The station first signed on April 15, 1958; the station was the very first broadcasting property owned by Cogeco, which was founded in Trois-Rivières the previous year.
Until June 2008, the station was owned by Cogeco and was a twinstick with the TQS O&O CFKM-TV. As a privately owned station, CKTM effectively functioned as a semi-satellite of CBFT in Montreal due to a lack of non-network sources of programming. The station had been owned directly by Cogeco prior to the latter's majority acquisition of TQS, to which Cogeco contributed its existing local stations. Radio-Canada took editorial control of the station's news programming in 2002, although it continued to share a studio with CFKM.
In September 2007, Radio-Canada announced that it would not renew its affiliation agreement with its three Cogeco-owned affiliates — CKTM, CKTV-TV in Saguenay and CKSH-TV in Sherbrooke — after their then-current agreement expired in August 2008. An application to directly acquire the stations was filed by Radio-Canada on April 25, 2008, concurrently with Cogeco's proposed sale of TQS to Remstar Corporation.[1] The transaction was approved by the CRTC on June 26, 2008.[2]
Radio-Canada relocated all its radio and television facilities in the region into an integrated production centre,[3] which opened on March 22, 2010, in Trois-Rivières. Radio-Canada intends on increasing its local programming output on its radio and television stations in the region.[4]
