CHIN (AM)
CHIN is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts multilingual programming at 1540 AM in Toronto, Ontario. It is a Class B station broadcasting on a clear-channel shared by The U.S. and The Bahamas. It is owned by CHIN Radio/TV International, and also has an FM rebroadcaster at 91.9 to fill in reception gaps in parts of the Toronto area. This should not be confused with CHIN-FM, which offers a distinct program schedule. CHIN's studios are located on College Street in the Palmerston-Little Italy neighbourhood of Toronto, while its AM transmitters are located on Lakeshore Avenue on the Toronto Islands, and the FM rebroadcaster is located atop an apartment tower complex near Bathurst and Sheppard in Toronto's Clanton Park neighbourhood.
The station, one of Canada's first multilingual broadcast outlets along with Montreal's CFMB, was launched in 1966 by Toronto broadcaster Johnny Lombardi. CHIN-FM was launched the following year, and a second FM signal acting as the AM station's FM rebroadcaster was added in 1997 with the call letters CHIN-1-FM.
On April 17, 2003, Radio 1540 Ltd. was given approval to change the frequency of CHIN-1-FM Toronto from 101.3 MHz to 91.9 MHz and to increase the effective radiated power from 22 to 35 watts.
CHIN's lineup consists primarily of Chinese and Italian programming in the mornings and Tamil programming in the evenings and overnight. It also airs Albanian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Irish, Jewish, Russian, Somali and Ukrainian programming on Saturdays and Sundays.
On January 14, 2011, CHIN received approval to increase the effective radiated power for the CHIN-FM-1 91.9 FM transmitter from 161 to 1,850 watts.
On February 10, 2016, CHIN dropped the simulcast of China Radio International in the evening and overnight hours and replaced it with dance music-formatted programming originating from internet broadcaster "DJFM Toronto".
On November 28, 2016, Radio 1540 Limited applied to operate a separate originating FM station under CHIN-1-FM's current technical parameters, specifically, at frequency 91.9 MHz with an average effective radiated power of 1,850 watts.
The CRTC approved Radio 1540 Ltd. application on May 5, 2017.
