About CJAD 800

CJAD 800

CJAD 800 is Montreal's English-language news/talk radio station, broadcasting on 800 kHz and owned by Bell Media. Founded in 1945 by J. Arthur Dupont — whose initials form the callsign — it is the city's heritage anglophone station, on the air for eight decades. Its studios are on René-Lévesque Boulevard East in downtown Montreal, and its 50,000-watt daytime signal transmits from a four-tower array near Saint-Édouard. The station airs local talk programming, frequent newscasts, traffic and weather, and sports coverage, and it is one of only two full-time commercial English-language AM stations in Quebec. Wikipedia lists cjad800.com as the station's website.

Overview

CJAD broadcasts on 800 kHz as a Class B station with 50,000 watts of power by day — the maximum permitted for Canadian AM stations — dropping to 10,000 watts at night. The nighttime reduction protects other stations on the frequency, including CKLW in Windsor and the Class A clear-channel station XEROK in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; the four-tower directional array near Saint-Édouard uses different day and night patterns. The station is also heard on the HD2 subchannel of CITE-FM at 107.3 and nationally on Bell Satellite TV channel 953.

The format is news/talk: local hosts through the day and evening, newscasts every 30 minutes (hourly overnights), a half-hour news program at 5 a.m. on weekdays, traffic updates every 15 minutes by day, and sports coverage including the station's role as the English radio voice of the CFL's Montreal Alouettes. The station's news affiliations include the Canadian Press and Premiere Networks; after years with CBS News Radio, it switched to NBC News Radio and 24/7 News for U.S. and international coverage in 2018, alongside other Bell talk stations.

History

CJAD was founded by J. Arthur Dupont in 1945 and signed on December 8 of that year, with its first studios on Rue de la Montagne in Montreal. It is often called Montreal's heritage anglophone station, particularly since the demise of CINW — successor to CFCF, Canada's first radio station — left it as the city's oldest English-language outlet. In 1961 the station was purchased by Standard Broadcasting; in 1978 control of Standard passed to Conrad Black via Hollinger Inc.; and in 1985 Standard was bought by Slaight Communications. Sister station CJFM 95.9 launched in 1962 with programming always separate from CJAD.

For most of its history CJAD aired a full-service format: middle-of-the-road music through the 1960s and 1970s, moving to adult contemporary by the 1980s, with weekend specialty shows including The Bandstand with Dick Irvin Jr. and Starlight Concert with Rod Dewar. In 1995 the station shifted to full-time news/talk, dropping music and entertainment except for the Sunday morning Trivia Show and the CJAD Comedy Show. Starting in 1992, nearly all of CJAD's programming was simulcast on Corus-owned CKTS 900 in Sherbrooke; that arrangement ended on November 19, 2006, when CKTS signed off and surrendered its licence, citing maintenance costs.

Ownership changed again in the 2000s and 2010s. In April 2007, Astral Media agreed to buy CJAD and Standard's other Montreal stations; on March 16, 2012, Bell Media announced its $3.38-billion agreement to acquire Astral Media, including CJAD. On Labour Day weekend 2012, CJAD and its former Astral sister stations moved from 1411 Fort Street to the Bell Media Radio building on René-Lévesque Boulevard East.

The station's most dramatic episode came in January 1998, when all four of its broadcast towers toppled during the Ice Storm. Engineers first tried CKGM's former 980 transmitter retuned to 800, but that site was ice-damaged too; then CFMB's former 1410 transmitter, whose signal was poor to the west; finally, through an agreement with CHUM Limited, the station broadcast on CKGM's 990 kHz transmitter until new towers were erected.

News operation

News has been the station's core product since the 1995 format change. Newscasts air every half hour through the day — hourly overnight — with Live @ Five, a half-hour news program at 5 a.m. on weekdays, and traffic every 15 minutes during the day. The station's U.S. and international coverage comes through NBC News Radio and 24/7 News, after years with CBS News Radio, while Canadian content flows through the Canadian Press. Weekday newscasts have been anchored by names including James Foster, veteran anchor Trudie Mason, Jason Mayoff in afternoons, and Dawn Kagan-Fleming on weekend mornings. Longtime anchor and reporter Tom Armour retired in 2015 after 54 years on Montreal radio and died in December 2018. The station also carries major sports coverage — Alouettes football broadcasts, Canadiens and Montreal Impact coverage, and TSN 690-produced sports updates — alongside its talk programming, making it the English-language sports and news hub of the Montreal dial.

The newsroom's structure changed fundamentally in February 2021, when Bell Media eliminated CJAD's newsroom as part of a 210-position round of cuts across the company. CTV Montreal reporters began filing reports for the station, late-night anchors read evening headlines, afternoon and evening shows were merged, and a simulcast of CTV News at 6 was added to the lineup. In December 2024, Bell Media announced it would combine its Quebec newsrooms across CTV News, its French-language radio stations, and Noovo.

Sports

CJAD is the exclusive English radio broadcaster of the CFL's Montreal Alouettes, with some game broadcasts simulcast on sister station CHOM 97.7 FM. It was the longtime English radio home of the NHL's Montreal Canadiens until the 2010–11 season, when those broadcasts moved to co-owned CKGM — now TSN Radio 690. In July 2012, Bell proposed converting CKGM to a French-language sports station (to satisfy ownership limits if its Astral acquisition were approved), which would have returned Canadiens English rights to CJAD; the CRTC rejected the Astral deal that October, and the conversion with it. In March 2012 the station became the exclusive English radio broadcaster of the Montreal Impact soccer club under a two-year deal. Since September 2013, TSN 690 staffers have provided sports updates for CJAD.

Coverage and audience

CJAD's 50,000-watt daytime signal is among the most powerful in Quebec, covering Greater Montreal and reaching well beyond the metro area by day; the 10,000-watt nighttime signal, while reduced, still covers the region under its directional pattern. The station's broadcast area is Greater Montreal, and its news/talk format makes it the English-language counterpart to the city's French talk stations. National satellite carriage on Bell Satellite TV extends its reach across Canada. Current audience figures are not publicly confirmed.

Ownership

CJAD is owned and operated by Bell Media through Bell Media Radio, one of Canada's largest radio groups. Its Montreal cluster includes sister stations CHOM-FM, CJFM-FM, CKGM, CITE-FM, CKMF-FM, and the CFCF-DT and CFJP-DT television stations. The station's ownership lineage runs from founder J. Arthur Dupont (1945) through Standard Broadcasting (1961), Hollinger/Conrad Black (1978), Slaight Communications (1985), and Astral Media (2007) to Bell Media (2012–present). The station operates under CRTC commercial radio licence conditions.

Digital presence

CJAD streams live through iHeartRadio Canada and its website, cjad800.com, listed by Wikipedia as its official site. The station maintains active social media profiles under the CJAD 800 branding, where it posts news updates, show content, and community information. Its national satellite carriage and HD2 simulcast on CITE-FM give it digital and multicast distribution beyond the AM dial. A dedicated standalone mobile app for the station is not publicly confirmed.