CKEY (AM)
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| City | Toronto, Ontario |
|---|---|
| Branding | Fairchild Radio |
| Frequency | 1430 kHz (AM) |
| First air date | 1997 (CKYC, 1925-1996) |
| Format | multilingual |
| Power | 50,000 watts |
| Class | B (regional) |
| Callsign meaning | Canada Hong Kong Toronto |
| Owner |
Fairchild Radio (Fairchild Radio Group Ltd.) |
| Sister stations | TV: Fairchild Television |
| Website | www.fairchildradio.com |
CHKT is a Canadian radio station, airing at 1430 AM in Toronto, Ontario. The station, owned by the Fairchild Radio service, airs Chinese language programming. CHKT's studios are located on East Beaver Creek Road in Richmond Hill, while its transmitters are located on the Toronto Islands.
The station that was the indirect forerunner of CHKT first aired in 1925 as AM 840 CKCL, owned by the Dominion Battery company. As with many radio stations in the early years of radio broadcasting, the station changed frequencies a number of times in its first years of operation. It settled on the permanent 580 kilohertz (then kilocycles) frequency in 1931.
In 1945, the station was sold to Jack Kent Cooke's Toronto Broadcasting Co., and adopted the callsign CKEY. It was subsequently acquired by Shoreacres Broadcasting, a consortium that included Westinghouse and The Globe and Mail, in 1961, and changed its frequency to 590 in 1964 as CKWW signed on at 580 that year in Windsor and CKAR, (known today as CFBK-FM), in Huntsville, Ontario had to change its frequency from 590 to 630 kHz.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, CKEY was the leading Top 40 music competitor to 1050 CHUM; one of its DJs was later CFNY staple David Marsden, known as Dave Mickie at CKEY (and later at CHUM as well). Another notable broadcaster was Bryan Fustukian, broadcasting as Vik Armen. The station dropped its Top 40 format for "middle of the road" music in 1965, now going up against CFRB, and was successful in that arena for a time. Shoreacres, in turn, was acquired by Maclean-Hunter in 1966.
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