CJIB-FM

Vernon would have its own radio station come early 1947, with the issuing of a licence to Edward and Bernard Schroter. CJIB would operate on 940 kHz with a power of 1,000 watts. The Schroter brothers were both electrical engineers. In addition to operating CJIB, they also planned to manufacture magnetic tape recorders and other equipment.

Ted Soskin joined CJIB. He had been with CKOV in Kelowna.

CJIB was expected to open on June 1. Douglas McBride left CJGX Yorkton as commercial manager to take up a similar position at CJIB.

CJIB became a member of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.

CJIB was now planning to launch operations on August 1.

A reorganization of Interior Broadcasters Ltd. placed CJIB under the following board of directors: Major C.H. Pitt (secretary), James Mutrie, Bryson Whyte, William McCubbin and Russ Neil – all of Vernon. Norman Harrod (formerly with CJAT Trail) would now be manager. He succeeded John Ferguson. The Schroter Brothers, who put the station on the air, relinquished their interests and planned to continue in the electronics business in Vernon (the Magrecorder for example – a tape recorder made for office use).

The CBC Board recommended for approval, the transfer of control of Interior Broadcasters to C.H. Pitt, J.T. Mutrie, W.E. McCubbin and H.J. Davies.

Norman Harrod left CJIB as general manager to join the sales staff at CKRC in Winnipeg.

CJIB was added to the CBC Dominion network in April.

Sid Lancaster was named manager. He had been with Radio Representatives Ltd. Lancaster also acquired a substantial interest in the company, according to secretary-treasurer Charles H. Pitt.

Commercial manager Howard Thompson replaced Sid Lancaster as manager. Stan Jones was on-air. Don McGibbon was program director.

Ted Soskin lef CJIB for Hollywood. During his time at CJIB, he served as assistant manager, news writer, announcer, and became an on-air personality in 1949.

Slogan: Outside of the three metropolitan cities – more people listen to CJIB than to any other B.C. station. Day in and day out, British Columbia’s “Big Second” market is sold by CJIB.

Gil Seabrook was named manager of CJIB. Since 1947, Seabrook had been with CKCK Regina and left the commercial manager-ship there to take up his new post. He started his radio career 19 years earlier, starting out at CKLC (CKRD) Red Deer. At various times he had been on staff at Edmonton’s CJCA and CFRN.

A company was formed to construct a television station to serve the entire Okanagan Valley. Participants in the new company were radio stations CKOV Kelowna, CKOK Penticton and CJIB Vernon. Directors of the company were Charles Pitt and Richard Peters of CJIB, Jim Browne and Dennis Read of CKOV, and Maurice Finnerty and Roy Chapman of CKOK.

Assistant manager Bob Aiken left for CFRB Toronto.

CJIB’s owner was listed as Interior Broadcasters Ltd. (largest shareholders were C.H. Pitt 27.1%, W.E. McCubbin 16.4% and I.M. Mutrie 16.4%). The station was a CBC Dominion network affiliate.

Three Okanagan radio stations – CJIB, CKOV and CKOK, issued a combined rate card as of April 1. It was called co-operation without amalgamation.

As of July 1, Ed Boyd was sales promotion co-ordinator of Okanagan Radio. For the past three and a half years he had been promotion manager for CKOV.

CHBC-TV and Okanagan Radio offered a special stereo hour on December 7. People were asked to tune in their local radio station (CJIB, CKOV or CKOK) and tune their TV sets to either channel 2, 7 or 13 (depending on where they lived). Both sets were needed to hear stereo and the best effect could be obtained if the radio set was placed about eight feet to the right of the television set. The broadcast originated with the TV station and went out by phone lines to each of the radio stations.

Allen Davidson hosted Party Line on CJIB.

Selkirk Broadcasters purchased CJIB.

Daytime power increased from 1,000 to 10,000 watts.

Selkirk Holdings (parent of Selkirk Broadcasters) became a publicly traded company.

A.G. (Gil) Seabrook, president of Interior Broadcasters Ltd., appointed John A. Wilson as production manager of CJIB. He had been with CBC Winnipeg.

On April 28, Interior Broadcasters Ltd. (Selkirk)  was given approval to increase CJIB’s power on  940 kHz from 10,000 watts day and 1,000 watts night (non-directional) to 10,000 watts day and night (directional at night).

Robert Linden joined CJIB as an announcer.

Interior Broadcasters Ltd’s application for an FM operation at Vernon (1,200 watts on 100.9 MHz) was denied. At the same hearing, the CRTC also turned down three applications for a new AM station in Vernon.

On July 21, approval was granted for the transfer of 200 Class B voting shares of Selkirk Communications Ltd. from Southam Inc. to John T. Ferguson, and subsequently, the transfer of these shares from Mr. Ferguson, together with 200 Class B shares from each of seven other individual shareholders, to the Canada Trust Co., pursuant to a voting trust agreement. Southam held 20% of the voting shares and approximately 28% of the non-voting shares of Selkirk Communications. Selkirk owned the following broadcast companies: Selkirk Broadcasting Ltd., Lethbridge Television Ltd., Calgary Television Ltd., and Niagara Television Ltd.

President and general manager Wally Everitt retired from CJIB. Former program director Patrick Nichol now held the post.

On September 28, the CRTC approved the purchase of Selkirk Communications Ltd. by Maclean-Hunter Ltd. A number of Selkirk’s properties were then sold to Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. CJIB was among the stations acquired by Rogers.

Frank Martina celebrated 25 years as CJIB’s morning man and the station marked its 50th birthday in September. Lori Hancock has co-hosted mornings with Martina for the past two years. Patricia Gay worked at CJIB in the 1950’s and still comes in to the station from time to time to help out. Patrick Nicol was vice president and general manager, and talk show host. He had also been doing an afternoon oldies show. Nicol had been with the station for more than a quarter of a century. He is also a Vernon councillor. CJIB had the most listened to 8 a.m. newscast outside of Vancouver and Victoria in the Fall ’96 BBM’s. Pete McIntrye was news director.

On March 22, CJIB’s conversion to the FM band was approved. The new station would operate on 107.5 MHz with an effective radiated power of 46,000 watts.

On November 15, CJIB made the move to FM, as “Kiss-FM, Today’s Best Music”. CJIB became Vernon’s first ever FM station.

In December the official call letters were changed to CKIS-FM to better reflect the station’s slogan of Kiss-FM

In January the official call letters were changed CKIZ-FM.

On February 25, the CRTC approved the application by Rogers Broadcasting Limited to amend the licence for CKIZ-FM Vernon, in order to operate a transmitter in Enderby, operating at 93.9 MHz (channel 230LP) with an effective radiated power of 10 watts. Rogers stated that Enderby residents had been unable to receive CKIZ-FM’s signal since the conversion of the AM station in Vernon to the FM band, which was approved in 2001.

On February 25, following public hearings held four months earlier in Kelowna, the CRTC denied application by the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group to purchase the assets of CKIZ-FM. The Commission stated that the acquisition would give Pattison more than three stations in the Kelowna market, where CKIZ-FM can be received, and that all the stations in the Okanagan broadcast area would be owned by only two companies, Pattison and Astral Media.

On October 31, following a second application, the Commission approved Pattison’s acquisition of CKIZ-FM and its rebroadcast transmitter CKIZ-FM-1 Enderby. It noted that Pattison had made a slight modification to the 3mV/m contour of CKIZ-FM so it no longer overlapped the 3mV/m contours of the company’s radio stations in Kelowna. This put the proposed acquisition in line with the Common Ownership Policy. Further, the Commission expected Pattison to maintain CKIZ-FM’s local Vernon programming, providing ongoing local news, sports and other spoken word of direct and particular interest to the population of Vernon.

Patrick Nicol, the Vice President/General Manager of KISS FM was no longer with the Lite Adult Contemporary station. Nicol, a 35-year broadcast veteran, began at the station in 1987.

A.G. “Gil” Seabrook died at age 97. Seabrook was the General Manager at CJIB between 1952 and 1977. He also had been President of the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters through two terms, a Director of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the B.C. Broadcaster of the Year in 1976. He began his career as an announcer at CFRN Edmonton in 1931 and later sold for CJCA Edmonton. Seabrook was also General Sales Manager at CKCK Regina from 1947 to 1952.

In the summer, 107.5 CKIZ (including CKIZ-1 Enderby) changed format from Adult Contemporary to Classic Hits-Hot Adult Contemporary…from Lite Favourites of Yesterday and Today to Vernon’s BEST Music!

Frank Martina, a 45-year radio veteran, was been dragged out of retirement to do The Saturday Kiss Classics, a three-hour show on 1075 KISSFM.

The new GM/GSM of Power 104/Q103 Kelowna and 1075 Kiss Vernon was Stu Crouse. He took over January 1 and was promoted from Pattison-owned Island Radio in Nanaimo where he was retail sales manager.

Patrick Nicol (64) passed away in January. He joined CJIB in 1977 and just over a decade later was General Manager of the station, a position he held for 22 years.

Glen Morrison passed away at age 67. He started in radio in 1972 at CHNL Kamloops. Morrison joined CJIB in 1977 and spent 34 years there as the morning newsman and News Director. In March of 2015, he retired after a 43 year broadcasting career.

At noon on December 14, Hot Adult Contemporary KISS FM (CKIZ) flipped to Classic Hits Beach Radio (CJIB).

Tom Mark announced his retirement after more than 47 years in broadcasting. Mark’s last shift at 1075 Beach Radio was set for  October 26. He started reading weekend youth news on CKRC in 1971, before landing in news full-time at CFRW in 1973. Mark headed west in 1979 with stints at CFUN, CKDA, CJOR, CHRX, and CJJR-FM. He went on to head up the CKWX newsroom from 1996-2001 and then did morning news on CKNW from 2001-2014. He had been working with the Pattison stations in Vernon and Kelowna since 2015.