CJMX-FM

CJMX-FM

City of license	Sudbury, Ontario
Branding	EZ Rock
Slogan	Today's Best Music
Frequency	105.3 MHz (FM)
First air date	1980
Format	adult contemporary
ERP	100,000 watts
Class	C
Owner	Rogers Media
Sister stations	CJRQ-FM
Website	EZ Rock Sudbury

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

History

CJMX was established in 1980 by F. Baxter Ricard, the owner 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. 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. In late April 1999, shortly after the Telemedia purchase was finalized, CJMX dropped its hot adult contemporary format in favour of the softer EZ Rock format. 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.

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. 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.

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 70's 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 & rhythmic contemporary hits were added to the playlist (Anjulie's Brand New Chick is one); 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. Rival CHYC-FM airs a French-language hot adult contemporary format. In addition, most of the '80s hits were reduced, all pre-1979 hits faded, and still, parent Rogers describes the station as AC.

Former logos

• 

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

• 

  EZ Rock logo used from 1999-2011

External links

• EZ Rock Sudbury
• CJMX History at Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CJMX-FM