CHUM AM is a Canadian radio station licensed to Toronto, Ontario. Broadcasting at 1050 on the AM dial, it was a legendary Top 40 powerhouse between the late 1950s and 1970s. It currently airs an oldies format.
CHUM was launched as a dawn to dusk radio station on October 28, 1945 by Jack Q’Part, an entrepreneur in the business of patent medicines. The station was taken over in December 1954 by Allan Waters, a salesman from the patent medicine business. On May 27, 1957, he switched to a Top 40 format that had proven itself popular in some United States cities. Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” was the first song played.
The station pioneered rock ‘n’ roll radio in Toronto and hosted the 1957 Elvis Presley and the 1964, 1965, and 1966 Beatles concerts. By the mid-1980s, CHUM was losing ratings to Top 40 competitor CFTR AM and FM-based music stations. In 1986, CHUM dropped its Top 40 format for an adult contemporary format. By 1989, it adopted an oldies format. In 1999, CHUM obtained the radio broadcast rights to Toronto Blue Jays baseball games marking a shift towards sports programming.
In 2001, CHUM went completely sports-oriented but this did not prove successful because of strong competition from long-time sports station CJCL. In 2002, the station returned back to an oldies format.
