CANADIAN RADIO NEWS
CKNW-980 was #1 in Vancouver in December with 12.1% share of hours tuned among everyone who was at least 12 years old. The upcoming move to 730 will significantly improve the signal into the City of Vancouver thanks to the lower frequency and relative closeness of the transmitter site.
All times Eastern Standard Time (EST).
560 ON Owen Sound CFOS — DXers are catching it while they still can, before the move to FM. Noted in Ashland OH on January 19th at 2350. (Billy Paul)
600 BC Vancouver CKSP — Several possibilities exist for the station’s continued operation after what will be CKGO-980 (see below) signs off sometime in March. Both 980 and 600 are duplexed on the same transmitter site in the Cloverdale area of Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. Corus owns both CKGO and CKNW and currently owns the Cloverdale transmitter site. The most likely scenario appears to be Corus selling the transmitter site to CKSP. They could also follow the precedent of Jim Pattison, who flipped CKBD-600 (ex-CHRX and CJOR) into CKPK-FM, but retained the AM transmitter site. It lay dormant from 2008 until 2014 when CISL-650 moved there, renting the site from Pattison. Similarly, CKSP could continue renting from Corus. A third option would be to move to Pattison’s transmitter site, duplexing with CISL. This would be a perfect fit since the site was designed for 600. But this would require cutting power to 10 kW and a huge reduction in signal, especially at night, in suburbs like Surrey where the station has a lot of listeners.
730 BC Vancouver CKGO — Swaps call letters with CKNW on February 24th to be branded as 730 CKNW. Other than the branding, there will be no changes in format.
980 BC New Westminster CKNW — Officially moves to 730 on February 24th and CKGO-980 will broadcast a continuous loop of announcements instructing listeners to change their dial to 730. Sometime in March, the 980 transmitter will sign off forever. It is very unlikely that anyone else will take over the frequency. The delay in moving to 730, when compared to CHED Edmonton (which moved from 630 to 880 in October), likely resulted from the time it took to negotiate an agreement with CKSP-600 who duplexes on the 980 transmitter site.
Jon Pearkins, Edmonton AB jon@pearkins.com via WOR iog