CJCL (590 AM, ''

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary sports broadcasting, sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture betw ...

590 The Fan'') is a Canadian

sports radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sport, sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often-low comed ...

station in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. Owned and operated by Rogers Radio, a division of

Rogers Sports & Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties. Operations Current television brands owned by Rogers include two television sy ...

since 2002, CJCL's studios are located at the Rogers Building at Bloor and Jarvis in

downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main city centre of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Street to the nor ...

, while its transmitters are located near

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...

atop the

Niagara Escarpment The Niagara Escarpment is an approximately discontinuous, arc-shaped but generally northward-facing escarpment, or cuesta, in Canada and the United States. The escarpment begins south of Lake Ontario and circumscribes the top of the Great Lake ...

. It is the flagship station for the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...

, and also airs games from the

Toronto Raptors The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NBA), Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), E ...

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. The Maple Leafs compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the A ...

, Buffalo Bisons and

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...

. CJCL is a Infinity Sports Network affiliate. The station was originally owned by longtime sportscaster

Foster Hewitt Foster William Hewitt, (November 21, 1902 – April 21, 1985) was a Canadian radio broadcaster most famous for his play-by-play calls for ''Hockey Night in Canada''. He was the son of W. A. Hewitt, and the father of Bill Hewitt. Early life ...

and began broadcasting on February 21, 1951, as CKFH 1400 before moving to 1430 AM in 1960.

Telemedia Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CKAC r ...

acquired the station in 1981 and relaunched it as CJCL. During its early life, the station aired news and sports,

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

and

talk radio 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. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

formats. It adopted the current sports format on September 4, 1992, as ''The Fan 1430'' as Canada's first all-sports radio station before swapping frequencies with CKYC 590, acquired in 1994 by Telemedia, on February 6, 1995, adopting ''The Fan 590'' branding. After Telemedia was sold to Standard Broadcasting, Rogers acquired CJCL in 2002. Due to its location near the top of the AM dial, as well as its transmitter power and height, CJCL covers most of southern Ontario during the day. The station's signal is directional from north to south to protect various lower-powered radio stations east and west of the station. CJCL is simulcast across Canada on

Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Bell Fibe TV, Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television service a ...

channel 959, and on

Shaw Direct Shaw Direct G.P. is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Rogers Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two ...

channel 868. It is also carried on the 3rd HD

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

of CKIS-FM.

History

The station first aired on February 21, 1951, as CKFH; operating at 1400

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

. It was a news and sports station owned by legendary Canadian broadcaster

(the "FH" of 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 as ...

), who was best known as the first and long-time play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs on what became ''

Hockey Night in Canada ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') is a long-running program of broadcast ice hockey play-by-play coverage in Canada. With roots in pioneering hockey coverage on private radio stations as early as 1923, ...

''. The station moved to 1430 kHz in 1960, increasing power first to 5,000, then 10,000 and finally 50,000 watts. In its first years, CKFH was a full service station with news, drama, and variety programs, but specialized in sports broadcasting away games of the

as well as "reconstructed" play-by-play broadcasts of the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

. The station also carried a number of foreign-language programs produced by ethnic broadcasters such as Sam Yuchtman's

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

-language ''Jewish Hour'' and Italian-language programs produced by

Johnny Lombardi Johnny Lombardi, (December 4, 1915 – March 18, 2002) was a pioneer of multicultural broadcasting in Canada. He founded CHIN (AM), CHIN in 1966 and CHIN-FM in 1967. Early life The son of Italian immigrants, Lombardi was born in what is now ...

until Lombardi launched his own station,

CHIN The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible (List_of_human_anatomical_regions#Regions, mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a we ...

, in 1966. CKFH adopted a

format that same year. It then moved to a

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...

format in 1975. The station was subsequently sold to

in 1981 when it adopted its current CJCL call sign and switched to an

format. In 1983, the station briefly adopted talk programming, but returned to its music format within a few months, with increased emphasis on

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

. CJCL was the flagship of the

network, and as such, broadcast

baseball games (with Tom Cheek and

Jerry Howarth Jerry Howarth (born March 12, 1946) is an American Canadian former sports commentator, best known as the radio play-by-play voice of the Toronto Blue Jays from 1981 through the 2017 season. Howarth had shared the play-by-play duties with his la ...

calling the action) followed by hours of talk after the game. The station has been flagship radio station of the Blue Jays for most of their history since their inception in 1977 (with exception of a hiatus when CHUM was the flagship from 1998 to 2002). As the 1980s progressed, and the winning Blue Jays became more popular, the sports features became CJCL's profit centre. Encouraged by the newfound success of sports radio in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, in 1992, the year the Blue Jays won their first

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

, CJCL would drop non-sports programming altogether on September 4, and became ''The Fan 1430'', the first all-sports station in Canada. The station's nickname may have been inspired by WFAN in New York City, the first sports radio station in the world that led to the creation of sports radio stations everywhere. In 1994, Telemedia acquired CKYC from Rogers, and on February 6, 1995, at noon, the two stations switched frequencies, with "The Fan" moving to 590 AM (subsequently becoming ''The Fan 590'') and CKYC moving to 1430 AM (where it operates today as

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

station CHKT). Telemedia was acquired in 2002 by Standard Broadcasting, who resold CJCL to Rogers Media. In January 2011, CJCL became known as ''Sportsnet Radio The Fan 590'', the move coming as part of a co-branding initiative with its television counterpart

, amid indications that rival TSN was preparing to launch a competing sports radio station, TSN Radio 1050."TSN Radio a reality"
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', January 21, 2011. The station's on-air identity was then changed to ''Sportsnet 590 The Fan'' in October 2011. The station also provides sports news updates for its

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

, all-news radio CFTR.

Live sports

CJCL is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...

for the following teams' radio broadcasts: *

(

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

baseball) *

(

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

basketball)♠ *

(

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

hockey)♠ ♠-In case of conflicts with other sports broadcasts, one of the games will air on another station in the Toronto area. As Rogers owns the Blue Jays outright but only shares ownership (through

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

) of the Raptors and Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays games have first priority on CJCL. CHUM shares rights to the other two teams, including all games that are played at the same time as the Blue Jays. In contrast, because of an exclusive CFL-wide multimedia deal with TSN that ensures all

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team based in Toronto, Ontario. The Argonauts compete in the East Division (CFL), East Division of t ...

games air on CHUM, any Raptors or Maple Leaf games that conflict with the Argonauts will air on CJCL. The two stations split the broadcasts of games that do not conflict with each other. Roughly 11 Buffalo Bisons games (as of 2018) air on evening dates between June and August that do not conflict with Blue Jays games. The Bisons are the Triple-A East affiliate of the Blue Jays, and broadcasts originate from Buffalo-based

WWKB WWKB (1520 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Buffalo, New York. It broadcasts a sports gambling format and is one of two sports radio stations owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. in the Buffalo market. WWKB's Buffalo sister station WGR pri ...

. The Fan 590 also features live coverage of the following: *

( NFL

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

) *

NBA All-Star Game The National Basketball Association All-Star Game is the annual all-star game hosted each February by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and showcases 24 of the league's All-star, star players. Since 2022, it was held on the third Sunday of ...

Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio ''Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio'' is the brand name for exclusive play-by-play broadcast presentation of Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio. The coverage has most recently been presented by Indeed, along with AutoZone for the postseason ...

( Sunday nights,

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that showcases the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or division, bu ...

& postseason; when not conflicting with Blue Jays games & weekday afternoon sports talk radio programming) *

Memorial Cup The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), a consortium of three Junior ice hockey, major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tou ...

hockey ''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...

(championship game) * NFL Football (Sunday afternoons) Previous live sports events on CJCL included: *

( CFL football) (2000–2001, 2007–2010) *

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (MLS), Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matc ...

(

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanctioned by the United ...

soccer) *

Ice Hockey World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), first officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the I ...

( Team Canada games) *

IIHF World Junior Championship The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), sometimes referred to as World Juniors, is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for national under-20 ice hockey teams from around the world. It is traditionally ...

( Team Canada games) *

Toronto Rock The Toronto Rock are a Canadian professional box lacrosse team based in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area that competes in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The team was the first Canadian franchise in the NLL. The Rock play their home ga ...

( NLL lacrosse) (2006) * OHL All-Star Classic ( OHL hockey) (2007) * International Bowl (

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

) (2007–2010) *

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

(

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

) (Saturday mornings, 2007–2010) *

Grey Cup The Grey Cup () is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners ...

( CFL football) (2007–2009) *

Toronto Marlies The Toronto Marlies are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the American Hockey League (AHL) as a member of the North Division of the Eastern Conference. The Marlies are owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, a c ...

( AHL hockey) (2008–2010) *

2009 World Baseball Classic The 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an International Baseball Federation, international baseball competition. It began on March 5 and finished March 23. Unlike in 2006 World Baseball Classic, 2006, when the Round-robin tournament, round- ...

(All Canada national baseball team games and the final four) *

Ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally occ ...

(All Team Canada games, plus the quarter-final game determining Team Canada's semi-final opponent, both semi-finals, and both the bronze medal and gold medal games) * Ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics – Women's tournament (gold medal game)

Notable on-air staff

Current

* David Amber * Kevin Barker * Jeff Blair * Joe Bowen (Maple Leafs) * Stephen Brunt * Hugh Burrill * Sam Cosentino * Richard Deitsch * Rob Faulds * Ailish Forfar * Elliotte Friedman * Paul Jones * Ian Leggatt * Scott Metcalfe * Tim Micallef * Sid Seixeiro *

Gord Stellick Gord Stellick (born May 26, 1957 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian sports broadcaster and former National Hockey League, NHL executive. Stellick formerly hosted The Fan 590 Morning Show with Don Landry, and also appears on Hockey Central on Rogers ...

* Anthony Stewart *

Dan Shulman Daniel Shulman (born February 9, 1967) is a Canadian sportscaster with Sportsnet as well as the American network ESPN. Shulman serves as the play-by-play announcer and the moderator for the Toronto Blue Jays telecasts on Sportsnet. Durin ...

(Blue Jays) * Eric Smith * Mike Zigomanis

Former

* Sandy Annunziata * Jack Armstrong * Alan Ashby (Blue Jays) * Bill Berg *

Howard Berger Howard Berger (born 20 December 1964) is a special make-up effects creator who is best known for his work on ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' films. He has over 200 films to his credit since 1977. Berger is the co-founder of KNB EFX Group along w ...

* Dean Blundell * Greg Brady * Tom Cheek * Don Cherry * Damien Cox * Ken Daniels * John Derringer * Cal Gardner (Leafs 1970s). * Dirk Hayhurst * Mike Hogan *

(Blue Jays) *

Jim Hunt James Baxter Hunt Jr. (born May 16, 1937) is an American politician and retired attorney who was the List of governors of North Carolina, 69th and 71st governor of North Carolina (1977–1985, and 1993–2001). He is the longest-serving governo ...

* Rob Iarusci * Mike Inglis * Peter Irvine * Spider Jones * Jim Kelley *

Andrew Krystal Andrew Krystal (died May 22, 2022) was a Canadian news reporter who worked for CityNews on CITY-DT, Citytv Toronto. He had previously been a radio talk show host, his most recent stints being on the Rogers Communications news talk network in The ...

* Nick Kypreos * Don Landry * Jim Lang *

Jeff Lumby Jeff Lumby (born 1956) is a Canadian actor. He is a member of the Lumby family, who created and produced the 1980s Canadian children's television series, '' Size Small'', where he performed as various characters and a puppeteer. Lumby played "Wins ...

* Jeff Marek * Pat Marsden * Doug MacLean * Bob McCown * Daren Millard *

Rick Moranis Frederick Allan Moranis (; born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian, musician, producer, songwriter and writer. Moranis appeared in the sketch comedy series '' Second City Television'' (''SCTV'') in the 1980s and starred afterward in s ...

(using the stage name Rick Allan) * Jack Morris (Blue Jays) * Mark Osborne *

Steve Paikin Steven Hillel Paikin (born June 9, 1960) is a Canadian journalist, author, and documentary producer. Paikin has primarily worked for TVOntario (TVO), Ontario's public broadcaster, and is anchor of TVO's flagship current affairs program ''The Ag ...

* Dan Pollard * Elliott Price * Paul Rimstead * Jim Richards * Mike Richards * Greg Sansone * Chris Schultz * John Shannon * James Sharman * Joe Siddall (Blue Jays; moved to

television coverage) * Steve Simmons * Chuck Swirsky * Mike Toth *

Ben Wagner Benjamin L. Wagner (born August 7, 1980) is an American sportscaster. As of 2024 he works as a play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball, after having performed the same role for the Toronto Blue Jays from 2018 to ...

(Blue Jays) * Bob Weeks * John Wells *

Brian Williams Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American journalist and television news anchor. He was a correspondent for ''NBC Nightly News'' starting in 1993, before his promotion to anchorman, anchor and managing editor of the broadcast in ...

* Mike Wilner * Sam Yuchtman

References

External links

*
CJCL-AM
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the

Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...

*
"FAN 590 an experiment gone right" (Toronto Star article)

Fan 590 Toronto's YouTube channel
{{Toronto Raptors Jcl Jcl Jcl Sport in Toronto Radio stations established in 1951 1951 establishments in Ontario Sportsnet