![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/99.5.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGraphic courtesy: Montreal Alouettes<\/p>\n
Fans wanting to listen to Montreal Alouettes games in French this season will have to turn their radio dials, as the franchise has found a new broadcast home.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the Alouettes unveiled that 99.5 Montreal will be their official French-language radio broadcaster, beginning with the preseason opener on May 22. The station, which is owned by Leclerc Communications, will carry every game throughout the 2026 season across the airwaves and on its mobile app.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very pleased to welcome a new partner into the Montreal Alouettes family. We remain confident that the Leclerc Communication group will help showcase our team across the province by giving it excellent visibility throughout Quebec,\u201d senior vice president, chief operations and financial officer Ren\u00e9 Masson said in a statement. \u201cUltimately, all of our football fans will be the real winners as they\u2019ll be able to get even more access to the team and players via this new deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alouettes games had been exclusively broadcast in French on 98.5 FM\u00a0since 2011, with that station long being viewed as the leader in the marketplace. Jean St-Onge called games last season, with former CFL defensive back J.P. Bolduc providing colour commentary. The play-by-play announcer and analyst for this year\u2019s broadcasts will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n
Since 2024, Leclerc Communications has had an agreement with Quebecor, the company of Alouettes owner Pierre Karl P\u00e9ladeau, to simulcast its Qub Radio talk programming on 99.5 Montreal from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays. The move prompted the station to lay off most of its on-air staff, though they continue to play rock music on evenings and weekends to comply with Canadian broadcasting rules.<\/p>\n
Quebecor was not able to purchase 99.5 Montreal outright because they already operate a newspaper and a TV station in the city, which would have constituted a violation of CRTC cross-media ownership regulations. However, the station is viewed as an extension of P\u00e9ladeau\u2019s media empire due to the partnership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very proud to partner with an organization as iconic as the Montreal Alouettes,\u201d Benoit Simard, 99.5 Montreal\u2018s general manager and programming director, said in a statement. \u201cThis partnership represents an important step in the development of our station and will allow us to offer our listeners sports coverage that is unifying, passionate, and deeply rooted in Montreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing of P\u00e9ladeau granting radio rights to one of his media affiliates is intriguing, as the CFL\u2019s television broadcast rights deal is set to expire following the 2026 season and a new agreement is expected to be announced in the near future<\/a>. The league\u2019s French-language rights are currently held by RDS, Bell Media\u2019s francophone sports network and the chief rival to Quebecor\u2019s TVA Sports channel. That has long fueled speculation that P\u00e9ladeau would like to acquire his team\u2019s TV rights for his own network<\/a>.<\/p>\n For now, the Alouettes\u2019 English radio broadcasts will continue to be aired on TSN 690 in Montreal, under the Bell Media umbrella.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t J.C. Abbott is a University of British Columbia graduate and high school football coach. He covers the CFL, B.C. Lions, CFL Draft and the three-down league’s Global initiative.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/R_P00221-150x150.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3DownNation-Wordmark-v3-3.svg\"\/)
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graphic courtesy: Montreal Alouettes Fans wanting to listen to Montreal Alouettes games in French this season will have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[166835,166836,247364,247365,50470,3179,49,48,7028,520,75,527,2002,2338,341,216539,126467,247366],"class_list":["post-671860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-98-5-fm","tag-99-5-montreal","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-cfl","tag-entertainment","tag-football","tag-league","tag-montreal","tag-music","tag-pierre-karl-peladeau","tag-quebecor","tag-radio-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}