CKCK (Radio station : Regina, Sask.) : CKCK went on the air for the first time on 19 July 1922. It was established by the Leader Publishing Co. Ltd. which produced the Morning Leader newspaper. The company later acquired The (evening) Post and has since been known as The Leader-Post. The paper and the station were bought in 1927 by the Sifton group (later Armadale Communications) whose President, Clifford Sifton (1893 - 1976) was named to the CAB Hall of Fame in 1986. The first employee was engineer-operator-program director-announcer Bert Hooper (CAB Hall of Fame - 1985). He was joined in 1929 by another pioneer Horace Stovin who got his start in 1923 as the owner of 10AT in Unity Saskatchewan. Until 1937, CKCK's transmitter was located with the studios in the Leader Building, utilizing a horizontal antenna attached to two steel towers atop the (two) Leader buildings on Hamilton Street. Like all pioneer radio stations, it provided only a part-time service, and operated at varied hours throughout the week. All costs were sustained by the newspaper company for several years. No advertising was sought or accepted, and the station's policy was to provide entertainment and information - educational features, news, market reports, time signals and matters of general interest. In due course, CKCK's operating schedule was coordinated with that of Regina's second station - CHWC - which came on the air in 1926 using the same frequency. In 1936, CHWC was bought by The Leader-Post and closed down. At the same time, a management contract was negotiated by Harold Carson on behalf of All-Canada Mutually Operated Stations, and CKCK began providing service 18 hours a day. A one-thousand watt transmitter at Boggy Creek was built in 1937. It used a self-supported, 3-legged wodden tower. CKCK had many power changes since the 1930s, going to 5,000 watts in the 1940s and 10,000 watts in the 1950s. By a rare circumstance, the low frequency (620 Kcs), the vast open prairie topography and exceptional ground conductivity, CKCK was able to live up to its slogan "serving the great prairie west". Indeed, CKCK achieved weekly listenership of over a third of a million people in the later 1950s, in all three provinces. Both CKCK and its FM counterpart, CKIT-FM were sold to Western World Broadcasters in 1990. Then in 1994, both stations were acquired by the Craig family of Brandon, Manitoba. Potts, Lyman and Bob Macdonald. "Radio 1922 CKCK Regina, Saskatchewan: Station History." Rogers Communications Centre web-site. April 1996. 1 Feb. 2002. . 1233
