CJBQ

CJBQ
City	Belleville, Ontario
Broadcast area	Belleville-Quinte West
Frequency	800 kHz (AM)
Branding	CJBQ 800 AM
Programming
Format	Full-service (country, oldies)
Ownership
Owner	Quinte Broadcasting
Sister stations	CIGL-FM, CJTN-FM
History
First air date	1946
Former frequencies	1230 kHz (1946-1957)
Call sign meaning	CJ Belleville Quinte (broadcast area)
Technical information
Licensing authority	CRTC
Class	B
Power	10 kW
Links
Website	cjbq.com

CJBQ is a Canadian radio station licensed at Belleville, Ontario. It is owned by Quinte Broadcasting along with CIGL-FM and CJTN-FM. CJBQ broadcasts at 800 kHz in C-QUAM AM Stereo, at a power of 10 kW. The transmitter is located 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 other Canadian and U.S. stations on the same frequency. As of November 2020, CJBQ is the only remaining Canadian AM radio station operating between Ottawa and the Greater Toronto Area.^[1]

CJBQ's format includes country, oldies and adult contemporary. It is mostly locally programmed, with the exception of John Tesh's syndicated program that airs during evenings.^[2] CJBQ also carries live broadcasts of Belleville Senators hockey games.^[3]

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. Semi-satellites in Bancroft (CJNH) and Trenton (CJTN) were added in 1975 and 1979 respectively; the Bancroft station was sold in 2000.

Formerly a private affiliate of CBC Radio, CJBQ, CJTN and CJNH 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 ("hits of the present and past") format, which it retained until switching to a full time country format in 1993. Today the station's music format is predominantly gold-based adult contemporary spanning the 1960s through the 2010s, with some classic country and oldies mixed in, in addition to a continued heavy local news, talk and sports commitment; sister station Mix 97 (CIGL-FM) programs a more contemporary AC format.

During the years when it was a CBC affiliate, CJBQ dayparted its music programming between Top 40 and country music. It gained national prominence in the 1960s for its strident support of Canadian artists, programming as much as 40% Canadian content in the era before it was mandated by the government. This practice led the Canadian music trade paper RPM to dub Belleville, Ontario "the capital of Canadian music" in 1966.^[4]

Notable employees[]

References[]

^ "Ontario".
^ Fybush, Scott (January 9, 2015). Tower site of the week 1/9/15: Belleville, Ontario. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
^ "Belleville Senators - AHL affiliate of the Ottawa Senators".
^ "Here & There," RPM magazine, 18 April 1966, p. 4.
^ ^a ^b Boyce, Gerry (2008). Belleville: A Popular History. Toronto, Ontario: Natural Heritage Books. pp. 218–219. ISBN 978-1-55002-863-8.