CKAT is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 600 AM in North Bay,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. The station, owned by

Rogers Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties, such as the Citytv and Omni Television terrestrial television stations, Sportsne ...

, airs 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 ...

, news and

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

format.

History

The station originally launched in 1967 at 93.7 FM, and was acquired by Northern Broadcasting, the owners of CFCH. In 1979, CKAT adopted a

format and moved to 101.9 FM. In 1980, CKAT and CFCH were sold to

Telemedia Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CK ...

. In 1996, Telemedia swapped the stations in a move similar to its 1990 switch involving CKSO and

CIGM CIGM-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts in Sudbury, Ontario. The station airs a CHR/Top 40 format at 93.5 MHz on the FM dial with the branding ''Hot 93.5''. The station is owned and operated by Stingray Group. History The st ...

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...

. CKAT took over CFCH's AM frequency, and CFCH moved to the FM station and adopted the new callsign CKFX. In 2002, Telemedia sold the stations to

Standard Broadcasting Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

, who shortly sold them to Rogers. In fall 2005, CKAT and CIGM underwent a format change, with country music cut back (although not entirely eliminated) in favour of increased news and sports programming. Since the change, both stations used the following slogans such as "Today's Country", "News Leader" and "Sports Leader". The station's general manager is Peter McKeown, a former morning man for many years on CHUR and CKAT. In 2009, CKAT's sister station

in Sudbury (under the ownership of Rogers Media) was acquired by

Newcap Radio Stingray Radio (formerly Newcap Radio) is a Canadian radio broadcasting conglomerate owned by Stingray Group. It owns and operates 101 radio stations in Canada—making it the second-largest radio conglomerate in Canada behind Bell Media. It also ...

and then converted the station to the FM dial. CKAT is currently one of the last high-powered commercial AM radio stations operating in Northern Ontario. On July 2, 2013, at 3:00 pm, Rogers dropped the ''AM 600 CKAT'' branding with slogan "North Bay's News Leader/Today's Country" and rebranded CKAT as ''Country 600''.Radio Insight: "Rogers Launches Canadian Country Brand"
July 3, 2013. On June 15, 2021,

Vista Radio Vista Radio Ltd. (also formerly known as Vista Broadcast Group) is a Canadian radio broadcasting company. The company only owned stations in British Columbia until 2007, when it expanded outside the province by acquiring an existing station in Ye ...

, an unrelated company to CKAT launched a new FM radio station with the return of the heritage CFCH call sign in North Bay airing a country music format as ''Country 90.5''. The launch of the new CFCH-FM makes it the second country music radio station in the North Bay market with a similar branding to Rogers' CKAT ''Country 600''. Its currently unknown if any future format changes will occur on CKAT.

Former logos

File:CKAT AM.png, Previous 600 CKAT logo used until 2013 File:600_ckat.svg, Alternate logo

References

External links

600 CKAT
Providing historical information on North Bay radio and television. * * Kat Kat Kat Radio stations established in 1967 1967 establishments in Ontario {{Ontario-radio-station-stub