City Belleville, Ontario Frequency 800 kHz Power 10 kW | Branding CJBQ 800 AM First air date 1946 | |
Format Full-service (country, oldies) | ||
CJBQ 800 AM is a full-service radio station in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Quinte Broadcasting along with Mix 97 and Rock 107. CJBQ broadcasts in C-QUAM AM Stereo with 10,000 watts from a site south of Belleville and Trenton in Prince Edward County. The antenna is a six-tower array with differing patterns day and night, to protect Class-A clear-channel station XEROK-AM in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as well as neighbouring stations CKLW in Windsor and CJAD in Montreal.
CJBQ's format includes country music, oldies and adult contemporary music. It is mostly locally programmed, with the exception of John Tesh's syndicated program that airs during evenings.
History
The station launched in 1946 on AM 1230, and moved to its current frequency in 1957. An FM sister station, CJBQ-FM, was launched in 1962.
Formerly a private affiliate of CBC Radio, the station dropped this affiliation in 1984 when CBC added CBCP-FM, a Peterborough-based rebroadcaster of the network station from Toronto, in the Belleville area. The station subsequently adopted an adult contemporary format, which it retained until switching to its current country format in 1993.
CJBQ is now widely regarded for its news team. Longtime News Director John Ferguson retired in 2006 and Todd Smith replaced him until 2011. John Spitters, current News Director and Mary Thomas are other well known local reporters and broadcasters. Jack Miller is the Sports Director and longtime play-by-play voice of the Belleville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League on CJBQ. The morning drive, with Matt Mitchell has newscasts every half-hour including a major newscast at 8:00 AM. Another major newscast airs at noon.
Weekday mornings from 9 AM until 11 AM is The Lorne Brooker Show, a call-in talk show. Afternoons from 2 PM to 7 PM features The Freddy Vette Show with 1950s and '60s rock and roll. Jim Wright hosts Saturdays from noon to 5:00pm with Pop Memories, and Classic Country Sundays from 1 PM to 6 PM. Programming notes include the 1:00pm time signal and the standard Saturday 10:00am air raid siren test.