City Toronto, Ontario Slogan International Radio First air date 1966 | Branding CHIN Radio Frequency 1540 kHz (AM) | |
Translator(s) CHIN-1-FM 91.9 MHz (FM) | ||
CHIN is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts multilingual programming at AM 1540 in Toronto, Ontario. It is a Class B station broadcasting on a clear-channel shared by The U.S. and The Bahamas. It is owned by CHIN Radio/TV International, and also has an FM rebroadcaster at 91.9 to fill in reception gaps in parts of the Toronto area — this should not be confused with CHIN-FM, which offers a distinct program schedule. CHIN's studios are located on College Street in the Palmerston-Little Italy neighbourhood of Toronto, while its AM transmitters are located on Lakeshore Avenue on the Toronto Islands, and the FM rebroadcaster is located atop an apartment tower complex near Bathurst and Sheppard in Toronto's Clanton Park neighbourhood.
The station, one of Canada's first multilingual broadcast outlets along with Montreal's CFMB, was launched in 1966 by Toronto broadcaster Johnny Lombardi. CHIN-FM was launched the following year, and a second FM signal acting as the AM station's FM rebroadcaster was added in 1997 (at 101.3 MHz) with the call letters CHIN-1-FM.
On April 17, 2003, Radio 1540 Ltd. was given approval to change the frequency of CHIN-1-FM Toronto from 101.3 MHz to 91.9 MHz and to increase the effective radiated power from 22 to 35 watts.
CHIN's daytime lineup consists primarily of Chinese (Cantonese & Mandarin) and Italian programming, with some Albanian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Irish, Jewish, Romanian, Somali, Spanish and Ukrainian programming airing on Saturdays & Sundays.
On January 14, 2011, CHIN received approval to increase the effective radiated power for the CHIN-FM-1 91.9 FM transmitter from 161 to 1,850 watts (maximum ERP from 350 to 5,000 watts with an antenna height above average terrain of 86 metres).
On February 10, 2016, CHIN dropped the simulcast of China Radio International in the evening and overnight hours and replaced it with dance music-formatted programming originating from internet broadcaster "DJFM Toronto."
On November 28, 2016, Radio 1540 Limited applied to operate a separate originating FM station under CHIN-1-FM’s current technical parameters, specifically, at frequency 91.9 MHz (channel 220A) with an average effective radiated power (ERP) of 1,850 watts (maximum ERP of 5,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 86 metres).