About Big AM 820 (CHAM)

Big AM 820 (CHAM)

Overview

Big AM 820 is the current branding of CHAM, a Class B AM radio station broadcasting on 820 kHz in Hamilton, Ontario. Branded in full as "Big AM 820 CINA Radio Punjabi," the station plays contemporary South Asian and Punjabi music for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. It is owned by Neeti Prakash Ray and forms part of the CINA Media Group, alongside sister stations including Hamilton's CKOC, Windsor's CKWW and CINA-FM, Mississauga's CINA and Montreal's CKIN-FM.

The station transmits with 50,000 watts by day and 10,000 watts at night from a six-tower array near Binbrook, southeast of Hamilton — one of the stronger AM signals in southern Ontario. Its present ethnic format, adopted in 2024, is only the latest chapter in a history that stretches back to 1959 and has taken in classical music, Top 40, a celebrated two-decade run as a country station, news/talk and an all-comedy format.

History

The station signed on in November 1959 as CHIQ, broadcasting on 1280 kHz with 5,000 watts from studios at 206 King Street West in Hamilton and a transmitter site in Glanford Township, under the ownership of CHIQ Ltd. It began with a classical music format before moving toward rock and roll in the 1960s; a young David Marsden was among its disc jockeys. Power was increased to 10,000 watts days and 5,000 watts nights in 1965.

In 1967 the station was purchased from CHIQ Ltd. by (Ted) Rogers Broadcasting Ltd., which obtained approval to change the call letters to CHAM — a call sign that spells out its home city, Hamilton — and launched a middle-of-the-road format on 1 November 1967. By 1970 CHAM had switched to Top 40, competing head-on with CKOC and publishing a weekly Top 30 poster in the early 1970s; its studios, unusually, sat inside the Terminal Towers shopping mall behind glass, where passers-by could watch the announcers work. Personalities from this era included Paul Godfrey, Dick Joseph and Bob Wood.

Sold to Keith Dancy in 1976, the station became CJJD with a "gold and great" format and moved to Lloyd D. Jackson Square. In 1978 it held the radio rights to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats — between the team's creation in 1950 and 2014, the only season the Tiger-Cats were not heard on CHML. Moffat Communications acquired the station in 1981, restored the CHAM call letters in 1982, and in July 1983 flipped it to country in AM stereo. On 18 August 1985, under Decision CRTC 85-13, CHAM moved from 1280 to 820 kHz and raised its power to 50,000 watts days and 10,000 watts nights from the new Binbrook transmitter site, dramatically improving its coverage of south-central Ontario.

The country era made the station famous. The 1985 move to 820 was marked publicly at Gage Park, where Hamilton mayor Bob Morrow joined morning host Cliff Dumas to turn a giant radio dial from 1280 to 820. As "820 CHAM" it was honoured as the Canadian Country Music Association's Station of the Year in 1989, the same year it received medium-market station honours from the Country Music Association. Ownership passed through Golden West Broadcasting (1993), the Affinity Radio Group (1997), Telemedia (2000) and Standard Broadcasting (2002). On 31 January 2005, with country listeners migrating to FM, CHAM became "The Legend," concentrating on classic country.

Astral Media acquired the station in October 2007 and, on 2 September 2008, relaunched it as Talk 820, a news/talk format with local hosts including Mike Nabuurs and Mike Bullard plus Bulldogs hockey, Blue Jays baseball and NFL coverage. The talk format underperformed against CHML, and on 22 July 2010 CHAM returned to country as "820 CHAM." Competition from a new FM country rival then eroded its audience, and on 21 August 2012 the station flipped to all-comedy as Funny 820, built largely on stand-up material supplied by the U.S.-based 24/7 Comedy Radio. Morning man Mike Nabuurs stayed on as the station's "Ambassador of Funny," providing local voiceovers and updates; the station later added the late-night Humble & Fred show and, for the 2013–14 season, Toronto Maple Leafs hockey. When 24/7 Comedy ended terrestrial distribution in August 2014, CHAM kept the format going with blocks of stand-up and comedy talk, though ratings remained small: Numeris figures reported for fall 2018 put it at 15,400 listeners and a 0.7 percent market share. Bell Media, which had absorbed Astral in 2013, shut down six AM stations on 14 June 2023 and announced that CHAM, CKOC and CKWW would be sold instead.

That sale gave the station its current life. In November 2023 Neeti P. Ray, the founder and chief executive of the CINA Radio Group, bid to buy the three stations — a deal reported at $455,000 — arguing publicly that without a buyer the stations would likely have gone off the air. The CRTC approved the change in ownership and effective control in Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2024-139 on 26 June 2024, issuing CHAM a new licence running to 31 August 2027. In late August 2024, after a brief stunting period, the station rebranded as Big AM 820 CINA Radio Punjabi, playing contemporary South Asian music.

Programming and Content

In its current format, CHAM is a music-led Punjabi service: contemporary South Asian and Punjabi music runs through the broadcast day, aimed at the large Punjabi-speaking population of Hamilton, Brampton and the western Greater Toronto Area. Its website, bigam820.com, complements the on-air service with a Punjabi-language news feed covering Canadian, Indian and international stories of interest to its audience; items were being published to the site through August 2025 at the time of research.

Audience and Reach

With 50,000 watts by day on 820 kHz, CHAM's signal covers Hamilton, the western GTA and much of south-central Ontario — in its country years, its owner has recalled, truck drivers could hear it from Belleville to Woodstock. As a Punjabi-format station it addresses one of Canada's largest language communities: the 2021 census counted roughly one million members of Canada's Punjabi population, with Ontario holding the largest provincial share. No current published ratings for the station's Punjabi format are available; the most recent widely reported figures are the dated fall 2018 Numeris numbers from its comedy era, cited in the history above.

Digital Presence

The station's online home is bigam820.com, which carries its Punjabi news service and streaming links, and it maintains a Facebook presence as "Big AM 820 (CHAM)." Its relaunch was audible beyond the region from the start: recordings of the new station's on-air identification were posted to YouTube within days of the late-August 2024 rebrand.

Ownership and Organisation

CHAM is owned by Neeti Prakash Ray, founder and CEO of the CINA Radio Group, and is licensed to a corporation incorporated for the purchase under Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2024-139; its current licence expires 31 August 2027. The group also operates CINA (1650 AM Mississauga), CINA-FM Windsor, CKIN-FM Montreal, CKFG-FM Toronto and, from the same 2024 purchase, CKOC Hamilton and CKWW Windsor, making CHAM part of one of the largest ethnic and multicultural broadcasting groups in Canada.

Contact and Availability

Big AM 820 broadcasts on 820 AM across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and is available online through bigam820.com, which carries the station's news service and live listening options, and through its Facebook page.