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
A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates or receives greater power in specific directions allowing increased performance and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas provide increased performance ...
which had a slightly directional pattern during the day and a much tighter pattern at night, to protect
Class-A clear-channel station
XEW-AM in
Mexico City at night.
The station was shut down in 2006 by its owner,
Corus Entertainment.
History
CKTS went on the air on July 1, 1946. The station originally broadcast on 1240 kHz, and was operated by Telegram Printing & Publishing, the owner of the local weekly ''Sherbrooke Telegram-Observer''. It was an affiliate of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's
Trans-Canada Network by 1957. The station moved to 900 AM in 1959, and was sold to
Telemedia in the late 1960s.
During the 1970s, it also aired programming produced by Radio Bishop's, the campus radio club of
Bishop's University, which would later become
CJMQ-FM.
CKTS-AM 900 had its antenna farm located close to 1643 Dion Road in St-Elie d'Orford (which has since become part of Sherbrooke). The four radio towers has since been taken down and dismantled.
As the English-speaking population declined in the
Eastern Townships
The Eastern Townships (french: Cantons de l'Est) is an historical administrative region in southeastern Quebec, Canada. It lies between the St. Lawrence Lowlands and the American border, and extends from Granby in the southwest, to Drummondv ...
, the station tried to appeal to
francophones, and by the mid-1970s the station had a
Top 40 format with minimal spoken word content. Most of the advertising on the station was in French and most listeners were francophones, much to the displeasure of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
. The station changed its slogan to "Super Hits Sherbrooke K-900". It short slogan was "K-K-K-900". The K-900 logo was written in red lettering on a white background. On air talent included Ted Silver, Daniel Coulombe and Frank Cavallaro.
The radio station moved its studios to a new location at 901 Galt Street West in Sherbrooke.
In 1989, the CRTC forced CKTS to use only English. As a result, by 1992 the station was acting as a ''de facto''
rebroadcaster
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
of
Standard Broadcasting's
news/talk station
CJAD
CJAD (800 AM) is a commercial radio station operating in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The station has an English language news/talk radio format and identifies itself on-air as ''CJAD 800''. Owned and operated by Bell Media, it has a daytime power ...
in
Montreal, with its only local programming consisting of a
church service
A church service (or a service of worship) is a formalized period of Christian communal worship, often held in a church building. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sa ...
that aired every Sunday morning for half an hour.
Standard Broadcasting acquired Telemedia in 2002, bringing CJAD and CKTS under common ownership. However, Standard soon sold CKTS to
Corus Entertainment in January 2005. Despite the fact that Corus had its own English news/talk radio station in Montreal,
CINW, CKTS continued to air programming from CJAD.
Shutdown
Due to high ongoing maintenance costs, the station was shut down on November 19, 2006,
CKTS to stop rebroadcasting CJAD
Corus press release, November 17, 2006 and its licence was voluntarily revoked as of December 13.
References
External links
CJAD 800
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Radio stations established in 1946
1946 establishments in Quebec
Radio stations disestablished in 2006
2006 disestablishments in Quebec
KTS