Fiktiv Canada - CINW 940

CINW is an English language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec. The station currently operates an all-news radio format under the brand name Global News Radio 940 Montreal.

Owned and operated by Corus Entertainment, it broadcasts on 940 kHz with a full-time power of 50,000 watts as a clear channel (class A) station, using a slightly directional antenna designed to improve reception in downtown Montreal.

CINW traces its origin to the experimental station of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, which had been established in late 1914 with the call letters XWA. XWA began commercial radiotelephone transmissions tests in March 1919, and regular radiobroadcasting test programs in December 1919. A celebrated "national" entertainment broadcast was made on the evening of May 20, 1920 between the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada located on William street in Montreal and the Royal Society of Canada assembled with numerous VIPs at Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. Due to its heritage, the station is generally considered to be Canada's first and oldest broadcasting station, as well as one of the first in the world.

CINW's history was generally said to have begun with experimental station XWA, licensed to the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, Ltd. ("Canadian Marconi"), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd. ("British Marconi"). XWA's first licence was granted sometime between April 1, 1914 and March 31, 1915, in conjunction with a training school on Rodney Street, and it was one of the few radio stations allowed to operate in Canada during World War I, when it was used to conduct military research.

XWA's transmissions were initially limited to Morse code "dots-and-dashes" produced by spark transmitters. However, during the war vacuum-tube transmitters were developed which made audio transmissions practical. In spring 1919 Canadian Marconi's Arthur Runciman began voice transmission tests in downtown Montreal and in the Montreal harbor using a "Captain Round" type vacuum-tube powered by a 500 volt battery, as the government lifted the restrictions imposed during the war on the use of radio by non-military personnel or organizations. In March 1919 Canadian Marconi announced that it was planning to "install the new wireless telephone at important points in and around Montreal in the near future", in order that "the public will be able to test for themselves the latest development in long distance communication". There were also plans to install one of the devices in the Transportation Building office of J. N. Greenshields, president of the Montreal Board of Trade, which "will enable brokers to talk with Kingston, Ottawa, Three Rivers and Quebec".

In early 1919, British Marconi shipped a bulky combination desk and 500-watt transmitter, shaped like an upright piano, to the Canadian Marconi building in Montreal at 173 William Street (later re-numbered as 1017). The set, capable of two-way radiotelephone and longer-range radiotelegraph operation, had been developed during World War One, but with the end of the war was now surplus. The parent company hoped there might be commercial interest within the Canadian paper and pulp industry in using transmitters like this for communication between their mills and offices. It was installed on the building's top floor, and operated under the XWA call sign.

The earliest tests and demonstrations focused more on using the transmitter for point-to-point communication than for broadcasting. This required engineers to repeatedly speak simple phrases, with pauses to listen if there were any replies. As was common at a number of early stations, the engineers soon tired of their repetitive talking, and began to play phonograph records to provide test signals. This in turn drew the attention of interested local amateur radio enthusiasts, who enjoyed hearing music instead of the usual telegraphic code used almost universally for radio communication at this time. In addition, during the fall of 1919 Canadian Marconi formed a separate company, Scientific Experimenter, Ltd., to sell equipment to radio amateurs. By December 1919, the company was using the XWA radio broadcasts of music in order to interest people in purchasing receiving sets, thus introducing a whole new industry to Canada, although at first persons operating radio receivers were required to hold an "Amateur Experimental Station" licence, as well as pass the exam needed to receive an "Amateur Experimental Certificate of Proficiency", which required the ability to send and receive Morse code at five words a minute. In January 1922 the government lowered the barrier for individuals merely interested in receiving broadcasts, by introducing a new licence category, Private Receiving Station, that removed the need to qualify for an amateur radio licence. Initially these licences cost $1 and had to be renewed each year.

The first documented broadcast of entertainment by XWA to a general audience occurred on the evening of May 20, 1920, when a concert was prepared for a Royal Society of Canada audience listening 110 miles (175 kilometres) away at the Château Laurier in the capital city of Ottawa. This was part of a demonstration of the longrange capabilities of radiotelephony arranged by Dr. A. S. Eve of the Royal Society, who was giving a lecture reviewing "Some Inventions of the Great War". In Montreal, Canadian Marconi's chief engineer J. O. G. Cann opened the broadcast with a series of announcements, including reading a sealed message previously sent by Dr. R. F. Ruttan, which was followed by the playing of phonograph records, beginning with "Dear Old Pal of Mine". Also included was live entertainment featuring Dorothy Lutton, who sang "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "Merrily Shall I Live". A Naval Radio Service station in Ottawa also participated, with officer E. Hawken singing "Annie Laurie", along with the playing of phonograph records. The Ottawa transmissions were well heard at the Château Laurier, but had difficulty being received in Montreal. At the time these broadcasts received little publicity beyond a few local newspaper reports, in contrast to a similar broadcast made a month later by the Marconi station near London at Chelmsford in Essex, featuring Dame Nellie Melba, which garnered broad international attention.

XWA eventually began operating on a regular schedule in order to promote radio receiver sales, and at first the station was almost single-handedly run by Darby Coats. (Coats went on to have a long broadcasting career.) A phonograph player and records were provided by a Sainte Catherines West music store in return for on-air acknowledgments. Performers weren't paid, so live entertainment was provided by song pluggers promoting sheet music sales, amateurs (sometimes with more enthusiasm than talent), and the occasional professional looking for publicity or intrigued by the new technology. By June 1921 interest in broadcasting had increased to the point that Canadian Marconi began publishing the Canadian Wireless Magazine, with Coats as the editor, initially just four pages long, but, reflecting the rapidly growing interest in radio, expanding to twenty pages a year later.

The chronology is not completely clear, but sometime in 1921 the station's call sign was changed to "9AM", reflecting a policy change in the call signs issued to experimental stations. (Broadcasting licences did not exist at this time.) A short notice in the November 1921 issue of QST magazine reported that the station, now using 9AM, was broadcasting once a week on Tuesdays starting at 8 p.m., using a wavelength of 1200 metres (250 kHz).

In April 1922 the Canadian government began issuing the first licences specifically for "radio-telephone broadcasting stations". Initially all these stations received four-letter call signs starting with "CF", "CH", "CJ" or "CK", plus one additional "C" as the third or fourth letter. Included in the first group of twenty-three stations was a Montreal grant for Canadian Marconi, assigned a transmitting wavelength of 440 metres (682 kHz) and the call letters CFCF. The slogan "Canada's First, Canada's Finest" was later adopted based on the new call sign.

After numerous frequency changes, followed by a three-year period from 1925 to 1928 when it shared time with CKAC on 730 kHz, CFCF began operating full-time at 600 kHz in 1933, which would remain the station's transmitting frequency until 1999. CFCF was an affiliate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Dominion Network from 1944 to 1962; and also carried some programs from the U.S. NBC-Blue Network, at least as of 1939.

Some notable personalities during the CFCF era included newsman Gordon Sinclair, morning hosts Ted Blackman and Al Boliska, sportscasters John Robertson and Dick Irvin, Jr., and 1960s rock 'n' roll disk jockey Dave Boxer. In 1986, CFCF changed its format from full service to adult standards.

In September 1991, CFCF and its FM sister CFQR (now CKBE) were sold to Mount Royal Broadcasting (later Métromédia). The historic CFCF call letters were retained by TV station CFCF-TV so, just short of 70 years after it had been first assigned, CFCF changed its call letters to CIQC. At the same time, the station launched an ill-fated country music format as "Country 600", which only lasted until March 1993, at which point there was a further switch to news/talk programming, with on-air personalities including Howard Galganov.

During 1997-99, CIQC was the home station for "The Travel World Radio Show", hosted by veteran travel broadcasters Stephen Pickford and Willem Bagchus, which became the first Montreal radio show to be carried in U.S. syndication when it was picked up in August 1999 for simulcasting by the Westminster, Maryland-based Liberty Works Radio Network. The program was profiled in the October 15, 2000 edition of L'Actualite magazine for its efforts in promoting Canadian and Quebec tourism to an American audience.

CIQC received permission from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to move to 940 kHz, a frequency that had been vacated when CBC Radio One's CBM transferred to the FM band as CBME-FM. The move included an increase in transmitting power from 10,000 watts (daytime) and 5,000 watts (nighttime) to 50,000 watts full-time.

Along with the frequency change there was a format change to all-news, plus new call letters. The station began operations on 940 on December 14, 1999 employing the call sign of CKNN, however this had been done improperly, as the station was denied permission to use the CKNN call letters. CIQC instead became CINW. Following four months of simulcasting, the transmitter on 600 kHz was shut down on Easter Sunday (April 23), 2000. A sister station, CINF "Info 690", provides French-language all-news programming.

On May 14, 2018, the station re-branded as Global News Radio 940 Montreal, as part of an ongoing rebranding of Corus's news/talk radio stations to create synergies with Global News television programming, and its local station CKMI-DT.

Global News Radio 940 Montreal is a new breed of broadcaster powered by a 50,000 watt clear channel signal. We are among the most powerful frequencies in North America! It's our mission to deliver breaking news as it happens, 24 hours a day. We have Montreal's Best Traffic every nine minutes around the clock. The most accurate Weather forecasts - we guarantee it - and we are the only station for business news, live around the world exclusively with Bloomberg News.

With over 80 anchors, reporters, editors, writers and exclusive access to CNN's correspondents around the world, Global News Radio 940 Montreal is dedicated to giving you the news first. It takes a big commitment from a lot of people; and we are extremely proud of the staff we've assembled.

Read it tomorrow, watch it tonight, or hear it now... Only Global News Radio 940 Montreal gives you this minute's news. News any sooner we'd have to be psychic.

In just the first year of operation, Global News Radio 940 Montreal already became the most important news voice of Montreal!

Program Schedule:
News
24 hours every day, Global News Radio 940 Montreal covers Montreal and the world from our city's largest broadcast Newsroom. Always first with Breaking News and continuous team coverage, nothing is more important to us than being first to you with the News as it happens. Global News Radio 940 Montreal is Quebec's only affiliate of CNN worldwide.

Traffic & Weather
Every 9 minutes, around the clock, the Global News Radio 940 Montreal Traffic & Weather Centre reports "on the ones" at :01, 11, 21, 31, 41, 51 past the hour. Because Montreal traffic is always a problem, you'll always need Global News Radio 940 Montreal. You can trust the view from our 60-plus Jam Cams.

Sports
Global News Radio 940 Montreal reports on Sports at :15 and :45 past the hour seven days a week. Want to know the score? Punch us on!

Business
Money and Business ... we're addicted. That's why we report on it 4 times every hour during the business day - at :26 and :56 past the hour, plus The Market Minute at :13 and :43 past the hour. Only Global News Radio 940 Montreal has continuous coverage of breaking news from the world's major stock markets. Global News Radio 940 Montreal also offers exclusive reports live from Hong Kong, London, New York and around the clock with Bloomberg News.

Features
From Monday to Sunday, we keep listeners well informed on trends in: Computers, Internet, medical issues, entertainment, travel destinations, and more... at :39 past the hour.