City Barrie, Ontario Frequency 101.1 MHz | Branding 101.1 Big FM Format Classic rock | |
 | ||
Slogan Big Hits & Real Classic Rock First air date 1949 (at 1230 AM)
1994 (at 101.1 FM) | ||
CIQB-FM is a Canadian radio station that broadcasts a classic rock format at 101.1 FM in Barrie, Ontario. The station uses the on-air brand name 101.1 Big FM and is owned by Corus Entertainment, which also owns sister station CHAY-FM.
History
CKBB (AM) was launched on August 31, 1949 by Ralph Snelgrove's Barrie Broadcasting Company at AM 1230. It signed on as Barrie's first radio station, and was initially a mixture of music and talk programming. It moved to 950 AM in 1958. In December 1983, the station was acquired by Kawartha Broadcasting, and in 1987, ownership passed to the broadcasting arm of Power Corporation of Canada.
In November 1994, after more than 45 years on the AM dial, CKBB moved to FM as CIQB-FM at 101.1. The station became known as "B101," originally airing a hot adult contemporary format. CIQB was acquired by Corus Entertainment in April 2000. On October 15, 2000, the station shifted to AC, taking the format from sister station CHAY-FM, which flipped to top 40 as Energy Radio. The station reverted to hot AC in August 2003 (when sister station CHAY-FM returned to AC), and finally to top 40 in 2008. It was one of three top 40 stations owned by Corus radio along with CKQB-FM in Ottawa and CKBT-FM in Kitchener.
On July 27, 2016, CIQB's website was replaced with a countdown clock to July 29 at Noon. At that time, after playing "Anybody Listening" by Classified, the station flipped to classic rock, branded as "101.1 Big FM". The first song on "Big FM" was "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel. The flip occurred in order to reduce the format overlap with sister station CHAY (which airs a Hot AC format). With the change, morning host Dave Blezard moves to afternoons at CHAY, while CIQB's new airstaff was announced on August 2.