Early years In 1923, the station was originally launched by the electrical store Hume and Rumble as experimental station
CFXC. It broadcast on 440
metres with a power of 10
watts. It switched to the frequency of 1030
kilocycles in 1925. The following year, the station was acquired by
George Chandler. Under Canadian broadcast policy at the time, CFXC was shut down. A new license was issued to Chandler for
CJOR. The station subsequently increased power to 50 watts in 1928 and shared time with
CNRV, then moved its frequency to 1210 AM and the studios relocated to 840 Howe Street (with another boost in power to 500 watts) in 1930, and then to 600 in 1933. CJOR increased its transmission power to 1,000 watts in 1941, moving its transmitter site to
Lulu Island. (After the station switched to FM in 2008,
CISL moved to the Lulu Island location, making it the oldest broadcasting site in the Vancouver
radio market in continuous operation.)
CBC Dominion Network In 1944, CJOR became the Vancouver
network affiliate of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC)
Dominion Network. It increased power again in 1947, this time to 5,000 watts, using two 280-foot towers at a site in
Richmond. That same year, Chandler established "CJOR Ltd." to run the station. In 1961, CJOR further increased power to 10,000 watts, using a three
tower array. It became an independent station the following year after CBC ceased the Dominion Network's operations.
New ownership Following George Chandler's death in 1964, the
Jim Pattison Group acquired the station the following year. The
Board of Broadcast Governors (predecessor of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC) had decided not to allow the station parent CJOR Ltd. to renew the license. CJOR Ltd. was then owned by Chandler's widow Marie. The Board of Governors requested that a new buyer for CJOR be found. By the 1970s, the station shifted its focus away from music to
talk radio, with such colourful and opinionated personalities as
Jack Webster,
Pat Burns, and eventually, former British Columbia premier
Dave Barrett. On October 31, 1983, with the pending demolition of the Grosvenor Hotel on Howe Street, CJOR relocated from the hotel's basement to its present studios at 1401 West 8th Avenue. On September 2, 1988, at noon, CJOR dropped its
talk radio format, flipping to
classic rock under new call letters
CHRX. The first song was
Bob Seger's "
Old Time Rock & Roll". (The former
CJOR call sign currently belongs to a radio station in
Osoyoos.) The station was very popular during the late 1980s, but started experiencing declining ratings by the early 1990s.
Sports and Christian programming To remedy the ratings loss, in 1993, the station added
sports talk shows to its programming. However, this did not boost the ratings. On January 7, 1994, at 6 p.m., after signing off with
Led Zeppelin's "
Stairway to Heaven", the station began
stunting with the sound of ocean waves. On January 9, at noon, it switched formats and call signs again, becoming
CKBD with the on-air brand
The Bridge as Canada's first
Contemporary Christian music station. The first song on "The Bridge" was "
Awesome God" by
Rich Mullins. On July 31, 1998, the station changed to an
adult standards format as
600 AM with the slogan "Unforgettable Adult Favourites".
Switch to FM, The Peak On May 30, 2008, CKBD was given approval by the CRTC to move to 100.5
MHz on the FM dial. As part of its move to FM, CKBD planned to switch from adult standards to
adult album alternative (AAA) with a new call sign,
CKPK-FM. On October 23, 2008, the FM station
signed on for testing. The transmitter on 600 AM was shut down on November 13, 2008. The last program was a 25-minute summary of the station's 84-year history on the AM band, followed by "
Thanks for the Memory" by
Bob Hope.
Astral Media's
CISL had flipped from
oldies to adult standards just days before to take advantage of the move. At 7:20 that same evening, at a live party at the Seasons in the Park restaurant, "100.5 The Peak" launched with
U2's "
Elevation." CKPK-FM received a new competitor on
Canada Day,
2009, when CHHR-FM began airing a
AAA format. CHHR (now
CHLG-FM) would change formats to
classic hits on June 20, 2014.
Move to 102.7 On December 9, 2010, the Jim Pattison Group applied to exchange frequencies with
non-commercial community radio station
CFRO-FM, which then operated at 102.7 MHz. The application was approved on September 9, 2011. The swap took place almost a year later on September 10, 2012. During the summer of 2015, CKPK began evolving towards a more
modern rock format. Eventually, CKPK began reporting on the
Mediabase Canadian
alternative rock panel.
Now! Radio On July 22, 2022, it was announced that CKPK would drop its rock format on July 25, with its existing
Peak format and programming moving to an
HD Radio sub-channel and
internet radio.
Radio Insight reported that Pattison had bought several
domain names branded as
Now! Radio for the station—implicating a
hot adult contemporary "social radio" format modelled after sister stations
CKNO-FM in Edmonton,
CHNW-FM in Winnipeg, and
CKCE-FM in Calgary (which uses a similar positioning as
Today Radio) with a focus on topical discussions and listener interactions. The launch of "Now! Radio" officially occurred at 1:02 p.m. on July 25. The flip came nearly a month after Rogers'
CKKS-FM had flipped from hot AC to modern rock on June 30. In January 2023, CKPK laid off
The Peak's on-air personalities; the company cited low adoption of HD Radio by local listeners as its reasoning for the cutbacks.
Return to The Peak On June 7, 2024, at midnight, almost two years after the flip to
Now! Radio, Pattison dropped the format and returned to CKPK's previous
Peak branding and modern rock format. The station's two remaining live personalities under
Now!—Jaclyn Tatay and Brayden Mack—retained their morning and afternoon shows respectively. Program director Russell James credited the "impressively dedicated" audience that CKPK's
Peak digital stream retained as an impetus for the decision. ==Past station logos==