CKST-AM

Over the objections of five Vancouver radio stations at a hearing in Winnipeg, the Board of Broadcast Governors approved a licence in May for a new station in suburban Langley.  Three weeks later, land clearing began for the transmitter site.  In October, a vacated B.C. Telephone Co. manual operations building became the studio and offices.

City & Country Radio Ltd. owner Joe Chesney opened CJJC 850 on January 19.  It offered a country music format with 1,000 watts of power from a four-tower transmitter facility on 40 acres of land, four miles east of Langley.  Eight people were on the original staff.   

CJJC filed two applications this year for an increase in power of 1,000 to 5,000 watts and change of antenna site. Both applications were denied by the BBG.

Ads: Part of the Good Life – Langley City and the lower Fraser Valley. (Free Bonus…Metropolitan Vancouver). / In British Columbia one station stands out from the bunch as a “result getter”. Radio 850 CJJC. Country music brings results; always has, always will! CJJC sounds better today (24 hours). 

Joe Chesney was president and general manager. Gordon Reid was vice president and general sales manager. Bill Fox was vice president and local sales manager. Bob McClelland was operations manager.

Extremely wet weather caused construction delays of the new transmitter site for more than a year, final approval after testing was granted on January 26th.  CJJC started broadcasting on its new 800 kHz frequency from six towers at the end of January.  By this time, full-time staff had increased to 36.

CJJC rehired 23 of 32 staff members who were given notice by owner Joe Chesney on New Year’s Eve. At that time, the entire staff was given 30 days notice as the station was suffering financial problems.

City & Country Radio Ltd. was authorized to transfer all of the shares in CJJC Radio Ltd. to a company controlled by J.E. Chesney and Ernie Mykyte.

Mykyte obtained 100% of CJJC with the purchase of the 50% held by Chesney.

On June 26, the CRTC approved the sale of City & Country Radio Ltd. through the transfer of 90% of the common voting shares from CJJC Radio Ltd. to Saskatoon Telecable Ltd. (72%) and Sam Folstad (18%). L.M. McDonald held the remaining 10%.

CJJC became CJUP

Clint Forster and his family purchased Saskatoon Telecable – controlling shareholder of City & Country Radio Ltd. 

Sam Folstead was CJUP’s general manager.

UP Radio adopted a contemporary music sound.

Thomas McBride became vice president and general manager of CIOF. 

CIOF adopted a harder rock sound and changed its call sign to CKXY. 

Dwaine Dietrick became vice president of operations for Monarch Broadcasting. He succeeded vice president and general manager Merv Phillips, who retired. Monarch held a controlling interest in CKXY.

Tarzan Dan (Freeman) joined CKXY for the evening shift from CFCN Calgary.

On July 7, CKST was granted an increase in power from 10,000 to 25,000 watts.

When the power increase took place, CKST began broadcasting in stereo, using the Motorola system.

On November 9, CKST “Coast 800” adopted a modern rock format. 

Evening host Tarzan Dan left CKXY for Toronto’s CFTR.

On January 30, CKST’s parent, Western World Communications Corp. (what was Sakatoon Telecable) was authorized to acquire CIMA Vancouver from Monarch Broadcasting Ltd. The company was then given approval to make use of the existing assets and technical parameters employed by CIMA, in effect to change the facilities of CKST Langley by: increasing the transmitter power from 25,000 to 50,000 watts; change the transmitter site from 62nd Avenue and 248th Street in Aldergrove to 104th Street in Delta; change the frequency from 800 to 1040 kHz; and relocate the studios from 201 – 20627 Fraser Highway in Langley to 1199 Pender Street West in Vancouver.

CIMA 1040 Vancouver left the air on February 4.

On March 9, CKST 800 closed down and the station took over the facilities of CIMA 1040 (50,000 watts). CKST was now known as “Coast 1040”.

CKST’s application to move to the FM band was denied. The station had proposed to operate on 94.5 MHz with an effective radiated power of 38,000 watts. 

On September 30 at midnight, modern rock “Coast 1040” signed off the air.

At 5:30 a.m., October 1, the station returned to the air as “Q104” (Quality 104) with a nostalgia format. 

Brian Brenn, president and general manager of AM 1040 Quality Radio, announced that vice president Dave Abbott would take over the 8:30 to 11:00 a.m. time slot with an investigative public affairs show.

Radio One Vancouver Corp. was sold to Ronald N. Dixon (75%) and Gary Mathiesen (25%). 

Dave Geddes, program director of the former CHQM, was now PD and morning show host at CKST. Terry Bell moved to afternoon Drive. Brian Breen left CKST for CKWX.

Announcer Andy Walsh left CKST.

CKST added over six hours of talk shows per week, dedicated to alternative medicine. One show – Healthy Living – with herbalist Croft Woodruff – had already been on the air for three years. CKST also added lounge music and ballroom dancing with “Martini Madness” and “Dal’s Place” (hosted by Dal Richards) and “Big Band Ballroom”. The station’s executive producer, Hamidah Karim, said CKST has brought lounge music back to Vancouver radio. The station also offers “Broadway Stage Show” to its music-filled Saturday evening. 

Jason Manning hosted Martini Madness on Saturday evenings.

Ron Dixon was killed September 15 in a car accident in Mexico. He was about to close a deal to sell CKST.

On December 21, the purchase of CKST by Grand Slam Radio Inc. from Radio One Broadcasting Corp. was approved. Grand Slam was a new participant in the radio industry, and planned to program CKST with an all-sports format.

Grand Slam took ownership of CKST on February 1.

On April 25, CKST changed to all-sports as “The Team – 110% Sports.”

On May 7, Team 1040 joined CHUM Limited’s national all-sports Team Radio Network.

On February 10, the sale of CKST by Grand Slam Radio Inc. to CHUM Limited was approved. CHUM already owned CFUN-AM and CHQM-FM in the market.

Allan Waters, the founder of CHUM Limited, owner of CKST, passed away at the age of 84, on December 3rd.

On July 12 it was announced that Bell Globemedia would pay C$1.7 billion for CHUM Ltd., in a deal that would see the company become part of the BCE-owned media conglomerate, subject to CRTC approval.  On August 31, the two companies announced that BGM had been successful in its offer to acquire approximately 6.7 million common shares and approximately 19.2 million non-voting Class B shares of CHUM.  The shares were to be placed in the hands of an independent trustee pursuant to a voting trust agreement approved by the CRTC.

On December 12th, it was announced that Bell Globemedia would henceforth be known as CTVglobemedia.

A CRTC hearing on the CTVglobemedia application to acquire the assets of CHUM Limited was held on April 30th 2007.  On June 8 the CRTC approved the acquisition of CHUM Ltd. by CTVglobemedia, on condition that CTV sell off its five City-TV stations, CITY-TV Toronto, CHMI-TV Portage La Prairie/Winnipeg, CKEM-TV Edmonton, CKAL-TV Calgary and CKVU-TV Vancouver.   Rogers Communications announced on June 25th that a deal had been reached for them to buy these stations from CTV, subject to CRTC approval. Among the CHUM assets acquired by CTVglobemedia in the deal were seven television stations, 21 specialty channels and some 33 radio stations, including CKST-AM.  

In October, CFUN was now fully operational from its new transmitter site in Delta. The old site would be kept operational until December to allow CFUN to remain on the air while engineers tuned co-owned CKST, now operating at half power from the new antenna site. The old CKST towers, immediately to the north of the new ones, were toppled this month. Engineers hoped to have CKST fully operational at its new location by the end of October. Both CFUN and CKST would broadcast with 50,000 watts from the new state-of-the-art seven tower site. CFUN would be directional from two towers with the same pattern day and night. CKST would be directional from 5 towers with different day and night patterns. 

Talk 1410 (CFUN) became all-sports Team 1410 on November 5, twinning with sister station Team 1040 (CKST). Team 1040 carried Vancouver Canucks games while Team 1410 aired the B.C. Lions. Team 1410 would also carry NFL football, major league baseball, NBA basketball, English premiere league and UEFA champion league soccer, plus major sporting events such as the Masters, the British Open, and the Daytona 500. If a listener missed a Canucks game on Team 1040 they would be able to hear a repeat of the game on Team 1410. CHUM Radio also had properties like Jim Rome, Dan Patrick and live events that would air on the new format. Team 1410 had no morning or afternoon drive shows but instead, aired a sports wheel in the morning where Team 1040 figures would appear. 

Cody Mackay, formerly a broadcast technician at CHUM Radio Vancouver, joined Astral Media Radio Vancouver as Director of Engineering.

On November 30, the CRTC renewed CKST’s licence to August 31, 2017.

Paul Carson passed away at age 60. It was Carson who launched TEAM Radio in Vancouver, the first all-sports station in Canada. Before that, Carson was associated with CKVU, UTV and then Global TV Vancouver.

On March 7, the CRTC approved an application by BCE Inc. on behalf of CTVglobemedia Inc., for authority to change the effective control of CTVgm’s licensed broadcasting subsidiaries to BCE. The Commission concluded that the transaction would be beneficial to the Canadian broadcasting system by ensuring the long-term stability of a significant Canadian television network and advancing the Commission’s objective of providing relevant high-quality Canadian programming to Canadians through conventional and new media distribution channels. BCE was a public corporation and controlled by its board of directors. Before this approval, BCE held 15% of the voting interest in the capital of CTVgm. The other shareholders were 1565117 Ontario Limited (a corporation ultimately controlled by Mr. David Kenneth R. Thomson) (40% of the voting interest), Ontario Teacher’s Plan Board (25% of the voting interest) and Torstar Corporation (20% of the voting interest). Under the transaction agreement dated September 10, 2010, BCE would acquire the remaining 85% of the voting interest in the capital of CTVgm and would therefore exercise effective control. 

On March 15, CTV Inc., CTV Corp., CTV Limited and CTVglobemedia Inc. amalgamated to continue as CTV Inc.

BCE Inc. announced on April 1 that it had completed its acquisition of CTV and that it had launched Bell Media (replacing CTVglobemedia), a new business unit that would make CTV programs and other Bell content available on smartphones and computers as well as traditional television. In addition to CTV and its television stations, Bell Media now also perated 29 specialty channels, 33 radio stations, Dome Productions, a mobile broadcast facilities provider, and dozens of high-traffic news, sports and entertainment websites, including the Sympatico.ca portal.

The CRTC approved a change to the ownership of Bell Media Inc., from BCE Inc. to Bell Canada. This transaction would not affect effective control of Bell Media Inc. and of its licensed broadcasting subsidiaries, which continued to be exercised by BCE Inc. Bell Media Inc. held, directly and through its licensed broadcasting subsidiaries, various radio and television programming undertakings as well as specialty and pay-per-view television services.

On August 22, the CRTC approved the applications by BCE Inc., on behalf of Bell Media Inc. and 7550413 Canada Inc., carrying on business as Bell Media British Columbia Radio Partnership, for authority to acquire, as part of a corporate reorganization, CFTE, CKST, CFBT-FM and CHQM-FM Vancouver, and CFAX and CHBE-FM Victoria. Bell Media, the managing partner holding 99.99% of the voting interest in the general partnership, is wholly owned by Bell Canada and controlled by BCE. 7550413, the other partner holding the remaining 0.01% of the voting interest in the general partnership, is wholly owned by Bell Media and is also controlled by BCE. BCE submitted that the purpose of this corporate reorganization was to realize tax efficiencies. The Commission noted that this transaction would not affect the effective control of the undertakings which would continue to be exercised by BCE. 

Bell Media announced that as of October 5, CKGM (The Team 990 – Montreal) and CFRW (Sports Radio 1290 – Winnipeg) would rebrand as TSN Radio 990 and TSN 1290, respectively, joining CHUM (TSN Radio 1050 – Toronto) to form the TSN Radio network. Both stations would maintain local schedules, although TSN announced that there would be some talent exchange amongst the stations. TSN also said that CFGO (The Team 1200 – Ottawa), and CKST and CFTE (The Team 1040 and The Team 1410 – Vancouver) would work closely with the network. 

ESPN hockey journalist Pierre LeBrun joined TSN and Bell Media Radio as a hockey insider. He was also a regular contributor on TSN RADIO 1050 Toronto, THE TEAM 1040 Vancouver and THE TEAM 990 Montreal.

Bell Media created four new regional VP positions for radio and local television. They would report to Chris Gordon, president, radio & local TV, Bell Media. James Stuart, VP/GM at Bell Media Radio Vancouver (CFBT-FM/CFTE/CHQM-FM/CKST) would be responsible for British Columbia. Local GMs at radio and TV stations would now report to Stuart.

Bell Media announced that the TEAM radio stations in Vancouver and Ottawa would be re-branded as TSN Radio giving the brand a presence in 5 of 7 Canadian cities with NHL franchises.

It was announced in November that the Bell Media Vancouver radio stations would move downtown to 969 Robson Street, Suite 500.

Team 1040 and Team 1410 were rebranded as TSN 1040 and TSN 1410.

CKST became available in HD via CHQM-FM-HD2 at 103.5 MHz.

Jim Nielsen (79) died on April 4. His broadcasting career started at CJVI in 1959. A year later, he joined CJOR with stints to follow at CFUN and CFAX. In 1975, Nielsen was elected as the MLA for Richmond. Years later he returned to radio at CKST.

On April 30, sister station CFTE 1410 adopted a business news format. TSN Radio 1040 retained its all-sports format and expanded its live radio broadcast schedule to feature content previously delivered by TSN 1410.