CHLO (AM)


CHLO is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 530 AM in Brampton, Ontario. The station, owned by Evanov Radio Group, broadcasts a multilingual programming format. CHLO's studios are located on Dundas Street West in the Eatonville neighbourhood of Toronto, while its transmitter is located near Hornby.
The station is one of only a few commercial radio stations in North America broadcasting on 530 kHz.

History

The station was launched in 1953 as 1090 AM CFJB, a daytimer owned by broadcaster Fen Job. Job was killed in a car crash in 1956, and the station was sold by his estate to CHIC Ltd. in 1959, adopting the new callsign CHIC the following year. As of 1960, Alekos Columbos hosted a 90-minute Greek radio show on Saturdays and Klaas Mulenar preached in Dutch on Sundays. In 1961, the owners also launched CHIC-FM on 102.1.
In 1964, CHIC became a full-time broadcaster, moving to 790 AM. From 1966 to 1969, it operated as an "all-girl" format using the slogan "CHIC - Where The Girls Are" in which only female announcers appeared as deejays. Regular newscasts and some other features continued to be voiced by men. The format was abandoned in 1970.
In 1977, CHIC-FM adopted the new callsign CFNY-FM.
In 1979, the stations' owner went into receivership. The stations were subsequently acquired by Civitas Corp., the owner of CJMS in Montreal. Civitas became Mutual Communications in 1980, and CHIC adopted the new callsign CKMW. Mutual subsequently sold CKMW to Patrick Hurley, who incorporated as CKMW Radio Ltd., in 1983; CFNY was sold to Selkirk Communications.
As CKMW, the AM station adopted its current multilingual format, and ownership of CKMW Radio was transferred to Evanov in 1985.
The station adopted the new callsign CIAO in 1987, and moved to its current frequency in 1991 after CJFT in Fort Erie converted to the FM band. It retained the CIAO call sign until January 2019, when it adopted its current call sign.

Programming

CHLO's programming is primarily South Asian with some Bosnian, Bulgarian, Caribbean, Croatian, Filipino, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Somali, Spanish and Ukrainian programming in the evenings and on weekends.