Canadian Radio News – Jon Pearkins.
Quite a few Radio employees in Canada will be getting a raise on April 1st. The federal minimum wage increases on that day, from $17.75 to $18.15 per hour. All federally-regulated industries must comply with the federal minimum wage. It is interesting to note that all four of the AM stations with big Ratings numbers, as shown below, are simulcast on FM. Admittedly, two are on FM HD channels. Some of those FM listeners are completely unaware that an AM station exists that broadcasts the same programming. Case in point was a Car Shuttle driver who was complaining to me about the poor reception of the CBX Nested FM Repeater near where I lived, who kept listening to the signal dropouts without switching to CBX-740. There used to be a debate about the Canadian Ratings that allowed AM/FM station pairs to be reported together, rather than separately. I was working at CHQM AM and FM in Vancouver in June 1971 when management was celebrating being #2 in the Vancouver market for the first time in their decade long history. The published ratings combined the AM and FM into one number even though they were separately programmed nine hours a day. From Advertisers’ perspective, it makes sense, especially if Sales highlights a discounted rate for advertising on both stations during non-simulcast periods of the day.
All times Eastern Local {sic} Time (ELT).
680 ON Toronto CFTR 9.6% of Adults aged 25-54 listened to CFTR in the latest Ratings, giving the All News station #3 in the Toronto market. This number includes listeners to simulcast 13 kW CKIS-FM HD2 Toronto.
690 BC Vancouver CBU 18.9% of radio listeners 12 years of age and older listened to this CBC Radio One station in the latest Ratings, giving them #1 in the Vancouver market. This number includes listeners to simulcast 100 kW Mono CBU-2-FM Vancouver.
770 AB Calgary CHQR Seems to have started running 50 kW non-directional at night by March 12th when KATL Miles City MT was heard in Edmonton AB, dominating CHQR. Reports since then of CHQR reception come from as far away as Virginia and the Mexican border in Arizona. They are licensed non-directional days and may have a similar license as CHED-880 Edmonton AB, which is allowed to run 5 kW non-directional at night if technical issues do not allow them to run their licensed night pattern.
800 QC Montreal CJAD Of Montrealers who favor English language radio, 33.5% of those 12 years of age and older listened to CJAD in the latest Ratings, giving them #1 in the Montreal (Anglo) market. This number includes listeners to simulcast 43 kW CITE-FM HD2 Montreal.
860 ON Toronto CJBC Last issue looked at the CJBC call letters beginning 100 years ago with the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, the “JBC” in CJBC. This issue looks at the history of the CBC-owned CJBC. It began on the evening of December 2 1936 under the call letters CRCY, on 1420 with 100 watts, revamping a transmitter from CKNC, a Canadian National Carbon Company radio station that lost its license one month prior, just before the CBC was formed. The CRC call letter prefix had been inherited from the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, which the CBC had been formed to replace. The CBC needed a second radio station in Toronto because its main station, CRCT, could not be heard at night in many areas thanks to interference from XERA’s new 500 kW transmitter on or near the same frequency as CRCT-840. On the evening of November 1 1938, CRCY became CBY, after the CBC received permission to use call letters beginning with CB. CBY remained on the air after the demise of XERA in 1939, but was renamed CJBC on November 15 1943, in preparation for a new CBC English language network debuting January 1 1944. A power increase from 1 kW to 5 kW was also planned for CJBC. CJBC became the lead station for the new CBC Dominion Network and CBL-740 remained the lead station of the renamed CBC Trans-Canada Network. After the two networks merged into one in the early 1960s, CJBC evolved into a full-time member of CBC’s French language AM network.
960 ON Mississauga CKNT Application to double the amount of third language programming from 20% to 40% of the Broadcast Week, 6:00 AM to Midnight seven days per week. The CRTC is accepting public comments until April 8th. The tone of the application implies that the station cannot survive financially without this change.
1010 AB Calgary CBR 16.6% of radio listeners 12 years of age and older listened to this CBC Radio One station in the latest Ratings, giving them #1 in the Calgary market. This number includes listeners to simulcast 7 kW Mono CBR-FM-1 Calgary.
1290 MB Winnipeg CJRC Noted in the wee hours of March 29th with continuous South Asian pop vocal music with short “You’re listening to…” Splitters in between. The English language-only Splitters are required to prevent the programming from being defined as Ethnic Programming by the CRTC, as it would be if the Splitters were in a South Asian language. CJRC is severely limited in the amount of Ethnic Programming that they can air.
Tips from Theo Donnelly and Andy Reid.
IRCA DX Monitor April 4, published March 30 via WOR iog (2026-03-30)