NorthEast Radio Watch 6/3 & 6/10/2024: Changes in Canada

In this week’s issue… CHUM shakes up schedule, goes HD – Radio silence at iHeart NYC – Rock 107 adds signal – Doyle out at NJ 101.5 – Remembering Markert, Strater

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*The radio dial in CANADA‘s biggest market is changing, on both sides of the studio.

As broadcasters gathered in Toronto last week for Canadian Music Week and RadioDays Canada, engineers were hard at work high above on the CN Tower, finishing the installation of a new FM master antenna that will, at long last, replace the original antenna that’s now almost 50 years old.

Back in 1976, that antenna was designed for only a limited number of signals, with no idea that someday those stations would want to transmit digital signals alongside analog FM. Ironically, it was the shift to digital broadcasting that opened up room for a new antenna – when the CBC’s CBLT moved from analog channel 5 to UHF digital, it allowed for the old low-band VHF antenna to be dismantled, very carefully, within the radome that covers the top of the CN Tower mast, and for a new FM antenna to be just as carefully assembled in the same space.

Testing of the new antenna began last weekend, bringing HD Radio signals on the air for two stations that have been analog-only until now, Rogers’ CHFI (98.1) and Bell’s CHUM-FM (104.5). When it’s all finished, the new antenna will carry jazz station CJRT (91.1), CBC’s CBL-FM (94.1), Stingray’s CHBM (97.3), CHFI, Bell’s CKFM (99.9) and CHUM-FM, multilingual CHIN-FM (100.7), and Corus’ CFNY (102.1) and CILQ (107.1). Until now, only CKFM has been in HD, using a backup antenna for its digital signal. We’ll be listening to see what happens as more of the huge Toronto signals add HD – and especially if they add more multicasting, which has been slow to develop north of the border except for AM simulcasts.

*At the studio end a few blocks north, CHUM-FM has been shaking things up as well. Jamar McNeil, who paired up with veteran morning host Marilyn Denis back in 2018, has been moved to afternoons on the hot AC station, now paired with former Indie 88 morning host Josie Dye on that shift. Is CHUM assembling the new pair as an eventual succession plan for Denis’ retirement? No permanent replacement host has been announced yet for McNeil on the morning show.