CINW

CINW
(defunct)

City of license	Montreal, Quebec
Branding	AM 940
Slogan	Montreal's Greatest Hits
Frequency	940 kHz (AM)
Translator(s)	CFCX-SW 6005 kHz
First air date	December 1, 1919
Format	Oldies
Power	50,000 watts
Class	A
Transmitter coordinates	45°23′34.08″N 73°41′53.16″W / 45.3928000°N 73.6981000°W / 45.3928000; -73.6981000
Callsign meaning	Canada's Information and NeWs station (former all-news format)
Former callsigns	CIQC (1991-1999) CFCF (1920-1991) VE9AM (1920) XWA (1919-1920)
Owner	Corus Quebec (Metromedia CMR Broadcasting Inc.[1])
Sister stations	CFQR-FM, CINF

CINW was an English language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec.

Owned and operated by Corus Quebec, it broadcast on 940 kHz with a power of 50,000 watts 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.^[2][3]

History

XWA, CFCF, CIQC

The station that eventually become CINW started out on December 1, 1919 under the call sign XWA (for "Experimental Wireless Apparatus").^[4] 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, CIQC started an ill-fated country music format as "Country 600", 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.

Move to 940 kHz

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 CINW, to match the new all-news format introduced that same day.

The station initially wanted to use the call letters CKNN for its new format and frequency. It 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 had a sister station, CINF "Info 690", for French-language all-news programming.

CINW ended its all-news format in September 2005 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 6, 2006.

AM940 Montreal’s Greatest Hits

On June 6, 2008, the station announced that it would drop its talk programming and move to an oldies format effective June 14, citing difficulties operating in the Montreal market.^[5] 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.^[6] 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.

Closure

Corus announced on January 29, 2010, that CINW and 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.^[7][8] The licenses for both stations have been returned to the CRTC for cancellation and approved the revocation of both licences on June 8, 2010.^[9]

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.^[10]

Future of AM 940

In May 2011, Cogeco announced that they have planned to sign on two new AM traffic information radio 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.^[11] 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.^[12][13] 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.^[11] On July 8, 2011, these applications for 690 kHz and 940 kHz were withdrawn to a later date. ^[14] On July 29, 2011, the CRTC began taking other applications for the two frequencies, leaving Cogeco's plans for the stations in doubt.^[15]

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.^[16]

On November 21, 2011, Tietolman was awarded the frequency, but for the francophone news-talk format that he originally applied for 690.^[17] A year later, he and his 2 partners were granted a license for English talk to be broadcast on 600 AM in the spring of 2013.

References

• Decision CRTC 99-151

External links

• Photo of DJ Dave Boxer with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (1965)
• CINW(CFCF)-AM history at Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for 940CINW

v t e Radio stations in Montreal and surrounding area Montreal AM NEW 600 CKGM 690 CKAC 730 CJAD 800 NEW 850 NEW 940 CHRF 980 CFMB 1280 CJWI 1410 CHOU 1450 CJRS 1650 CJLO 1690 Defunct CINF 690 CINW 940 CJMS 1280 CHLP 1410 CKO/CFOX 1470 CKLM 1570 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-10 106.7 Adjacent communities Acton Vale CFID 103.7 Akwesasne CKON 97.3 Châteauguay CHAI 101.9 Granby CFXM 104.9 Hudson/Saint-Lazare CHSV 106.7 Joliette CJLM 103.5 Kahnawake CKKI 89.9 CKRK 103.7 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 Salaberry-de-Valleyfield CKOD 103.1 Vaudreuil-Dorion CJVD 100.1 Defunct CHEF 1450 (Granby) Specialty services HMWN Radio Maria Adjacent markets North Country Region, NY Burlington VT / Plattsburgh NY Cornwall, ON Quebec radio markets Abitibi-Témiscamingue Bas-Saint-Laurent Centre-du-Québec Chaudière-Appalaches Côte-Nord Gaspésie Gatineau Laurentides Mauricie Montreal Nord-du-Québec Quebec City Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Sherbrooke/Estrie See also List of radio stations in Quebec