CKTB

CKTB is a radio station in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Broadcasting at 610 AM, the station airs a news/talk format. CKTB is housed in the former mansion of William Hamilton Merritt, the main promoter of the first Welland Canal.

CKTB was launched in 1930 by Edward Sandell at 1120 on the AM dial. As with most early AM radio stations (see Canadian allocations changes under NARBA), the station changed frequencies a number of times in its early years, moving to 1200 in 1933, 1230 in 1941, 1550 in 1946, 620 in 1950 and its current 610 in 1959.

Sandell died in 1943, and the station was acquired by Niagara District Broadcasting the following year. Niagara District Broadcasting subsequently launched CKTB-FM in 1949.

The stations were acquired by Standard Broadcasting in 1980. Standard sold CKTB to Affinity Radio Group in 1997. Affinity was in turn acquired by Telemedia in 2000; Standard reacquired the station when it purchased Telemedia in 2002.

In October 2007, Astral Media acquired Standard Broadcasting's terrestrial radio and television assets, including CKTB.

Programming

CKTB's programming is a mixture of locally-produced Canadian programming and American syndicated programs, owing to St. Catharines's position halfway between the cities of Hamilton, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

Local hosts include Tim Denis, Tom McConnell, Joe Cahill, Stephanie Sabourin, Larry Fedoruk and Kevin Jack.

CKTB was the only affiliate in Canada to carry The Phil Hendrie Show until 2006, when Phil Hendrie retired for the first time. To replace Hendrie, the station had aired the Don and Mike Show from 7-10pm, a popular American call-in show, the first Canadian station to do so. Don and Mike have recently been replaced with more reruns of Coast to Coast AM. Other popular American programs include On the House with the Carey Brothers and The Kim Komando Show, a show dealing with the Internet and consumer technology.

CKTB continued to air the best of Phil Hendrie on Saturdays from 6-10pm until April 2007. At that point, that show was replaced with other programming (including yet more Coast to Coast AM). With Hendrie's return to radio, however, so too has CKTB returned him to the lineup, on a daily basis. The show has, however, been dropped and replaced by Joy Browne, another American show; Browne is heard on several other Canadian stations.

CKTB acts as the overflow for CJCL whenever that station must air multiple Toronto sporting events. Until 2005, CKTB had carried sports programming from the Buffalo Bills of the NFL and the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL. In that year, CKTB dropped Bills coverage, while the Sabres rights were revoked as Entercom Communications, owners of WGR in Buffalo and WROC in Rochester, New York, gained exclusive rights to the team's games.

While St. Catharines is usually considered a part of the Buffalo market when dealing with syndicated programming, CKTB does not usually show up in Buffalo's Arbitron ratings. A lack of knowledge of the station, its distance from Buffalo (coupled with its presence on the AM dial), and its primarily Canadian content during the day contribute to this. However, BBM registers CKTB as a popular station in the St. Catharines market, with audience share comparable to that of CHML's audience share in nearby Hamilton.^[1]

References

External links

• CKTB
• Listen Live
• CKTB history at Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CKTB