CKWX

CKWX was uncerimoniously shut down without any warning or notice on July 7, 2026 after a century of continuous operations with the same call letters. This station had been operating for so long that not only did my grandparents have fond memories of it, but my parents as well. After it converted from music to an all-news format and became News1130 in 1996, CKWX was something that I listened to frequently for updates about news, weather, sports, and of course the dreaded Vancouver traffic.

Often forgotten is that CKWX was a clear-channel station, meaning it could sometimes be heard as far away as Alberta, Alaska, or Russia. By returning the CKWX call letters to the CRTC, Rogers was not only ending an era of Vancouver broadcasting, but international broadcasting as well.

There are plenty of other sites out there that have extensive information about CKWX’s history, so I won’t get into that here. Instead, I’d like to focus on the impressive precision of operations at the station while it was News1130. Operating a live 24-hour newsroom wasn’t easy nor cheap, and the fact that Vancouver had such a thing is remarkable.

News1130 would automatically broadcast a tone marking the start of a news cycle at the exact second of the top and bottom of each hour in a manner similar to time-keeping stations such as WWV and WWVH. This tone wasn’t there for listeners to set the time, it was a public schedule-keeping marker for the staff to follow.

The tone would play over whatever happened to be on the air at the top or bottom of the hour (be it an ad, special report, live speech, etc), meaning that if the newscast was behind schedule, everyone (including the listeners) would know. That simple tone marked a commitment to professionalism, accountability, and broadcasting precision.

Top of hour newscast, inclusive of TOH tone and call letters, October 29, 2002 7:00am.

On the rare case that the schedule did get out of whack by a few minutes, it was fascinating to listen to the out of sync tone, followed by the staff’s efforts to catch the schedule back up in time for the next tone. The fact that this was all done live while the public listened was impressive stuff: you could hear as bits and pieces of the newscast were shortened, skipped, or read faster as the staff raced to get the schedule caught back up.

Bottom of hour newscast, inclusive of BOH tone, September 27, 2002 8:30am.

The anchor announcing the time a fraction of a second before the tone isn’t coincidence; CKWX anchors were skilled in timing their cadence around that tone. If he was off beat for even a half second longer, the tone would’ve played right overtop him.

At some point late in the station’s life, the tone was eliminated:

The final broadcast of CKWX July 7, 2026 9:00am. Note the lack of TOH or BOH tone. Final signoff happens at 1:16:00 (10:16am).

Just like that, without any ceremony or fanfare, a public service and part of that “Vancouver flavour” is now gone. It’s true that AM radio is dying a slow, unprofitable death, and that running a 24-hour newsroom is perhaps one of the most expensive radio formats to operate. But this was a real service that real people in Vancouver relied on. Its shortwave re-broadcasts and status as a clear-channel station ensured untold numbers around the world could receive news broadcasts wherever they were. The fact that the call letters operated for a century is just icing on the soon to be forgotten cake.

When CKWX started broadcasting for the first time in the 1920’s, it was likely played in Vancouver’s hotels, taverns, and legion halls, full of veterans from Passchendaele or Vimy. It directly reported on the events of World War II, 9/11, and COVID-19.

Of course, once you remember that the decision to shut the station down was made by the same company that managed to take its entire ASN offline all at once, things start to make a little more sense.