CHQM-FM signed on the air on August 10,
1960 with a mainly instrumental
easy listening format, several months after its original
AM sister station, CHQM (whose programming CHQM-FM mainly simulcast), first went on-air on December 7, 1959. The original owner of CHQM-AM and -FM was Vancouver Broadcast Associates Ltd., headed by Bill Bellman and Jack Stark, with the stations' studios and offices, then located on 1134
Burrard Street. On November 4, 1961, CHQM-FM began broadcasting in stereo, and was authorized by the
Board of Broadcast Governors (predecessor of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to increase its transmission power from 18,950 watts to 100,000 in 1963. The transmitter site was moved from Grouse Mountain to Mount Seymour at this time. CHQM-FM was the second private radio station in Canada to transmit in stereo (after
CFRB-FM/
Toronto), and it was the first in the nation to transmit an SCMO subcarrier ("Q Music"). This subcarrier was used to transmit background music to stores and businesses throughout the Lower Mainland, and it helped support the FM station during the difficult first two decades when FM audiences were small. Parent company Vancouver Broadcast Associates changed its corporate name to Q Broadcasting Ltd. on August 23, 1969. The two owners had a dispute, and each struggled to control Q Broadcasting through the mid-1970s. In 1979, Stark assumed complete control of the company. Bellman moved on to become a major shareholder in fledgling
CKVU-DT, also in Vancouver.
CHUM Limited acquired CHQM-AM and -FM on October 17, 1990, on condition from the CRTC that CHUM sell either CHQM-AM or its other
Vancouver AM station,
CFUN (regulations of the time allowed media companies to own only one AM and one FM station in a particular market in
Canada); CHQM-AM was sold, while the FM made a gradual switch from its longtime
beautiful music format to its current format over a six-month period between March and September of
1992, giving Vancouver two
adult contemporary stations (the other being CKKS, now
CJAX-FM). On July 12, 2006, CTVglobemedia announced it would acquire CHUM Limited, which includes CHQM-FM. The transaction was approved by the CRTC (on condition that CKVU, which had also been acquired by CHUM in 2001, be sold to
Rogers Communications) on June 8, 2007, and CHQM-FM became a CTVglobemedia station on June 22. CTVglobemedia became
Bell Media in 2011. On December 27, 2020, as part of a mass format reorganization by
Bell Media, CHQM rebranded as
Move 103.5, ending 60 years of the "QM FM" branding. While the station would run jockless for the first week of the format, on-air staff would return on January 4, 2021. ==HD Radio==