City Moncton, New Brunswick Slogan Today's Best Music First air date December 4, 1934 | Branding K94.5 Frequency 94.5 MHz (FM) Format Hot adult contemporary | |
CKCW-FM is a Canadian radio station broadcasting at 94.5 FM in Moncton, New Brunswick. The station plays a hot adult contemporary format branded as K94.5 and is owned by the Maritime Broadcasting System.
Contents
History
CKCW originally began broadcasting on December 4, 1934 at 1370 AM with only 100 watts of power. The station was originally owned & operated by Moncton Broadcasting Company Ltd, managed by F.A. (Fred) Lynds. The AM frequency changed to 1400 in 1941, and then to its final AM position at 1220 in 1946. Eastern Radio Broadcasting (now known as MBS radio), purchased CKCW in 1972. CKCW was the only privately owned AM radio station ever to operate in Moncton. Over the years, many radio personalities who worked at CKCW 1220 AM would attain such bigger success in larger markets such as Bro Jake, Bob Powers (The Legend), Marty Kingston and Larry Hennessey.
In 1976, CKCW's sister station was granted a licence to operate on the FM band at 103.9 FM as this would be the first FM radio station in Moncton. CFQM-FM first went on the air in 1977 with an easy listening format until it switched to a country music format on January 1, 1979.
A co-owned television station, CKCW-TV, signed on the air in 1954 but was sold to CHUM Limited in 1972. CHUM limited which owned & operated CKCW-TV became CTV Globemedia in 2007 and then Bell Media in 2011. CKCW-TV has now become part of the CTV Atlantic (formerly ATV) network.
During the 1990s, CKCW had an adult contemporary/easy listening format, then in 1994, the station switched to an oldies format. In August 1998, the station switched formats with sister station CFQM-FM which rebranded as an adult contemporary station as "Magic 104" and CKCW becoming a country music station.
In 2001, CKCW moved to the FM dial at 94.5 FM, and changed to a CHR format, branded as "Moncton's Newest Music K94.5". The new "K94.5" enjoyed early success with the new music format; however, constant tweaking of the format and lack of advertising led to the downfall of the format. By 2009, when sister station CFQM-FM switched from adult contemporary to classic hits, the station switched to its current hot adult contemporary format, but kept the K94 branding. A little while later, CIOK-FM in Saint John, New Brunswick did the same thing by moving from adult contemporary to hot adult contemporary. CIOK-FM moved back to an adult contemporary format as of September 2015.
CKCW was the first station to hire international syndicated radio star AJ Reynolds.
CIOK-FM was never listed on Mediabase until March 2011, but used the same adds as CKCW-FM even after the Hot AC/adult top 40 shifts at those stations in 2009.