CHNL (610 AM, "Radio NL") is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

Kamloops, British Columbia Kamloops ( ) is a city in south-central British Columbia, Canada, at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers, which join to become the Thompson River in Kamloops, and east of Kamloops Lake. The city is the administrative centre ...

, Canada. Owned by

Stingray Radio Stingray Radio Inc. is a Canadian radio broadcasting conglomerate owned by Stingray Group. It owns and operates 101 radio stations in Canada, making it the largest radio conglomerate in Canada. It also once owned two now-defunct television statio ...

, it broadcasts a full-service classic hits format. 610 AM is a

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

broadcast frequency. There are three stations in Canada on this frequency.

History

CHNL has been a mix of

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

/talk station since September 2006 and a classic hits station since April 2014. Prior to it, the station aired an

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

format and branded as a "lite hits" station in the 1980s. On April 25, 2009, CHNL received

CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

approval to add a transmitter in Merritt at 1230

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

. The transmitter took over the AM frequency of Merritt's local radio station CJNL, which converted to 101.1

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

and now broadcasts with the call sign

CKMQ-FM CKMQ-FM is a radio station broadcasting at 101.1 FM broadcasting, FM in Merritt, British Columbia, Canada. The station broadcasts an adult contemporary format branded as ''Q101''. The station was originally launched in 1970 on AM broadcasting, A ...

. 1230 kHz went off-air for good on September 15, 2020 when the land owner did not renew the lease on the transmitter property. In 2017, station owner NL Broadcasting was acquired by Halifax-based

Newcap Radio Stingray Radio Inc. is a Canadian radio broadcasting conglomerate owned by Stingray Group. It owns and operates 101 radio stations in Canada, making it the largest radio conglomerate in Canada. It also once owned two now-defunct television statio ...

. Newcap was in turn acquired by

Stingray Group Stingray Group Inc. (formerly Stingray Digital and Stingray Digital Group) is a Canadian music, media and technology company based in Montreal, Quebec, with offices in Toronto, Ontario, as well as in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, ...

in 2018. On September 24, 2024, Stingray announced cuts to CHNL, laying off several of its news reporters, and transitioning the station from a pure news/talk format to a classic hits format, while maintaining some of its talk and sports programming.

Rebroadcasters

Former logo

References

External links

Radio NL

CHNL
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the

Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...

* HNL Radio stations established in 1970 HNL 1970 establishments in British Columbia HNL {{BritishColumbia-radio-station-stub