CJAD (800
AM) is a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
operating in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, Canada. The station has an
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
news/talk
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...
radio format
A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelle ...
and identifies itself on-air as ''CJAD 800''. Owned and operated by
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. (French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
, it has a daytime power of 50,000
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s but reduces power to 10,000 watts at night to avoid interfering with other stations on
AM 800
The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 800 kHz: 800 AM is a Mexican clear-channel frequency. XEROK Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the dominant station on 800 AM. See also List of broadcast station classes.
In Argentina
* LT43 ...
. The
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...
is located near
Saint-Edouard, while studios and offices are located on
Rene-Levesque Boulevard East in
Downtown Montreal. CJAD can be heard across Canada on
Bell Satellite TV
Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...
channel 953.
Local hosts are heard throughout the day and evening with a few
syndicated shows also carried: ''
Coast to Coast AM
''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 1 ...
'' with
George Noory
George Ralph Noory (born June 4, 1950) is an American radio talk show host. Since January 2003, Noory has been the weekday host of the late-night radio talk show ''Coast to Coast AM''. The program is syndicated to hundreds of radio stations in ...
. Affiliated with CBS Radio for many years, in 2018 the station, along with many other Bell-owned talk radio stations in Canada, switched to NBC Radio and 24/7 News for U.S. and international news.
CJAD and co-owned 690 CKGM are currently the only two full-time commercial English-language stations in Quebec on the AM dial.
History
Early Years
CJAD was founded by J. Arthur Dupont in 1945, basing the
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...
on his initials. CJAD is often called Montreal's heritage anglophone station, particularly since the demise of the city's oldest anglophone station,
CINW
CINW was the final call sign used by an English language AM radio station in Montreal, Quebec, which, along with French-language sister station CINF, ceased operations at 7:00 p.m. ET on January 29, 2010. Owned and operated by Corus Quebec ...
(successor to CFCF, Canada's first radio station). CJAD
signed on
Signing may refer to:
* Using sign language
* Signature
A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...
the air on December 8, 1945. In its first years, CJAD had its studios and offices on
Rue de la Montagne
Rue de la Montagne, also known as Mountain Street, is a north–south street located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It starts at Wellington Street in the south and continues to above Doctor Penfield Avenue in the north, where it stops in ...
(Mountain Street) in Montreal, now the site of
O'Sullivan College.
In 1961, CJAD was purchased by
Standard Broadcasting Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object t ...
. In 1978, control of Standard Broadcasting was purchased by
Conrad Black via
Hollinger Inc. In 1985, Standard was purchased by
Slaight Communications
Slaight Communications is a Canadian radio broadcasting company. The company was formed as Slaight Broadcasting in 1971, when owner J. Allan Slaight acquired CFGM in Richmond Hill. Slaight later also acquired CFOX in Montreal and CHOK in Sa ...
, a privately held company owned by
J. Allan Slaight.
In 1962,
sister station 95.9
CJFM
CJFM-FM (95.9 FM) is a commercial English-language radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Owned and operated by Bell Media, the station broadcasts a Top 40/CHR format branded as ''95.9 Virgin Radio''.
CJFM-FM broadcasts with an eff ...
was launched, with programming always separate from CJAD.
Full Service Format
For most of its history, CJAD had a
full service format. The music was mainly
middle of the road songs in the 1960s and 70s, switching to an
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
sound by the 1980s. Two specialized shows were heard on weekends: "The Bandstand" with
Dick Irvin Jr., and "Starlight Concert" with Rod Dewar. In 1995, CJAD shifted its format to full-time news/talk, dropping all music and entertainment, save for the Sunday morning Trivia Show and the CJAD Comedy Show, also heard on Sundays.
Starting in 1992, almost all of CJAD's programming was
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...
on
Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian mass media company. Formed in 1999 as a spin-off from Shaw Communications, it has prominent holdings in the radio, publishing, and television industries. It is headquartered at Corus Quay in Toronto, Onta ...
-owned
AM 900
AM or Am may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* A minor, a minor scale in music
* ''A.M.'' (Chris Young album)
* ''A.M.'' (Wilco album)
* ''AM'' (Abraham Mateo album)
* ''AM'' (Arctic Monkeys album)
* AM (musician), American musici ...
CKTS
CKTS was an English language Canadian radio station located in Sherbrooke, Quebec. It broadcast on 900 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts as a class B station, using a directional antenna which had a slightly directional pattern during the day a ...
in
Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional cou ...
. On November 19, 2006, CKTS ceased broadcasting,
signing off the transmitter and surrendering its licence to the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). According to Corus, this was because of high ongoing maintenance costs that neither Corus nor Standard were willing to cover.
Ownership Changes
In April 2007,
Astral Media and
Standard Broadcasting Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object t ...
announced that Standard had agreed to sell CJAD and its other Montreal stations to Astral. On March 16, 2012, Bell Media announced that it had entered in an agreement to acquire Astral Media for an estimated value at $3.38 billion, with the deal including CJAD and its sister radio stations in Montreal.
On
Labour Day Weekend, 2012, CJAD, as well as its sister stations previously owned by Astral, moved from 1411 Fort Street to new facilities in the Bell Media Radio building on Rene-Levesque Boulevard East at
Papineau Avenue
Papineau Avenue (officially in french: avenue Papineau) is the longest north–south street in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The part of the street between Henri Bourassa Boulevard and Quebec Autoroute 40 is the Montreal portion of Quebec Autoroute 1 ...
.
1998 Ice Storm
In January 1998, all four of CJAD's broadcast
towers
A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures.
Towers are specific ...
toppled during
The Ice Storm. CJAD's first attempt to get back on the air was to use
CKGM's former AM 980 transmitter, re-tuned to the 800 frequency. This, however, turned out to be impossible as the 980 site was damaged by ice as well. CJAD then made arrangements to broadcast on
CFMB
CFMB (1280 kHz) is a multilingual Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, owned by Evanov Communications. It broadcasts with a power of 50,000 watts full-time as a class B station, using a directional antenna with different patter ...
's former 1410 transmitter, but the signal was poor to the west. CJAD management then reached an agreement with
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a Canadian media company based in Toronto, Ontario in operation from 1945 to 2007. The company was founded in 1945 as York Broadcasters Limited when it launched CHUM-AM 1050 but was acquired by salesman Allan Waters in 1954. CHU ...
to use their
CKGM transmitter on 990 kHz until new towers were erected.
News
A large part of CJAD's daily programs are talk shows discussing local and international news. CJAD broadcasts newscasts every 30 minutes, except overnights when newscasts are delivered every hour, on the hour. Live @ Five is a half-hour news program broadcast at 5 a.m. on weekdays. Traffic updates air every 15 minutes during the day and every 30 minutes late nights.
On weekdays, James Foster and veteran anchor Trudie Mason deliver morning newscasts, with Jason Mayoff taking over in the afternoons. Dawn Kagan-Fleming serves as anchor on weekend mornings.
Overnight news is read during the week by James Foster. Longtime anchor and reporter Tom Armour retired in 2015. Armour died in December 2018.
Some of the station's notable former reporters include Shuyee Lee, Claude Beaulieu, Patrick Lejtenyi, Angelica Montgomery, Tina Tenneriello, Matthew Gilmour, Michel Boyer, Natalie Nanowski, Benson Cook, Elizabeth Zogalis, Sofia Misenheimer, and Emily Campbell. Sidney Margles, Peter Shurman and Rick Leckner were notable reporters from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
On February 2, 2021, CJAD's newsroom was eliminated as part of a major round of layoffs by Bell Media.
CTV Montreal
CFCF-DT (channel 12) is a television station in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, part of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside Noovo flagship CFJP-DT (channel 35). Both stations share studios at ...
reporters file reports for CJAD, and the station's late-night anchors will read news headlines on CJAD during the evening hours. It was later announced that Natasha Hall and Aaron Rand's afternoon and evening shows would be replaced by a co-hosted afternoon show, and that a simulcast of ''CTV News at 6'' would also be added to its lineup. The cuts were among 210 across the company, which also included a similar elimination of staff at Toronto sister station
CFRB
CFRB (1010 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Bell Media and carries a News/Talk radio format. Its studios and offices are in the Entertainment District at 250 Richmond Street West.
CFRB is a ...
.
Sports
CJAD is the exclusive English radio broadcaster of the
CFL's Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes (French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the East Division of the Canad ...
. Some game broadcasts are
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...
on sister station
CHOM 97.7 FM. CJAD was the longtime English radio home of the
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...
hockey
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...
team, until the 2010–11 season. In June 2010 it was announced that Canadiens broadcasts would switch to
sports radio
Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on ...
station
CKGM, now on
AM 690
AM or Am may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* A minor, a minor scale in music
* ''A.M.'' (Chris Young album)
* ''A.M.'' (Wilco album)
* ''AM'' (Abraham Mateo album)
* ''AM'' (Arctic Monkeys album)
* AM (musician), American musician ...
and co-owned with CJAD.
In July 2012,
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. (French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
, owner of CKGM, announced that English-language rights to the Canadiens could return to CJAD following its proposed acquisition of Astral Media, if its conversion of CKGM to a French-language sports station (which would have been done to satisfy
ownership limits preventing the merged company from owning both CJAD and CKGM if they both broadcast in English) were approved by the CRTC.
On October 18, 2012, the CRTC rejected Bell's proposal to acquire Astral Media; since the application to convert CKGM into a French station was contingent on the approval of the Astral merger, it too was rejected.
On March 5, 2012, it was announced that CJAD would be the exclusive English language radio broadcaster of
Montreal Impact soccer team
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
for the next two years.
Beginning in September 2013, CKGM (TSN 690) staffers began providing sports updates for co-owned CJAD. Until recently,
Rick Moffat
Rick Moffat is a Canadian radio announcer. He recently provided play-by-play commentary for CJAD radio and TSN 690 for Montreal Alouettes games and Montreal Impact games. He also co-hosted The Morning Show on TSN 690 alongside Conor McKenna and ...
did the weekday morning sports, Mitch Gallo does the weekday afternoon sports, and Amanda Stein does the weekend morning sports for CJAD as well as TSN 690.
Transmitter
CJAD broadcasts with 50,000
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s in the daytime, the maximum power permitted for Canadian AM stations. At night, power drops to 10,000 watts to avoid interfering with other stations using the 800 frequency, such as the
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
-formatted
CJBQ
CJBQ is a Canadian radio station licensed at Belleville, Ontario. It is owned by Quinte Broadcasting along with CIGL-FM and CJTN-FM. CJBQ broadcasts at 800 kHz at a power of 10 kW. The transmitter is located in Prince Edward County. The ...
in
Belleville, Ontario
Belleville is a city in Ontario, Canada situated on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, located at the mouth of the Moira River and on the Bay of Quinte. Belleville is between Ottawa and Toronto, along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Its populat ...
, the now-
dark
Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown.
Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lu ...
CHRC in
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...
(which is approximately 250 miles
60 kmaway and was shut down in September 2012), and
CKLW
CKLW (800 AM) is a commercial radio station in Windsor, Ontario, serving Southwestern Ontario and Metro Detroit. CKLW has a news/ talk format. It features local hosts in morning and afternoon drive times, with syndicated Canadian hosts ...
in
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...
. CJAD must also protect the
Class A station on AM 800,
XEROK in
Ciudad Juárez,
Chihuahua,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. CJAD's antenna is a four-tower array, located near
Saint-Edouard, using two different
directional patterns for day and night.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Bell Media
Jad
Jad
Jad
Radio stations established in 1945
Jad
1945 establishments in Quebec