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January 22, 2023 11:13 am  #1


The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

I remember not so long ago when there were major competitive stations at the far end of the AM dial in Toronto. 

CJMR, which started at 1190, moved to 1320. Oshawa's CKDO (then CKLB) was at 1350. Then there was 1430, the former home of the great CKFH, later CJCL. CFTR, when it was still CHFI-AM, once called 1540 home.

But it occurred to me recently how much that has changed and how divided the dial has become in this city. Essentially, once you get past 1150, with a few exceptions, it's all ethnic or religious from beginning to end.

Consider:

1250: The former CHWO is now CJYE, an all religious station.

1320: CJMR, the first radio station licenced to Mississauga, now broadcasts in a host of different languages, ranging from South Asian dialects to Spanish, Ukranian, Polish, and Portuguese. Just to name a few. 

1350: Great call letters, but CIRF isn't playing Beach Boys music. Instead, it's a multi-ethnic outlet that's primarily aimed at the South Asian population. The fact that its power is reduced to just 40 watts at night means it's almost non-existent in most parts of the city after sundown.

1430: CHKT is a Fairchild station, and primarily broadcasts in Chinese.

1540: The longest running ethnic broadcaster in the city, CHIN has since expanded with two FM stations.

1610: The first station on the so-called X-band, CHHA habla espanol 24 hours a day.

1650: CINA is based in Mississauga, and speaks to the Indian population.

1690: CHTO, the last station on your dial, is first in the hearts of Toronto's Greek community.  

With the exception of CKDO (1580) and Ryerson's almost inaudible CJRU at 1280, every single part of the latter half of the AM dial is an ethnic station. I have no idea if that's deliberate or it just happened that way, but over the years, there's been a real dial divide in the city, with the major commercial stations taking the higher frequencies, leaving the lower ones to broadcast in a different language. 

I'm honestly not sure if it works that way in any other market in North America, but it's certainly noticeable here. 

 

January 22, 2023 12:43 pm  #2


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

RA, Toronto is probably unique in N. America, because of the constantly growing ethnic population due to our immigration policies,  and the phenomenon of station owners who lease out airtime to ethnic "brokers". Brokerage is highly profitable for station owners. There is no other city in N. America with the number of hours of programming directed to a S. Asian population. Vancouver/Richmond is a close 2nd, but that would be counting the pirates who lease 1550 and 1600 across the border in Washington state.  But in cities such as NY, Chicago and the LA area, there have been a lot of conversions to Spanish language AM.   There are a number of ethnic broadcasters in each city as well usually on A.M.,  with  rare exceptions there aren't many U.S. cities where there would be FM frequencies used for S. Asian, Chinese, or other languages.  Toronto has 6 FMs (Counting Markham) that have significant %ages of ethnic programming on FM, and add to that around  8 more HD2's, 3's, 4's dedicated to third language programming.  I don't think there is any other metropolitan area in N. America or Europe with that concentration of AMs, FM's and HD's dedicated to 3rd language content.

 

January 22, 2023 1:38 pm  #3


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

RadioActive wrote:

I'm honestly not sure if it works that way in any other market in North America, but it's certainly noticeable here. 

That could hit a rapid change if something happens here in Toronto with any FM change ups.
Remember, it's still a max. 4, so selling an AM while purchasing an FM could happen.

Where or how is anyone's guess though...



 


RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person. 
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.

 
 

January 22, 2023 2:04 pm  #4


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

tvguy wrote:

RA, Toronto is probably unique in N. America, because of the constantly growing ethnic population due to our immigration policies,  and the phenomenon of station owners who lease out airtime to ethnic "brokers". Brokerage is highly profitable for station owners. There is no other city in N. America with the number of hours of programming directed to a S. Asian population. Vancouver/Richmond is a close 2nd, but that would be counting the pirates who lease 1550 and 1600 across the border in Washington state.  But in cities such as NY, Chicago and the LA area, there have been a lot of conversions to Spanish language AM.   There are a number of ethnic broadcasters in each city as well usually on A.M.,  with  rare exceptions there aren't many U.S. cities where there would be FM frequencies used for S. Asian, Chinese, or other languages.  Toronto has 6 FMs (Counting Markham) that have significant %ages of ethnic programming on FM, and add to that around  8 more HD2's, 3's, 4's dedicated to third language programming.  I don't think there is any other metropolitan area in N. America or Europe with that concentration of AMs, FM's and HD's dedicated to 3rd language content.

You are correct - we are unlike most markets, although almost all of them have at least a few leased time ethnic stations. But what struck me is that, with the exception of CHLO at 530 AM, in itself a rarely used frequency, all of them are located at the other end of the dial. 

As for those guys on the air in Washington State broadcasting ethnic shows to Vancouver and B.C., we do have at least one like that. WTOR at 770 AM in Youngstown, New York has its entire programming schedule totally aimed at a Toronto audience (hence the "TOR" of the call letters.) It even ID's itself as "Youngstown-Toronto" in its top of the hour identifications. 

It must make money because it's been on the air since 1991. And while it's owned by an American corporation (Birach Broadcasting) it's actually run by a Canadian through a local marketing agreement, with almost all the programming produced in Mississauga and then sent across the border to be beamed back at us. How they ever got the FCC to licence a daytime-only station that late in the game - and on the same frequency as WABC no less - still amazes me. Somebody must listen to it, but I've yet to meet a single person of any ethnic origin who ever has. 

     Thread Starter
 

January 22, 2023 4:44 pm  #5


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

The fact that legacy stations are at the low end of the AM band goes back to the early days.  For a given ground conductivity and transmitter power, the lower frequencies propagate much further.  Even though you need more land and higher towers for a low frequency AM array, back in the day steel was cheap and land was going for less than $1000/acre. With the exception of some of the frequency changes that occurred as a result of  the 1982 Rio Accord, (i.e. CFGM Richmond Hill going from 1320 to 640) you will find a close correlation between the sign-on date of a station, and its dial position.  The higher the frequency, the later the station was built.
 

 

January 29, 2023 11:21 am  #6


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

Just for fun I took a look at WTOR's coverage area.

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WTOR&service=AM&h=D

13KW with almost all the signal directed to Ontario.

 

January 29, 2023 11:30 am  #7


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

Every AM station I worked at in my time in broadcasting does not exist anymore. They are all flipped to FM now. I have one cassette aircheck left  from CHTN Charlottetown PEI from 1978. So much for a 15 year period of my life. This is why I bought a dozen vintage radios over this past summer and filled a bookcase with them. Memories. 

 

January 29, 2023 1:06 pm  #8


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

mic'em wrote:

Every AM station I worked at in my time in broadcasting does not exist anymore. They are all flipped to FM now. I have one cassette aircheck left  from CHTN Charlottetown PEI from 1978. So much for a 15 year period of my life. This is why I bought a dozen vintage radios over this past summer and filled a bookcase with them. Memories. 

That's interesting mic'em, four of the five companies that I was employed at still have their AM operation.  The only one that flipped to FM was 580 CKPR in Thunder Bay.  CFPL, Citynews 570, CFOS and CKNX all have their AM stations running.  Two of them are mostly music, and CFPL has an oldies show on Saturday and Sunday. 

 

January 29, 2023 7:57 pm  #9


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

paterson1, I used to listen to 570 in the early 2000's while driving a delivery route for a cartage company throughout the mid west area of Ontario, primarily Owen Sound to Goderich and in between. I liked Jeff [ can't recall his last name ] , followed by Gary Doyle. I did read somewhere recently that Jeff had passed away. I do recall him saying he had been part of the Q107 Morning Zoo when Jake Edwards made The Champ a daily staple. He never kept secret his battle with addiction and mental health issues. I hope he is resting in peace. 

Last edited by mic'em (January 29, 2023 7:58 pm)

 

January 29, 2023 9:38 pm  #10


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

mic'em wrote:

paterson1, I used to listen to 570 in the early 2000's while driving a delivery route for a cartage company throughout the mid west area of Ontario, primarily Owen Sound to Goderich and in between. I liked Jeff [ can't recall his last name ] , followed by Gary Doyle. I did read somewhere recently that Jeff had passed away. I do recall him saying he had been part of the Q107 Morning Zoo when Jake Edwards made The Champ a daily staple. He never kept secret his battle with addiction and mental health issues. I hope he is resting in peace. 

Yes it was Jeff Allan who had a talk show on then Newstalk 570 a few years back.  Jeff passed away last summer at 65.  Here is the rather sad obit from The Waterloo Region Record..https://www.therecord.com/life/2022/08/29/lifetimes-jeff-allan-galbraith-was-popular-kitchener-radio-host-for-many-years.html

 

January 30, 2023 11:30 am  #11


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

tvguy wrote:

RA, Toronto is probably unique in N. America, because of the constantly growing ethnic population due to our immigration policies,  and the phenomenon of station owners who lease out airtime to ethnic "brokers". Brokerage is highly profitable for station owners. There is no other city in N. America with the number of hours of programming directed to a S. Asian population. Vancouver/Richmond is a close 2nd, but that would be counting the pirates who lease 1550 and 1600 across the border in Washington state.  But in cities such as NY, Chicago and the LA area, there have been a lot of conversions to Spanish language AM.   There are a number of ethnic broadcasters in each city as well usually on A.M.,  with  rare exceptions there aren't many U.S. cities where there would be FM frequencies used for S. Asian, Chinese, or other languages.  Toronto has 6 FMs (Counting Markham) that have significant %ages of ethnic programming on FM, and add to that around  8 more HD2's, 3's, 4's dedicated to third language programming.  I don't think there is any other metropolitan area in N. America or Europe with that concentration of AMs, FM's and HD's dedicated to 3rd language content.

I just got back from a few days in NYC, and the upper end of the AM dial there is very much like Toronto's. 

WADO 1280 (sports) and WWRV 1330 (religion) are the last vestiges of the days when Spanish-language radio dominated that part of the dial - these days, the Spanish-language music stations (WPAT-FM 93.1, WXNY 96.3, WSKQ 97.9) are all on big FM signals that all draw big ratings. 

WKDM 1380 and WZRC 1480 are in Chinese, WWRU 1660 is in Korean, WSNR 620 is in Russian, and WPAT 930 leases to a variety of ethnic groups. WLIB 1190 and WWRL 1600 both program to the Black community, and have done so for decades.

There are additional ethnic services on HD and in the suburbs - on Long Island, WGBB 1240 and a 95.9 translator are in Chinese, there are Russian-language stations on at least three NYC FM HD subchannels, one of them feeding a translator, and there's WVIP on 93.5 from a transmitter in the Bronx, with Caribbean-focused shows on its main channel and one HD and additional ethnic services on two more HD subchannels. The South Asian population is heavily centered in central New Jersey, where there are several stations broadcasting in various Indian languages, including WWTR 1170. 

I'd put it right up there against Toronto for the breadth of languages and international programming available over the air, though I'd agree that there are a wider variety of specifically Asian languages (especially south Asian) available in the GTA. 
 

 

January 30, 2023 11:49 am  #12


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

A testament to how much the GTA has changed, and generally for the better. I remember a time when CHIN was the only game in town here, one station at 1540 AM. Now, they're the pioneers and there are a lot of others doing the same kind of thing. I just find it amazing how they've all congregated, seemingly by accident rather than design, on the far end of the dial. 

There are also FMs here that are out for the ethnic market, with two CHINs on FM, a Greek language station, and a primarily South Asian language though low powered station based in Scarborough called East FM. It's on 102.7, while CJSA, often referred to as "CMR," lurks with a decent signal at 103.1. And yes, there are some secondary channels on HD, and even The Region 105.3 in York Region airs a lot of second language programming on the weekends. So there's no shortage of places for those communities to tune here. 

     Thread Starter
 

January 30, 2023 2:20 pm  #13


Re: The Divided Dial: How AM Radio In The GTA Has Changed Forever

paterson1, yes Jeff Allan. Thanks for your post.