CKAC was officially launched on October 2, 1922, under the ownership of the local newspaper "La Presse", as the first ever Francophone radio station in North America. CKAC had historically been a dominant station in its early years, with its listenership fuelled by popular programming such as a Sunday church broadcast, news coverage, as well as its broadcast rights to the Montreal Expos of Major League Baseball. In 1968, the station and "La Presse" was acquired by the Power Corporation of Canada, and CKAC was in turn sold to Telemedia the following year, becoming the flagship of a provincial network of stations.