City | St. Catharines, Ontario |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Niagara Region, Hamilton Mississauga, Toronto |
Branding | Newstalk 610 CKTB |
Frequency | 610 KHz (AM) |
First air date | 1930 |
Format | news/talk |
Power | 10,000 watts daytime 5,000 watts nighttime |
Class | B |
Owner |
Bell Media (Bell Media Radio) |
Sister stations | CHRE-FM, CHTZ-FM |
Webcast | Listen Live |
Website | www.610cktb.com |
CKTB is a radio station in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Broadcasting at 610 AM, the station airs a news/talk format. CKTB is housed in the former mansion of William Hamilton Merritt, the main promoter of the first Welland Canal, located on Yates Street in downtown St. Catharines. Its transmitters are located on Grassy Brook Road east of Port Robinson.
CKTB was launched in 1930 by Edward Sandell at 1120 on the AM dial. As with most early AM radio stations (see Canadian allocations changes under NARBA), the station changed frequencies a number of times in its early years, moving to 1200 in 1933, 1230 in 1941, 1550 in 1946, 620 in 1950 and its current 610 in 1959.
Sandell died in 1943, and the station was acquired by Niagara District Broadcasting the following year. Niagara District Broadcasting subsequently launched CKTB-FM in 1949.
The stations were acquired by Standard Broadcasting in 1980. Standard sold CKTB to Affinity Radio Group in 1997. Affinity was in turn acquired by Telemedia in 2000; Standard reacquired the station when it purchased Telemedia in 2002.
In October 2007, Astral Media acquired Standard Broadcasting's terrestrial radio and television assets, including CKTB.
Ownership changed hands again in July 2013 when most of Astral Media's broadcasting properties including CKTB were sold to Bell Media, a subsidiary of Bell Canada.
CKTB's programming is a mixture of locally-produced Canadian programming and American syndicated programs, owing to St. Catharines's position halfway between the cities of Hamilton, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.