CJRS

CJRS, branded as Radio Shalom Montreal, is a 24-hour non-profit radio station based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is Canada’s first and only trilingual Jewish radio station. Radio Shalom is also the only all Jewish radio station in North America. It broadcasts in French, English and Hebrew. The station broadcasts at 1650 AM. Its current president is Robert Levy.

Radio Shalom is the only radio station in Canada that broadcasts mizrahi, Yiddish, ladino, klezmer, hassidic and Israeli music. It also has news and talk shows such as the weekly Sunday evening program, 'The Howie Silbiger Show', which includes a live call-in segment. Other shows include those produced by Alexandre Fredeau, and long-time 'Montreal Jewish Magazine' host Stanley Asher.

Call sign

The station's call letters of CJRS are said to represent the station's branding of Radio Shalom. A common interpretation is that they actually stand for "Canadian Jewish Radio Station" or "Radio Shalom," and station executives have suggested that they, in fact, may. The fact that CJRS and Radio Shalom share similar initials of RS is purely coincidental.

CJRS (defunct)

CJRS was a radio station which operated at 1510 kHz on the AM band in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

History

The station was founded in 1965 by A. Raymond Crepault, owner of CJMS Montreal. CJRS (the "RS" stood for Radio Sherbrooke) commenced broadcasting in August 1967. Its broadcast parameters are currently unknown, though its coverage was restricted at night to protect Class-A clear-channel station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee.

Over the years, the station went through different formats, owners and technical upgrades.

In 1991, CJRS applied to the CRTC for permission to discontinue local programming in favour of carrying only programming produced for the parent Radiomutuel network, or programs originating from CJMS through December 1992. In 1993, the CRTC approved an extension of this arrangement through August 31, 1995; however, as it no longer produced local programming, CJRS was banned from selling advertising in the Sherbrooke area.

Closure

On September 30, 1994, Telemedia and Radiomutuel merged their AM operations because they could no longer afford to compete with each other. As a result, they closed CJRS, alsong with CJMS Montreal, CJRP Quebec City, CJMT Chicoutimi, CJTR Trois-Rivieres and CKCH Hull. All six stations left the air on this date and the licenses were turned in to the CRTC, which revoked the licences on November 2, 1994.