Owned and operated by the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it broadcasts on 88.5 MHz using a directional antenna with an average effective radiated power of 11,510 watts and a peak effective radiated power of 25,000 watts (class B) from a transmitter atop Mount Royal.
The station has a commercial-free news/talk format and is part of the CBC Radio One network which operates across Canada.
Some local shows and newscasts produced at CBME-FM are also heard on a chain of stations across Quebec.
Its studios and offices, along with those of sister stations CBM-FM, CBF-FM and CBFX-FM are located at the Nouvelle Maison de Radio-Canada at 1000 Papineau Avenue.
Because of deficiencies with the main FM signal which did not exist when the station was on AM, CBME-FM added FM rebroadcasting transmitters with directional antennas in the western part of Montreal (98 watts, from the corner of Cavendish and Sherbrooke Streets in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce) and in Cowansville (2,700 watts).