CKNW (AM)

thumb

CKNW is the leading talk radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its frequency is 980 AM. It is owned by Corus Entertainment. CKNW has been the top-rated radio station in the Lower Mainland for many years, interrupted only once by Jack FM in the early 2000's, a position CKNW has now regained.

The station's content is generally focused around news, and current events. It features many call-in shows, with well-informed local hosts. And also, for the past few months, a host from Winnipeg, two time zones away, named Charles Adler.

In a major blow, CKNW recently lost the rights to broadcast Vancouver Canucks games to The Team.

History

CKNW first signed on-air in New Westminster, BC, on August 15 1944 at its original frequency of 1230 AM, under the ownership of Bill Rae (through his International Broadcasting Co. group); CKNW began as the greater Vancouver area's original country music station, and was also the first station in the area to provide hourly newscasts (between 6 a.m. and midnight) and the first in the province to broadcast 24 hours a day, beginning in 1947.

Later in 1947, Rae would purchase a half-interest in Port Alberni radio station CJAV; several personalities who started out at CJAV would later move to CKNW, including Joe Chesney (who became morning show host until moving on to establish Langley station CJJC [now CKST in Vancouver] in 1963) and Jim Robson (who would do radio play-by-play for the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL beginning in 1972). On January 2 1949, CKNW switched frequencies to 1320 AM and increase its power from 250 watts to 1000, then further increased to 5000 watts on November 5 1954.

In February 1956, health problems forced Bill Rae to sell CKNW to Frank Griffiths and the Ballard family, who went on to form Western Broadcasting Co., the forerunner to Western International Communications (WIC); on November 17 1958, the station switched to its present frequency of 980 AM, and on February 22 1960, its transmission power was increased to 10,000 watts (further increased to 50,000 watts in 1965). On January 15 1969, CKNW moved into larger studio space in a former Safeway store in New Westminster, permitting parent company Western Broadcasting to put FM sister station CFMI on the air the following year (on March 22 1970), until 1996 when the building was heavily renovated to become a new McDonald's restaurant.

CKNW founder Bill Rae died on April 15 1983 in Santa Barbara, California at age 74; on October 3 that year, the staion began broadcasting in AM stereo, and on June 18 1984, became the flagship station of the Western Information Network, broadcasting programs via satellite to affiliate stations throughout British Columbia. In 1986, CKNW and CFMI moved from New Westminster to Vancouver when their new studio opened on the Expo 86 site.

During the 1990s, CKNW made a gradual transition from a mixed format of news, sports, talk shows and MOR music (which it had since dropping its original country music format in the 1960s) to its current format of full-time news, talk and sports by the end of the decade. In 1996, CKNW and CFMI moved again to its current studios in the Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver; and in 2000, both stations were purchased by Corus Entertainment (under the approval of the CRTC) as part of the splitting of WIC's broadcasting assets (which also saw WIC's pay-TV assets also go to Corus, and its broadcast TV stations purchased by Canwest Global).

In February 2001, Corus Entertainment launched an all-news sister station to CKNW. NW2 (CJNW AM730) was branded as "24 hour news radio, powered by CKNW". NW2 shared newsroom resources with CKNW, including several anchors and reporters. However, NW2 did not achieve broad appeal, and was shut down in May 2002.

Programming

5:00 a.m. Morning show with Phillip Till
8:30 a.m. The Bill Good show
12:00 p.m. The Noon News
1:00 p.m. Adler on Line
3:00 p.m. The World Today with Jon McComb
7:00 p.m. Nightline BC
9:00 p.m. Sportstalk

Programming is interrupted for certain sporting events, as well as major news items such as elections.

External links

AM radio stations in Vancouver, BC; Victoria, BC and Bellingham, WA

Victoria: CKMO 900 | CFAX 1070

Bellingham: KARI 550 | KGMI 790 | KPUG 1170 | KRPI 1550 | KVRI 1600

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.