CJCL (590 AM, ''

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was r ...

590 The Fan'') is a Canadian

sports radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sport, sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often-low comedy ...

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. Owned and operated by Rogers Sports & Media since 2002, CJCL's studios are located at the Rogers Building at

Bloor Bloor is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Joseph Bloor (1789–1862), a developer of Toronto and founder of the village of Yorkville ** Bloor Street, a major thoroughfare in Toronto named after him *** Bloor or Line 2 Bloor� ...

and Jarvis in

downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont St ...

, while its transmitters are located near

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

atop the

Niagara Escarpment The Niagara Escarpment is a long escarpment, or cuesta, in Canada and the United States that runs predominantly east–west from New York through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, and into Illinois. The escarpment is most famous as the cliff ov ...

. It is the flagship station for the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

, and also airs games from the

Toronto Raptors The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern Conference Atlantic Division (NBA) ...

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Divi ...

Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen ...

and

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division ...

. CJCL is also a CBS Sports Radio affiliate. The station began broadcasting on February 21, 1951 as CKFH 1400 owned by Foster Hewitt before moving to 1430 AM in 1960. Telemedia acquired the station in 1981 and relaunched as CJCL. During its early life, the station aired news and sports,

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "conte ...

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

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 present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

and

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...

formats. It adopted the current sports format on September 4, 1992 as ''The Fan 1430'' as Canada's first all-sports radio station before swapping frequencies with CKYC 590, acquired in 1994 by Telemedia, on February 6, 1995, adopting ''The Fan 590'' branding. After Telemedia was sold to Standard Broadcasting, Rogers acquired CJCL in 2002. Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, as well as its transmitter power and height, CJCL covers most of southern Ontario during the day. The station's signal is directional from north to south to protect various lower-powered radio stations east and west of the station. CJCL is simulcast across Canada on

Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television se ...

channel 959, and on

Shaw Direct Shaw Direct is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Shaw Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two communic ...

channel 868. It is also carried on the 3rd HD

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

of CKIS-FM.

History

The station first aired on February 21, 1951, as CKFH; operating at 1400 kHz. It was a news and sports station owned by legendary Canadian broadcaster Foster Hewitt (the "FH" of the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assig ...

), who was best known as the first and long-time play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs on what became

Hockey Night in Canada CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its his ...

. The station moved to the 1430 AM frequency in 1960, increasing power first to 5,000, then 10,000 and finally 50,000 watts. CKFH would begin playing

music in 1966, then move to a

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whil ...

format in 1975. The station was subsequently sold to Telemedia in 1981 when it adopted its current CJCL call sign and switched to an

format. In 1983, the station briefly adopted

talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

programming, but returned to its music format within a few months, with increased emphasis on

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as wel ...

. CJCL was the flagship of the Telemedia network, and as such broadcast

baseball games (with

Tom Cheek Thomas F. Cheek (June 13, 1939 – October 9, 2005) was an American sports commentator who is best remembered as the play-by-play radio announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB), from the team's establishment in 19 ...

and

Jerry Howarth Jerry Howarth (born March 12, 1946) is an American Canadian former sports commentator, best known as the radio play-by-play voice of the Toronto Blue Jays from 1981 through the 2017 season. Howarth had shared the play-by-play duties with his lat ...

calling the action) followed by hours of talk after the game. The station has been flagship radio station of the Blue Jays for most of their history since their inception in 1977 (with exception of a hiatus when

CHUM Chum may refer to: Broadcasting * CHUM Limited, a defunct Canadian media company * CHUM Radio, now Bell Media Radio, a Canadian radio broadcasting company * CHUM (AM), a Toronto radio station * CHUM-FM, a Toronto radio station * CHUM Chart, a C ...

was the flagship from 1998 to 2002). As the 1980s progressed and the winning Blue Jays became more popular, the sports features became CJCL's profit centre. Encouraged by the newfound success of sports radio in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, in 1992, the year the Blue Jays won their first

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 World Series, 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The ...

, CJCL would drop non-sports programming altogether on September 4, and became ''The Fan 1430'', the first all-sports station in Canada. The station's nickname may have been inspired by WFAN in New York City, the first sports radio station in the world that led to the creation of sports radio stations everywhere. In 1994, Telemedia acquired CKYC from Rogers, and on February 6, 1995, at noon, the two stations switched frequencies, with "The Fan" moving to 590 AM (subsequently becoming ''The Fan 590'') and CKYC moving to 1430 AM (where it operates today as

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

station

CHKT CHKT (1430 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The station, owned by the Fairchild Group service, airs mainly Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese programs as well as weekend shows in the following languages: Khmer langu ...

). Telemedia was acquired in 2002 by Standard Broadcasting, who resold CJCL to Rogers Media. In January 2011, CJCL became known as ''Sportsnet Radio The Fan 590'', the move coming as part of a co-branding initiative with its television counterpart

, amid indications that rival

TSN TSN may refer to: Science and technology * Translin, DNA binding protein involved in microRNA function * Taxonomic serial number, a stable and unique taxonomic serial number issued by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System * The Science Netwo ...

was preparing to launch a competing sports radio station,

TSN Radio 1050 CHUM is a Canadian radio station in Toronto, Ontario, broadcasting on 1050 kHz. The station is owned and operated by Bell Media. CHUM's studios are co-located with The Sports Network, TSN at 9 Channel Nine Court in the Agincourt, Toronto, A ...

."TSN Radio a reality"
'' The Globe and Mail'', January 21, 2011. The station's on air identity was then changed to ''Sportsnet 590 The Fan'' in October 2011. The station also supports sports news updates for all-news radio CFTR.

Live sports

CJCL is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalt ...

for the following teams' radio broadcasts: *

( MLB baseball) *

( NBA basketball)♠ *

(

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

hockey)♠ ♠-In case of conflicts with other sports broadcasts, one of the games will air on another station in the Toronto area. As Rogers owns the Blue Jays outright but only shares ownership (through

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

) of the Raptors and Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays games have first priority on CJCL.

shares rights to the other two teams, including all games that are played at the same time as the Blue Jays. In contrast, because of an exclusive CFL-wide multimedia deal with TSN that ensures all

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

games air on CHUM, any Raptors or Maple Leaf games that conflict with the Argonauts will air on CJCL. The two stations split the broadcasts of games that do not conflict with each other. Roughly 11

games (as of 2018) air on evening dates between June and August that do not conflict with Blue Jays games. The Bisons are the Triple-A East affiliate of the Blue Jays, and broadcasts originate from Buffalo-based WWKB. The Fan 590 also features live coverage of the following: *

(

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

football) *

NBA All-Star Game The National Basketball Association All-Star Game is a basketball exhibition game hosted every February by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and showcases 24 of the league's star players. It is the featured event of NBA All-Star Weekend, ...

* Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio ( Sunday nights,

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or d ...

& postseason; when not conflicting with Blue Jays games & weekday afternoon sports talk radio programming) *

Memorial Cup The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League, a consortium of three major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tournament played between ...

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

(Championship game) *

NFL Football The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

(Sunday afternoons) Previous live sports events on CJCL included: *

( CFL football) (2000-2001, 2007–2010) *

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BM ...

( MLS soccer) *

Ice Hockey World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annu ...

(

Team Canada Canadian National Team or Team Canada may refer to: Canada at multi-sport events * Canada at the Olympics * Canada at the Paralympics * Canada at the Commonwealth Games * Canada at the Pan American Games Canada's national sport teams * Canada me ...

games) *

IIHF World U20 Championship The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), or simply the "World Juniors" in ice hockey circles, is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for national under-20 ice hockey teams from around the world. It is t ...

(

games) *

Toronto Rock The Toronto Rock are a professional box lacrosse franchise based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are members of the North Division of the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The team was the first Canadian franchise in the NLL. Oakville resident ...

( NLL lacrosse) (2006) * OHL All-Star Classic ( OHL hockey) (2007) * International Bowl (

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

college football) (2007-2010) *

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

( soccer) (Saturday mornings, 2007–2010) *

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

( CFL football) (2007-2009) *

Toronto Marlies The Toronto Marlies are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the American Hockey League (AHL) as a member of the North Division of the Eastern Conference. The Marlies is owned by Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, a ...

( AHL hockey) (2008-2010) *

2009 World Baseball Classic The 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international baseball competition. It began on 5 9 and finished 5 26. Unlike in 2006, when the round-robin format of the first two rounds led to some eliminations being decided by run-difference t ...

(All Canada national baseball team games and the final four) * Ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament (All

games, plus the quarter-final game determining Team Canada's semi-final opponent, both semi-finals, and both the bronze medal and gold medal games) * Ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics – Women's tournament (Gold medal game)

Notable on-air staff

Current

David Amber David Amber (born April 21, 1971) is a Canadian anchor for Sportsnet as a host and reporter. He is best known for his time doing ''NHL On the Fly'' on the NHL Network and as the anchor for ''Gate 5 Live'', ''Raptors Pregame'', and ''Raptors Po ...

* Kevin Barker *

Jeff Blair Jeff Blair (born March 30, 1960) is a Canadian newspaper columnist for The Globe and Mail, a sports columnist for Sportsnet and sports talk radio host on Sportsnet 590 The FAN in Toronto. In June 2019, Blair took over as a host of the long-runnin ...

* Joe Bowen (Maple Leafs) * Stephen Brunt * Hugh Burrill * Sam Cosentino * Richard Deitsch * Rob Faulds * Elliotte Friedman * Paul Jones * Ian Leggatt *

Jeff Marek Jeffrey James Marek (born Keegan Sean Laughlin, July 9, 1969) is a television personality and radio host for properties originating from Stouffville, Ontario, Canada. Jeff has hosted ''Live Audio Wrestling'', ''Leafs Lunch'' (cohosted with former ...

Scott Metcalfe Scott Metcalfe (born January 6, 1967) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, who played 19 games in the National Hockey League (NHL). Playing career Metcalfe was born in Toronto, Ontario. He began his junior career playing with the ...

Tim Micallef ''Tim & Friends'' (formerly ''Tim & Sid'') is a sports talk show hosted by Tim Micallef that was produced by the Canadian sports television network Sportsnet where it aired. The program, originally known as ''Tim & Sid'' and hosted by Micallef an ...

* Sid Seixeiro * Gord Stellick * Anthony Stewart *

Dan Shulman Daniel Shulman is a Canadian sportscaster with Sportsnet as well as the American network ESPN. Shulman serves as a play-by-play announcer for select Toronto Blue Jays telecasts on Sportsnet and during 2018 and 2020 he hosted the baseball-t ...

(Blue Jays) * Eric Smith * Ben Wagner (Blue Jays) * Mike Zigomanis

Former

Sandy Annunziata Sandy Annunziata (born October 11, 1969) is a former offensive guard and Centre in the Canadian Football League. Football career Annunziata played four years at The University of Western Ontario (1989–1992), and was a member of their Vanier Cup ...

* Jack Armstrong *

Alan Ashby Alan Dean Ashby (born July 8, 1951) is an American former professional baseball catcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) and current radio and television sports commentator. A switch hitter, he played for the Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, ...

(Blue Jays) * Bill Berg * Howard Berger * Dean Blundell * Greg Brady *

* Don Cherry * Ken Daniels *

John Derringer John Derringer (born John Hayes on September 21, 1962) is a former Canadian radio personality. Though he worked in several markets in the 1980s and 90s, he's best known for his long association with CILQ-FM (Q107) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, init ...

* Dirk Hayhurst * Mike Hogan *

(Blue Jays) *

Jim Hunt James Baxter Hunt Jr. (born May 16, 1937) is an American politician and retired attorney who was the 69th and 71st Governor of North Carolina (1977–1985, and 1993–2001). He is the longest-serving governor in the state's history. Hunt is t ...

Rob Iarusci Robert Iarusci (born November 8, 1954) is a former star NASL player and member of the Canadian national soccer team. In 2012 as part of the Canadian Soccer Association's centennial celebration, he was named to the all-time Canada XI men's team. ...

Mike Inglis Mike Inglis is a Canadian sportscaster. He is the former radio play-by-play voice of the NBA's Miami Heat. Raised in Toronto, Ontario, Inglis is a graduate of Humber College. He began broadcasting in the early 1980s at CKAR in Oshawa, O ...

Peter Irvine Gloria Jean's Gourmet Coffee Pty Ltd is an American-Australian retail coffeehouse brand headquartered in Castle Hill, Sydney. The chain is owned by the multinational fast casual restaurant conglomerate Retail Food Group and has more than 1,400 ...

Spider Jones Charles "Spider" Jones (born April 20, 1946) is a Canadian journalist, author, and former amateur boxer. He is a former three-time Golden Glove Champion and was inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame in 1996. Born and raised in Winds ...

Jim Kelley James Thomas Kelley Jr. (October 26, 1949 – November 30, 2010) was a professional sports news columnist from South Buffalo. His 30-year career focused primarily on the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League, and the greater Buffal ...

* Andrew Krystal * Nick Kypreos *

Don Landry Don Landry (born ca. 1964) is a Canadian sports broadcaster who formerly hosted the Morning Show on The Fan 590 with Pat Marsden and then Gord Stellick. Landry, along with Stellick, were the brains behind Chacin Cologne. The cologne was named ...

* Jim Lang * Jeff Lumby *

Pat Marsden Patrick Francis Marsden (November 8, 1936 – April 27, 2006) was a Canadian sportscaster and voice of the Canadian Football League play-by-play coverage in the 1970s and 1980s. He also worked as host for the historic 1972 Canada-Soviet Union ho ...

* Doug MacLean *

Bob McCown Robert Alan "Bob" McCown (born in Columbus, Ohio) is an American-Canadian radio personality. He is best known as the long-time host of the Canadian sports talk show ''Prime Time Sports'' from its inception on October 2, 1989 to June 21, 2019. He n ...

* Daren Millard *

Jack Morris John Scott Morris (born May 16, 1955) is an American former professional baseball starting pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1977 and 1994, mainly for the Detroit Tigers. Morris won 254 games throughout his career. Armed ...

(Blue Jays) * Steve Paikin *

Dan Pollard Dan Pollard is a Canadian broadcaster from Uxbridge, Ontario. He first worked for CKLY, and later for TSN, CBC Sports, NHL Network, Sportsnet, and CILQ-FM CILQ-FM (107.1 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, known ...

* Elliott Price * Paul Rimstead * Jim Richards * Mike Richards * Greg Sansone * Chris Schultz * John Shannon *

James Sharman James Sharman (born 1974) is a writer and sportscaster at Homestand Sports focusing on soccer. He is also co-founder and host at Footy Prime the Podcast. James also frequently appears on Rogers Sportsnet and Sportsnet theFan 590. In 2019 he ...

* Joe Siddall (Blue Jays; moved to

television coverage) * Steve Simmons *

Chuck Swirsky Chuck Swirsky (born January 30, 1954) is an American–Canadian radio sports announcer. He is the play-by-play voice of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Swirsky's association with Chicago sports started in 1979 wi ...

* Mike Toth * John Wells *

Brian Williams Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American retired journalist and television news anchor. He was a reporter for '' NBC Nightly News'' starting in 1993, before his promotion to anchor and managing editor of the broadcast in 2004. ...

* Mike Wilner * Damien Cox * Ric Nattress * Mark Osborne * Elliott Price *

Bob Weeks Bob Weeks is a reporter and analyst for TSN, covering golf and curling. He was previously the editorial director of SCORE''Golf'' magazine. In addition, he served as host for SCORE''Golf'' TV. He was also the curling columnist for ''The Globe and ...

References

External links

* * *
"FAN 590 an experiment gone right" (Toronto Star article)

Fan 590 Toronto's YouTube channel
* {{Toronto Raptors Jcl Jcl Jcl Sport in Toronto Radio stations established in 1951 1951 establishments in Ontario Sportsnet