Radio CJAD 800

CJAD is a popular English language radio station, owned by Astral Media, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, broadcasting online and at 800 kHz on the AM dial.

Commonly referred to as Montreal's Heritage Radio Station, the station was founded by J. Arthur Dupont in 1945, whose name the call letters were based on. In 1961, it was purchased by Standard Broadcasting. In 1978, control of Standard Broadcasting was purchased by Conrad Black. In 1985, Standard was purchased by Slaight Communications, a privately held company owned by J. Allan Slaight. In April 2007, Astral Media and Standard Broadcasting announced that Standard had agreed to a purchase offer by Astral.

In 1962 CJAD-FM on 95.9 MHz was one of four new FM stereo stations sharing facilities on the new Mount Royal tower. (The other stations were CFQR (92.5), CKMF (94.3) and CKGM-FM (CHOM) 97.7). By the time the station took to the air it had adopted the call letters CJFM. Always separately programmed, CJFM's programming became totally different from CJAD only from about 1976.

Starting in 1992 almost all of CJAD's programming was simulcast on Corus Entertainment-owned CKTS 900 in Sherbrooke. On November 19, 2006, CKTS ceased broadcasting and its licence was surrendered to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). This, according to Corus, was because of high ongoing maintenance costs that neither they nor Standard were willing to cover.[1]

In 1998, all four of CJAD's broadcast towers toppled during The Ice Storm. CJAD's first attempt to get back on the air was to use CKGM's former 980 transmitter, re-tune it to 800, and CJAD would be back on the air on its frequency. This, however, turned out to be impossible as the 980 site was damaged by ice as well. It then made arrangements to broadcast on CFMB's former 1410 transmitter but the signal was extremely bad to the west. They then reached an agreement with CHUM Limited to use their CKGM transmitter on 990 until new towers were erected.

Their most popular broadcasters in recent times have been George Balcan, Gord Sinclair, Ted Blackman, Melanie King, Joseph A. Schwarcz, Avril Benoit, John Moore, Neil McKenty, Joe Cannon, Kevin Holden and Trudie Mason, Tommy Schnurmacher, Peter Anthony Holder, Sol Boxenbaum and Rick Leckner.

For much of its life, CJAD had a full service format. The music was mainly adult contemporary plus two specialized shows on weekends - The Bandstand with Dick Irvin, and Starlight Concert with Rod Dewar. In 1995, CJAD shifted its format to full-time news/talk, dropping all music and entertainment, save for the Sunday morning Trivia Show and the CJAD Comedy Show.

As of fall 2007, CJAD will be returning to more of a full service format by airing '60s and '70s music programming on weekend evenings.

Notable CJAD alumni, dating back to the 1950s, include discjockeys Don Cameron, Bob Harvie and Mike Stephens ("Make Believe Ballroom" and "Club 800"), sportscasters Danny Gallivan and Dick Irvin, Jr., morningmen George Bishop and Bill Roberts, newscaster Hamilton Grant, traffic reporter Len Rowcliffe,[2] on air personalities Robert Libman and David Lisbona, as well as Norman Kihl, Jimmy Tapp, Rod Dewar and Sidney Margles.

CJAD is the exclusive English radio broadcaster of the NHL's Montreal Canadiens and the CFL's Montreal Alouettes. In the event of a schedule conflict, the other game is broadcast on sister station CHOM 97.7 FM.