CKLW
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CKLW is a 50,000 watt AM radio station broadcasting at 800 kHz located in Windsor, Ontario. In the late 1960s and early 1970s it was one of the top radio stations in the world, using a very tight Top 40 format devised by legendary radio programmer Bill Drake. During that period it was the top-rated radio station not only in Windsor, but across the river in Detroit, Michigan, and even in cities as far away as Toledo and Cleveland in Ohio.
CKLW had actually been playing top 40 music since 1959, but it took Drake's format and a roster of legendary personalities such as Tom Shannon, Dave Shafer, Mike Rivers, Ted "The Bear" Richards, "Super" Max Kinkel, Pat Holiday, Dick Purtan, and newsman Byron MacGregor (who had a million-selling single, "Americans," in 1974) to raise "The Big 8," as the station referred to itself on the air, to number one in the ratings starting in 1967. Longtime music director Rosalie Trombley was also legendary for her ability to spot a potential hit record, and became the subject of a song by Bob Seger titled "Rosalie."
Some say that the station started to decline in popularity after Canadian content regulations went into effect, but probably the biggest reason for the decline was because listeners were abandoning AM radio in favor of the clearer audio available on FM radio. CKLW finally abandoned its top 40 format in 1984 in favor of an "adult standards" "Music of Your Life" format. Today CKLW focuses mostly on local news and information, which some people consider a waste of a high-powered station with a signal that reaches far beyond its immediate local area.
In 1948, CKLW started CKLW-FM on 93.9 Mhz (now CIDR). Despite a powerful 100,000-watt signal, CKLW's FM sister has never been able to attract a sizeable audience, at least not on the American side of the border, although the station did make a few attempts to recapture CKLW-AM's glory days with an oldies format and some of the classic "Big 8" jingles and personalities, most notably as "93.9 The Legend" in the early 1990s. There was an attempt to put the AM's top 40 format on the FM station as "94 Fox FM" in 1984, but it failed when the CRTC refused to approve the format change from big band music. CIDR-FM currently runs a hot adult contemporary format as "93.9 FM, Today's Best Music."
The operation also included CKLW-TV, Channel 9. When the Canadian government requested RKO General divest itself of its Canadian holdings, the stations were sold to a consortium of the CBC and Baton Broadcasting. Baton ran the radio station for several years, before selling to CHUM. When the CBC took full ownership of the television station, it changed its call letters to CBET.
CHUM continues to own CKLW and CIDR today, along with alternative rock station CIMX (88.7 FM, "89X") and oldies/nostalgia station CKWW (580 AM, "AM 580 Motor City Favorites").
External links
- Official AM 800 CKLW site (http://www.am800cklw.com/)
- The Classic CKLW Page (http://www.thebig8.net/)