CHUM Limited

History

Precursory

CHUM Limited began operations when CHUM-AM was founded in 1945 by four Toronto businessmen, including Al Leary, a former sportscaster, who had been the station manager at CKCL for 14 years. CHUM received its licence in late November 1944 to operate a station with 1000 watts. CHUM launched as a dawn-to-dusk radio station under York Broadcasters Limited on 28 October 1945, with John H.Q. "Jack" Part, an entrepreneur in the business of patent medicines, as its president. The station, then operating from studios in the Mutual Street Arena, broadcast a format typical of the late 1940s, with a combination of information, music, and sports. When CHUM was about to debut, Leary told the press that the new station would be known for community service and in-depth news, in addition to live talent and the most popular phonograph records.

Allan Waters, a salesman from Part's patent medicine business took control of CHUM-AM in 1954. Waters' first major move was to secure a licence for 24-hour-a-day broadcasting for CHUM, along with a power increase to 5,000 watts. On April 17, 1959, the name York Broadcasters was changed to CHUM 1050 Radio Ltd.. The CHUM studios were moved from 250 Adelaide Street West to 1331 Yonge Street, Toronto, where their iconic neon sign was erected for the first time. CHUM-FM would begin broadcasting in 1963 under a Classical Music/Fine Arts format. Alex Forbes, whose accounting firm Ewin & Forbes had been CHUM's auditor since 1952, joined CHUM 1050 Radio Ltd. as Secretary-Treasurer. He would play a pivotal role in the company's development.

Entering into the television world

The company expanded into television holdings for the first time when it gained a one-third interest in CBC affiliate CKVR-TV, a station founded by Ralph Snelgrove (whose first initial and that of his wife, Valerie, form part of the station's callsign), in Barrie. It acquired a second one-third share in 1968, and eventually gained full control in 1970.

On May 12, 1967, under the corporate name CHUM Limited, Allan Waters took the rapidly expanding company public. At the same time, Alex Forbes was appointed to the Board of Directors of CHUM Limited, while it received approval to acquire Ottawa's Radio CFRA Limited and control of two key stations in the market: CFRA-AM and CFMO-FM. CHUM-AM launched the CHUM Christmas Wish, evolving out of The CHUM Kids Crusade, and operating in conjunction with The CHUM Charitable Foundation. This would become an annual event for over forty years under the CHUM-City Christmas Wish, and currently, the CP24 CHUM Christmas Wish.

CITY-TV – the Toronto UHF station launched with great flair and style in 1972 by Moses Znaimer – ran into financial debt by 1975. Multiple Access Ltd. (the owners of CFCF in Montreal) purchased 45% of the station in 1977, and sold its stake to CHUM Limited three years later. CITY was purchased outright by CHUM in 1981 with the sale of Moses Znaimer's interest in the station. In 1987, CITY and the other CHUM-owned television stations moved to the CHUM-City Building at 299 Queen Street West, which became one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city. The CHUM Radio Building at 1331 Yonge Street remained CHUM Limited's corporate headquarters.

Specialty additions

Between 1984 and 1999, CHUM Limited expanded into many new television holdings such as MuchMusic, Star!, Space, Bravo!, CP24, SexTV: The Channel, Fashion Television Channel, Canadian Learning Television, and many others. In September 1995, CKVR disaffiliated from the CBC after 30 years, and was re-launched as an independent station with a more youthful image in order to generate interest from viewers in the neighbouring Toronto market, where CKVR had long been available on basic cable. This included adopting a news format similar to the CityPulse newscasts on CITY, replacing its various classic TV shows with more contemporary series, and picking up a package of games for the Toronto Raptors, Toronto's then-new NBA franchise. The resulting station became known as The New VR. That same year, the CHUM Radio Network was established to deliver syndicated radio programs across Canada.

The experiment was successful enough that CHUM replicated CKVR's format on several stations it had acquired from Baton Broadcasting in 1997, including CHRO in Pembroke, CFPL in London, CKNX in Wingham, and CHWI in Windsor. Most of these stations were also former CBC affiliates, and all were in markets where CKVR's sister station, CITY-TV, were already available on basic cable. CIVI in Victoria, British Columbia was added into the system by CHUM at its launch in October 2001. A month prior, CHUM bought CKVU from CanWest Global and it became Citytv Vancouver on July 22, 2002. Prior to CHUM's acquisition of CKVU, some Citytv programming was syndicated to KVOS in nearby Bellingham, Washington.

Final years

Moses Znaimer retired from active management at CHUM in April 2003, and briefly continued to work on projects with the company, before moving on to other ventures such as ZoomerMedia.

On December 1, 2004, CHUM purchased Craig Media Inc., which owned five local TV stations, mainly in the Prairies, and three digital specialty services, for $265 million CAD. While Craig's three largest stations were integrated into Citytv, Craig's Toronto station CKXT-TV (then branded "Toronto 1", now Sun TV) was sold to Quebecor. In addition to its own stations, CHUM was one of several sources (alongside Canwest's CH / E! and Global TV) providing syndicated programming to independently owned CBC and CTV affiliates.

CHUM announced in February 2005 that the NewNet stations would be relaunched under the A-Channel brand by that fall; the rebrand took place on August 2, 2005, the same date when the former A-Channel stations in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, recently acquired by CHUM from Craig Media, were relaunched under the Citytv brand. At the same time, CHUM announced plans to consolidate the master control departments for CKVR, CFPL, CHRO, CHWI and CKNX at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto, as well as the traffic and programming departments at CFPL, resulting in the loss of approximately nine staff members from CKVR. The switch occurred on June 3, 2005.

Allan Waters stepped down from the CHUM Limited Board of Directors in October and became an honorary director. On December 3, 2005, Waters died in Toronto at the age of 84. Following tributes from across Canada, more than 2,000 attended a celebration of his life at Toronto's Westin Harbour Castle Conference Centre.

Sale to CTVglobemedia

References

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2. "Leary to Manage New Radio Station," ''Toronto Globe & Mail'', 18 November 1944, p. 25
3. "Announcing a New Radio Station in Toronto", ''Toronto Globe & Mail'', 20 November 1944, p. 2
4. Frank Chamberlain, "Radio Column", ''Toronto Globe & Mail'', 27 October 1945, p. 13
5. Frank Chamberlain, "Radio Column," ''Toronto Globe & Mail'', 30 August 1945, p. 11
6. [http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/news/znaimer-steps-down-as-president-of-chum-tv/1000028107/ Znaimer steps down as president of CHUM TV] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-09-27 , ''Broadcaster Magazine'', April 27, 2003.)
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14. [https://web.archive.org/web/20151018152141/http://micro.newswire.ca/release.cgi?rkey=1507269890&view=39118-0&Start=0 CTVglobemedia]
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