I've been hearing radio go downhill for the past 40 years. The golden age for AM radio was probably prior to the 1950s. That was when TV replaced the radio as a popular broadcast entertainment medium. FM became a good alternative in the 1960s and 1970s due to it's existence as a non-profit sideline. Once FM became more popular and the stations turned into AM top 40 clones, it declined as well. During the 1970s the corporate owned network started to overtake the industry. Corporate ownership intensified in the following decades and has accelerated since the 1990s. That made radio significantly worse as staff and budgets were slashed due to declining revenues, and programming was homogenized and changed to catered to the lowest common denominator.
CKOT was one of the few remaining independently owned radio stations in Southern Ontario. It was launched in 1965 as an FM station that was on the air from 6pm to midnight. For a brief time it was simulcast on AM. The AM station was only allowed to operate during daylight hours and remained that way until 2013. CKOT was operated by the original local owners from 1965 until 2016 when it was sold to Rogers. It's demise is complete now that its local staff has been slashed and its programming replaced by corporate remote sweatshop programming. RIP CKOT.