’s Highest Quality Music).  Stark was an executive in mills and steel products.

Bill Bellman

CHQM signed on at 5 p.m. December 10 at 1320 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts.  Phil Moore's "Misty Moon" was used as the opening theme.  The station made use of full AM bandwidth for maximum fidelity sound.  Studios and offices were located at 1134 Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver.   The promise was that CHQM would be unlike any other radio station in Canada, offering good music, a minimum of talk and a unique commercial policy.  It was reasoned that such an approach would attract a large and loyal audience.  Programs were presented by name and included Q on the Aisle, Carousel, Candlelight & Wine, Starlight Concert, Gaslight and Bill Bellman’s own 6 p.m. editorial entitled Perspective.  Most of the on-air staff had resonant, authoritative voices.

1960
Sister station CHQM-FM began operations on August 10, operating at 103.5 MHz and initially simulcast the AM signal.

1962
On September 1 CHQM AM & FM moved from a 19 hour broadcast day to a 24 hour a day operation.

1966
 In November, approval was given for CHQM to increase power to 50,000 watts full-time, using four 184 foot towers from a transmitter site on Lulu Island, south of Vancouver.

1969
On August 23, the corporate name changed to Q Broadcasting Ltd.

1979
John E. Stark became president as well as chairman of Q Broadcasting. He would manage the day-to-day operations, having assumed complete control. Co-founder Bill Bellman moved on to become a major shareholder in Vancouver's CKVU-TV.

1984
In September, CHQM adopted the “Music of Your Life” format from 6 p.m. to midnight, but continued playing beautiful music throughout the rest of the broadcast day.

1988
Approval was given for a change in CHQM's directional antenna system.

1990
On January 1, CHQM switched from easy listening to a light rock format identifying as “Lite 1320”, with music by artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, the Beatles, Lionel Richie and Phil Collins.

CHUM Ltd. announced plans to purchase CHQM-FM and the Q Music division from Q Broadcasting. CHUM had been trying for years to get and FM station in Vancouver. The company had unsuccessfully applied three times for an FM licence to complement CFUN-AM. Q Music would provide an entry into B.C. for the CHUM Satellite Business Music Network. The deal also included CHQM-AM.

On October 17, CHUM Limited of Toronto was given approval to purchase CHQM and CHQM-FM Vancouver from Q Broadcasting Ltd. Because a company could only own one AM and/or one FM station in the same market and in the same language, CHUM was directed to sell CHQM-AM to a third party as the company already owned CFUN-AM in the city. Q Broadcasting Ltd., was owned by John E. Stark and other shareholders long involved in the broadcasting industry in Vancouver and elsewhere in British Columbia. Mr. Stark and his partners decided to divest themselves of their broadcast holdings, essentially for estate planning purposes.

1991
On February 20, CHQM dropped its "Lite 1320" format for 1930s to 60s "Memory Music".

In July, an agreement between CHUM and CRBC Communications for the purchase of CHQM-AM collapsed when CRBC's financing fell apart.

1991-92
The CRTC threatened to pull the licence for CHQM-AM. The licence was renewed for only one year. The Commission was concerned about the delay in the sale of the station by CHUM. The CRTC said it would not view favourably an application for a further extension.

1993
On January 23 the station began contracting out it's late night programming from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday to Saturday nights to Canadian Chinese Radio.  Three weeks later, ethnic programming started at 9 p.m.

CHUM Limited announced that it finally found a buyer for CHQM-AM. The station would be sold to a group of local investors. CHUM would retain CFUN-AM and CHQM-FM.
 
On December 14, the CRTC approved the sale of CHQM-AM by CHUM Ltd. to a company 80% owned by James Ho.  Other shareholders were Chinese Commercial Radio (Canada) Ltd., popularly known as Overseas Chinese Voice (10%), Wayne Lee (5%) and George Feng (5%). Chinese Commercial Radio was owned by Hanson Lau and Agnes Hoi-Yin Yau.

1994
On Chinese New Year’s Eve, February 9 at 9 p.m., after 34 years of nostalgic and easy listening music, CHQM signed off the air with Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the Memories” and was replaced moments later by CHMB with an all-night Chinese program.  It’s new multilingual format, under the new ownership, continued for about 7 months before becoming all Chinese Monday-Friday.  Twelve other languages including Portuguese, Brazilian, Filipino, Greek, Japanese, Tamil, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish were added to weekend programming.

1997
Program director Dave Geddes left CHQM when it became CHMB. He joined CKST as PD and morning host.

2001
On October 30, CHQM co-founder Jack Stark died at the age of 83.  He was posthumously inducted into the CAB Broadcast Hall of Fame in 2003.

                         Written by Bill Dulmage, Gord Lansdell - Updated August, 2009