CILQ-FM

CILQ signed on the air at 9 a.m. on May 22, 1977. The first song played on the station was "Hard Rock Town" by Murray McLauchlan, although the station officially signed on with Deodato's "Also sprach Zarathustra".[4]

CILQ debuted with an album rock format, part of the numerous "Superstars" formatted stations developed by Lee Abrams in the US, one in each major radio market. Roughly 1,000 songs revolved in a playlist in a revolving card category system based on media sales data. Platinum albums were category B1 or B2. Golden oldies were D1 or D2. Canadian content was another. Most of the music library was locked in the back and not accessible to anyone except the music director and his assistant. Announcers would pull albums from a shelf in the control room limited to about 1,000.

Q107 Classic rock logo

The original lineup for announcers was John Rode in mornings, Murray Smith in late mornings, Program Director Dave Charles in early afternoons, John Donabie in afternoon drive, Mary-Ann Carpentier in evenings and Scott Marwood in nights. At 2 am, Marwood featured "Odds & Ends" a full album played in its entirety from his personal collection.

CILQ's original owner was CFGM Broadcasting, a division of J. Allan Slaight's Slaight Communications. The station was acquired by Western International Communications in 1985 when Slaight bought Standard Broadcasting, and became part of Corus Entertainment in 2000 when WIC's assets were divided between Corus and Canwest Global.

Although ostensibly in a mainstream rock format as of 1996, CILQ reconverted to a classic rock format on September 1, 2000. On April 7, 2014, the station switched back to a mainstream rock format and adopted a new slogan: "Toronto's Rock Station".[5] Since 2015, Q107 has been adding more pop music to their playlist, and although classic rock still makes up a good portion of their playlist, the station has more of a classic hits feel to it. As of 2016, CILQ had dropped the "rock" reference from their slogan and began billing itself as "Great Hits & Real Classics". As of September 24, 2018, the station returned to playing mainstream rock and reintroduced the "Toronto’s Rock Station" slogan.

Notable personalities associated with the station have included: Byrd (now with WDRV Chicago), John Donabie, the duo of Jesse Dylan and Gene Valaitis, Scruff Connors, Joey Vendetta, Brother Jake Edwards, Jane Hawtin, Earl McCrae, John Derringer, Bill Carroll, Maureen Holloway, Andy Frost, Bob "Iceman" Segarini, Lee "Beef" Eckley, Rory O'Shea, Jonny "Gonzo" Mark, Joanne Wilder, Howard "The Hungryman" Cogan, Steve Anthony, Dusty Shannon, Alice Cooper, legendary Canadian rocker Kim Mitchell, with Al Joynes and Jennifer Valentyne. In September 1997, CILQ (along with CHOM-FM in Montreal) became the first Canadian radio stations to air The Howard Stern Show, syndicated from New York City. Stern was taken off Q107 in November 2001.

Jeff Woods hosts a show called Records and Rockstars to give listeners the background stories to some of their favourite music.

On August 10, 2005, the station sparked controversy when it aired a recording of a Rolling Stones concert from 2002. The Stones were appearing in concert in Toronto the same evening, and many listeners had interpreted advance promotion for the broadcast as implying that CILQ would in fact be airing live from that evening's concert. Although he denied that the station intended to give that impression, station manager JJ Johnston apologized to listeners two days later.[6]

In early 2009, the station introduced Nights with Alice Cooper, airing from 9pm to 2am on Saturday nights.

• Q107
• CILQ-FM history – Canadian Communications Foundation
• CILQ-FM in the REC Canadian station database