CJMX-FM

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CJMX-FM
City of license Sudbury, Ontario
Branding KiSS 105.3
Slogan Today's Best Music
Frequency 105.3 MHz (FM)
First air date 1980
Format Hot AC[1]
ERP 100,000 watts
HAAT 285 meters (935 ft)
Class C
Owner Rogers Media, a division of Rogers Communications
(Rogers Radio)
Sister stations CJRQ-FM
Website www.kisssudbury.com

CJMX-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts a hot adult contemporary format at 105.3 FM in Sudbury, Ontario. The station uses the on-air brand KiSS 105.3. The station is owned by Rogers Communications.

History

CJMX was established in 1980 by F. Baxter Ricard and Alma Ricard, the owners of Sudbury's CHNO and CFBR. The stations became part of Mid-Canada Radio in 1985, and were then sold to the Pelmorex Radio Network in 1990.[2] Pelmorex's ownership of the stations was controversial, as most of their programming was delivered by satellite from a facility in Mississauga. Under Pelmorex's ownership, the station was branded as Mix 105, and aired a more hot adult contemporary format.

After a change in CRTC media ownership rules, Pelmorex sold CJMX to Telemedia, the owner of CJRQ and CIGM, in 1998.[3] In late April 1999, shortly after the Telemedia purchase was finalized, CJMX dropped its hot adult contemporary format in favour of a soft adult contemporary format with the EZ Rock branding. Prior to the change to EZ Rock, CJMX aired the syndicated countdown show Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 from June 1998, until its last airing on February 13, 1999. Pelmorex subsequently sold its other stations in Sudbury to Haliburton Broadcasting Group.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, CJMX overtook former ratings leader CJRQ in the market, based in part on actively promoting itself as a station suitable for workplace listening. In 2006, however, it lost that status to a resurgent CHNO after the latter station flipped to an adult hits format.

Telemedia was acquired by Standard Broadcasting in 2002, but Standard sold the EZ Rock stations in Northern Ontario to Rogers before the main acquisition had closed and received regulatory approval.[4]

Under Rogers ownership in 2002, the station laid off several employees, including Dave Lindsay, afternoon drive time disc jockey and president of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 725-M, which represented staff at CJMX and CHNO.[5] Lindsay was replaced in the shift by program director Mike Allard. It was alleged in the press that Lindsay may have been targeted as a union leader, and the layoff was contested; eventually, Lindsay returned to the afternoon shift.

In late October 2004, a fire damaged a transmission line at the transmitter that knocked CJMX off the air for 25 hours. A replacement antenna was brought in from Thunder Bay to get the station back on the air. The station went back to its regular 100 kW power months after the fire.[6]

In 2009, CJMX's sister station CIGM was sold to Newcap Broadcasting, then moved to the FM dial in August that same year.

In July 2011, the station altered its musical format to present a more contemporary version of its AC Mainstream Plus blend. With this shift, the station cancelled The 80's Lunch program and Sunday at the 70's. Solid Gold Saturday Night was replaced by The Saturday Night Show, a program featuring music from the 70s to present. Scott Turnbull remains as host. The station also adopted a new logo as well as the positioning statement 'Today's Best Music.'

By January 2012, more hot adult contemporary and rhythmic contemporary hits were added to the playlist (Anjulie's Brand New Chick is one[7]); however, the station is still a Canadian adult contemporary reporter per Mediabase & Nielsen BDS. This was in order to compete up against contemporary hit radio station CIGM-FM and lessen the competition with Newcap Broadcasting classic hits station CHNO-FM (Rewind 103.9). The station also unveiled the HitStorm countdown, based out of Toronto's CKIS-FM. In addition, most of the '80s hits were reduced, all pre-1979 hits faded and has also retained the "EZ Rock" branding. By June 2012, the station dropped the entire 1980s library and most of pre-2000 music from its playlist, making it one of the few AC stations to not follow the adult contemporary pattern. On June 27, 2012, the station was moved to the Nielsen BDS Canadian hot AC panel, but Mediabase still reported the station on the Canadian AC panel (until July 20, 2012) and per parent Rogers Radio & RadioStationWorld.com,[8] still describes the station as an AC. Rival CHYC-FM airs a French-language hot adult contemporary format with some English language hits mixed in.

On August 7, 2012 Rogers received approval to change the authorized contours of the radio programming undertakings CJRQ-FM and CJMX-FM Sudbury, in order to change the polarization of CJRQ-FM’s antenna, and to increase CJMX-FM’s effective height of antenna above average terrain from 227.5 to 285 metres.[9]

CJMX was one of four EZ Rock-branded stations owned and operated by Rogers Media, all of which are located in Northern Ontario (the others are located in Timmins, North Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie)/[10] On August 29, 2013, all of the EZ Rock stations were rebranded to "Kiss", discarding the EZ Rock branding now owned by Bell Media Radio.

On May 24, 2015, Rich Griffin, the morning host on KISS 105.3 died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 52. Griffin recently celebrated 14 years as a morning show host for CJMX-FM in April. A moment of silence was held on all Sudbury radio stations at 9:00am EDT, May 25, 2015. [11] [12] [13]

Former logos

  • MIX 105 logo used for CJMX in the 1990s - 1999

  • Ez Rock 105.3 FM.gif

    EZ Rock logo used from 1999-2011

References

  1. ↑ Rogers Radio Stations: Ontario
  2. ↑ Decision CRTC 90-676
  3. ↑ CRTC Decision 99-38.
  4. ↑ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2002-92
  5. ↑ NorthEast RadioWatch, July 22, 2002.
  6. ↑ NorthEast Radio Watch, November 1, 2004.
  7. ↑ Anjulie - Brand New Chick
  8. ↑ RadioStationWorld.com Ontario Radio Stations: Sudbury
  9. ↑ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2012-431, CJRQ-FM and CJMX-FM Sudbury – Technical changes, CRTC, August 7, 2012
  10. ↑ "Rogers Preparing To Rebrand Four Ontario EZRock’s," from Radio Insight, 7/8/2013
  11. ↑ Rich Griffin recalled as 'all around great guy', Sudbury Star, May 24, 2015
  12. ↑ Mourning the loss of a popular radio host, Northern Life, May 25, 2015
  13. ↑ Remembering Rich Griffin, kisssudbury.com, May 25, 2015

External links

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