's Quebec radio properties, which included the RockDétente network as well as 50 % of the Radiomédia network. However the Competition Bureau, another federal agency, partially blocked the deal over concentration of ownership issues, and ordered Astral Media to sell Radiomédia stations, which were temporarily put into trusteeship.
A first attempt failed when TVA (Quebecor) and RNC Media were refused permission by the CRTC in June 2003 to buy the stations, because of ownership concentration concerns. A second deal was announced in September 2003 with businessmen Gaétan Morin and Sylvain Chamberland, but a month later popular CKAC morningman Paul Arcand unexpectedly announced his departure from the station, and in late November Corus Entertainment announced that it would launch a new news/talk format on CHMP-FM 98.5 (then CKOO-FM) in January 2004, with Arcand as its morningman. Jean Lapierre, who was the afternoon drive host, also announced his departure as he returned to active politics; as a result Morin and Chamberland exercised their option to cancel their acquisition, paying a million-dollar fee to do so.
Astral Media then concluded in March 2004 an exchange of assets deal with Corus Entertainment; the latter publicly announced in June its intention of dramatically reducing programming expenses if the deal was approved, most notably by shutting down the CKAC newsroom.
Despite widespread opposition against that deal, the known existence of at least four other serious and much less controversial contenders to buy the Radiomédia stations, and numerous allegations to the effect that Corus Entertainment's offer was actually part of a larger plan to prevent any meaningful competition to its new FM talk format (as Corus seemed to try to weaken and steal listeners from CKAC and not from the increasingly popular CBF-FM, and its sales representatives claimed to clients that they would be better advised to buy advertising at CHMP-FM and not CKAC as they pretended the latter was going to close shortly no matter what would happen), the deal was approved in January 2005 by the CRTC in the midst of strong rumours that Astral Media would close CKAC if the deal was not approved. The deal took effect a few months later after a failed attempt by CKAC employees to appeal the decision to the Federal Cabinet.
On May 30, 2005, Corus Entertainment closed the reputed CKAC newsroom in favour of the lowly regarded CINF (Info 690) newsroom, which, until its January 2010 closure, produced newscasts for all French-language Corus Entertainment stations under the name "CorusNouvelles". (The production of CorusNouvelles would move to CHMP-FM following the closure of CINF.)[1] The Radiomédia network became known as the Corus Québec network, and CKAC continued to be the flagship of the network as it continued to be the source of talk programming for Corus' talk stations outside of Montreal. However ratings continued to suffer, and CKAC fell well below the 500,000 listeners mark according to BBM ratings.
All-sports era
Logo for CKAC as an all-sports stationThe format switch to all-sports was announced on March 1, 2007 and took effect on April 2, 2007. Sister station CHMP-FM became the co-flagship of the Corus Québec network. The long-time tradition of airing news bulletins on the 45th minute of the hour, a practice that was begun in 1972, was ended. Music programming also disappeared from the station's schedule for the first time ever, except for late-night Souvenirs Garantis oldies programming. Before April 2, 2007, the station had a news/talk format with sports talk in the evenings and some music (mostly oldies) during weekends.
CKAC was the radio flagship of the Montreal Canadiens (NHL hockey), the Montreal Alouettes (CFL football), the Montreal Impact (NASL soccer) and the Toronto Blue Jays (MLB baseball). The station broadcasted all Canadiens and Alouettes games, and all Impact games except for regular season road games;[2] the number of Blue Jays games aired is limited to only a few per year.[3]
On April 30, 2010, it was announced that Cogeco will acquire all radio stations owned by Corus in Quebec for $80 million, pending CRTC approval.[4] However, Cogeco must either apply with the CRTC for an exemption from the common ownership policy, or sell off some of these (or Cogeco's own stations) to a third party as they will be over the maximum allowable number of stations in Montreal, Quebec City, and Sherbrooke. Corus is selling off their Quebec radio stations, as they are less profitable than Corus's stations in other parts of Canada.[5]
On December 17, 2010, the CRTC approved the sale of most of Corus' radio stations in Quebec, including CKAC, to Cogeco. The same decision, however, also denied Cogeco's request to convert Sherbrooke station CKOY-FM to a repeater of CKAC.[6]
End of all-sports era and transition to traffic information
On September 2, 2011 at exactly 10 AM, CKAC dropped its all-sports format. A recorded announcement from Cogeco vice president Richard Lachance was played, announcing a new traffic information format that would launch at 4:30 AM on September 6, 2011. Branded as Radio Circulation 730, the new format is being subsidized by the Quebec government, and will feature round-the-clock traffic updates from around Montreal. Unlike Cogeco's original plans for 690, CKAC's traffic radio service will operate 24 hours a day, with live announcers on the air between 4:30 AM and 1 AM. Pre-recorded announcements detailing overnight road closures and detours are played when live announcers are not on the air.
Effective September 6, 2011, some of CKAC's sports programming and airstaff have moved over to CHMP, along with Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Alouettes broadcasts.[7] [8]
After playing a wide variety of continuous music over Labour Day weekend, Radio Circulation 730 made its debut at 4:30 AM on September 6, as announced. The first announcer heard on the air was Michel Millard.
Rebroadcasters
The following community-owned rebroadcasters are currently listed as rebroadcasting CKAC.[9] Although traffic information for the Montreal area has little apparent relevance to these communities, no changes to this transmitter list (if any) following CKAC's 2011 format change have yet been made available.
- CFAE-FM 101.7 FM - La Grande-1 generating station
- CFBD-FM 93.1 FM - La Grande-3 generating station
- CFCC-FM 92.1 FM - Guyer
- CFDD-FM 93.1 FM - Keyano (Camp LG-4)
- CFEA-FM 92.5 FM - Nikamo (Camp LA-1)
- CFFD-FM 103.9 FM - Laforge-2 generating station
- CFGA-FM 92.1 FM - Brisay
- CIHQ-FM 93.1 FM - Champion
- VF2059 98.1 FM - Fermont [10]
- VF2155 103.9 FM - Poste Laverendrye [11]
References
- ^ CNW Newswire: "AM Info690 Montréal and AM940 Montreal's Greatest Hits to cease operation on January 29, 2010", January 29, 2010.
- ^ "L'Impact conclut une nouvelle entente avec CKAC". cyberpresse.ca. March 30, 2010. http://www.cyberpresse.ca/sports/soccer/201003/30/01-4265722-limpact-conclut-une-nouvelle-entente-avec-ckac.php.
- ^ CKAC aired eight games in 2010 [1] and fifteen games in 2011 [2].
- ^ "Canada's Corus Entertainment sells all its stations in Quebec, including Montreal". Radio-Info.com. 30 April 2010. http://www.radio-info.com/news/canadas-corus-entertainment-sells-all-its-stations-in-quebec-including-mont.
- ^ St. Petersburg Times, "Canada Report" column, May 9, 2010.
- ^ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2010-942: "Transfer of effective control of various commercial radio programming undertakings from Corus Entertainment Inc. to Cogeco inc.", issued December 17, 2010.
- ^ Government pays for Cogeco to shut down CKAC Sports, September 2, 2011
- ^ On September 6, CKAC Becomes Radio Circulation 730, Montreal's First Dedicated Traffic Radio Station, September 2, 2011
- ^ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2004-258
- ^ Decision CRTC 88-623
- ^ Decision CRTC 98-323
External links
- Radio-Circulation 730
- (English) CKAC history at Canadian Communications Foundation
- (French) CKAC Fondation Des Communications Canadiennes
Radio stations in Montreal Montreal AM Montreal FM CBME 88.5 • CISM 89.3 • CHDO 89.7 • CKUT 90.3 • CIRA 91.3 • CKLX 91.9 • CKBE 92.5 • CBM 93.5 • CKMF 94.3 • CBF 95.1 • CJFM 95.9 • CKOI 96.9 • CHOM 97.7 • CJPX 99.5 • CKVL 100.1 • CBFX 100.7 • CIBL 101.5 • CINQ 102.3 • CKDG 105.1 • CKIN 106.3 • CITE 107.3
Defunct: CJRM-FM 98.5 • CKAV-10 106.7Adjacent communities Acton Vale: CFID 103.7 • Akwesasne: CKON 97.3 • Châteauguay: CHAI 101.9 • Joliette: CJLM 103.5 • Kahnawake: CKKI 89.9 • CKRK 103.7 • Lachute: CJLA 104.9 • Laval: CJLV 1570 • CFGL 105.7 • Longueuil: CHMP 98.5 • CHAA 103.3 • Saint-Constant: CJMS 1040 • Saint-Hyacinthe: CFEI 106.5 • Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu: CFZZ 104.1 • Saint-Jérôme: CIME 103.9 • Salaberry-de-Valleyfield: CKOD 103.1 • Vaudreuil-Dorion: CJVD 100.1Adjacent markets North Country Region, NY • Burlington VT / Plattsburgh NY • Cornwall, ONQuebec Radio Markets: Abitibi-Témiscamingue • Bas-Saint-Laurent • Centre-du-Québec • Chaudière-Appalaches • Côte-Nord • Gaspésie • Gatineau • Mauricie • Montreal • Nord-du-Québec • Quebec City • Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean • Sherbrooke/Estrie
See also: List of radio stations in Quebec Cable television stations TVCogeco: TVCogeco Windsor • TVCogeco 13 Kingston • TVCogeco North Bay
Other: Cable 14 Hamilton (66.67%)AM radio stations CKAC 730 MontrealFM radio stations Rythme FM: CFGL 105.7 Montreal • CJEC 91.9 Quebec City • CIME 103.9 Saint-Jérôme • CFGE 93.7/98.1 Sherbrooke • CJEB 100.1 Trois-Rivières
CKOI: CKOI 96.9 Montreal • CKOF 104.7 Gatineau • CFEL 102.1 Lévis • CKOY 107.7 Sherbrooke • CKOB 106.9 Trois-Rivières
Souvenirs Garantis: CFOM 102.9 Quebec City • CJTS 104.5 Sherbrooke
Other: CHMP 98.5 Montreal • CKBE 92.5 Montreal • CJMF 93.3 Quebec CitySee also Categories:- Radio stations in Montreal
- Cogeco radio stations
- News and talk radio stations in Canada
- French-language radio stations in Quebec
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