CKTB

CKTB (610 kHz) is a commercial radio station in St. Catharines, Ontario. It is owned by Bell Media and it airs a news-talk radio format. Its studios are on Yates Street in downtown St. Catharines, in the former mansion of William Hamilton Merritt, the main promoter of the first Welland Canal.

CKTB is a Class B AM station. By day, it is powered at 10,000 watts; at night, to protect other stations on 610 AM from interference, it reduces power to 5,000 watts. It uses a directional antenna with a five-tower array. The transmitter is on Grassy Brook Road east of Port Robinson.

History
CKTB signed on the air in 1930. It was founded by Edward T. Sandell, originally at 1120 kilocycles, as a phantom station of CKOC in Hamilton. As with most early AM radio stations (see Canadian allocations changes under NARBA), the station changed frequencies a number of times in its early years, moving to 1200 in 1933, 1230 in 1941, 1550 in 1946, 620 in 1950 and its current 610 in 1959.

In 1936, the station became a founding network affiliate of CBC Radio, as a privately-owned station. In 1944, CKTB affiliated with CBC's Dominion Network. The affiliation remained until the Dominion Network was dissolved in 1962. Sandell died in 1943, and the station was acquired by Niagara District Broadcasting the following year.

Niagara District Broadcasting launched an FM sister station in 1949. At first, CKTB-FM largely simulcast its AM counterpart. That station today is CHTZ-FM 97.7 MHz.

The stations were acquired by Standard Broadcasting in 1980. Standard sold CKTB to Affinity Radio Group in 1997. Affinity was in turn acquired by Telemedia in 2000. Standard reacquired the station when it purchased Telemedia in 2002. In October 2007, Astral Media acquired Standard Broadcasting's terrestrial radio and television assets, including CKTB.

Ownership changed hands again in July 2013 when most of Astral Media's broadcasting properties including CKTB were sold to Bell Media, a subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE).

On February 8, 2024, Bell announced a restructuring that included the sale of 45 of its 103 radio stations to seven buyers, subject to approval by the CRTC, including CKTB, which is to be sold to Whiteoaks Communications Group.

Programming
CKTB's programming is a mix of locally-produced and nationally syndicated Canadian talk shows. Weekdays begin with "Niagara in the Morning with Tim Denis." In afternoon drive time, "The Drive with Walter Sendzik" is heard. Syndicated shows from Jerry Agar, Vassy Kapelos and Jim Richards air in middays and evenings. Late nights are repeats of weekday shows.

Past hosts of locally produced programming include Joe Cahill, Kevin Jack, Stephanie Sabourin, Rob McConnell, Larry Fedoruk, Chris Biggs, John Michael, Shelby Knox and Tom McConnell. CKTB is co-owned with another talk station, CFRB 1010 AM Toronto, with the two stations sharing some programming.

CKTB was the only affiliate in Canada to carry the controversial The Phil Hendrie Show until 2006, when Phil Hendrie retired for the first time. CKTB continued to air the best of Phil Hendrie on Saturdays from 6-10p.m. until April 2007. At that point, the show was replaced with other programming. With Hendrie's return to radio, however, CKTB returned him to the lineup on a daily basis. The show, however, was subsequently dropped and replaced by Dr. Joy Browne, another American show. Browne's program was also subsequently dropped in favour of two-hour-long 'best of' programming blocks, edited from the day's local programming.

While St. Catharines is sometimes considered a part of the Buffalo radio market when dealing with syndicated programming, CKTB does not usually show up in Buffalo's Nielsen Audio ratings. A lack of knowledge of the station, its distance from Buffalo (coupled with its presence on the AM dial), and its primarily Canadian content during the day contribute to this. However, BBM registers CKTB as a popular station in the St. Catharines market, with audience share comparable to that of CHML's audience share in nearby Hamilton.