NorthEast Radio Watch On The Road: Sudbury to Owen Sound

[Scott Fybush <fybush>]

*Hello again from Canada, where the Wednesday portion of our
Ontario/Michigan road trip brought some surprises, a few
disappointments, and a treat or two.

We left you Tuesday night way up in the nickel-mining town of Sudbury,
and Wednesday morning found us airchecking the local radio dial.
Here's what it sounded like:

Telemedia owns three Sudbury stations, country CIGM (790), rock CJRQ
("Q92.7"), and CJMX (105.3), which it recently purchased from
Pelmorex.  Like so many Telemedia outlets, CJMX now runs the "EZ Rock"
format, which is a sort of modern AC.  Across town, Pelmorex still
owns oldies CHNO (550) and French AC CJYC (900), which have moved from
the address M Street gave on Victoria Ave. to new digs at 493 Barry
Downe Rd. (you taking notes, Tom Taylor?)

The CBC has a production facility in town that offers "Morning North"
via CBCS (99.9) and transmitters in North Bay, Timmins, and a few
other towns in the region, as well as "Summer North" in the afternoons
via CBCS as well as the Thunder Bay area transmitters fed from CBQ
(101.7) up there.  And because Thunder Bay is in the Central time
zone, it joins the afternoon show an hour late, and we suspect reruns
the first hour at 5 PM Central, after CBCS has gone into "The World at
Six."  For French-speakers, Sudbury is the hub for CBON (98.1) and its
network of relays.

There are two lower-power services as well: religious CJTK (95.5) and
Laurentian University's CKLU (96.7).

On TV, it's "Mid-Canada TV," or MCTV, which is owned by CTV and runs
CTV affiliate CICI (Channel 5), as well as CBC affiliate CKNC (Channel
9).  MCTV does the same sort of two-channel thing in Sault Ste. Marie,
Timmins, and North Bay as well.

But before we could explore Sudbury, we drove 90 minutes east to North
Bay, where we found a smaller version of Sudbury.  Telemedia now owns
all the radio stations: country CKAT (600), rock CKFX (101.9, "the
Fox"), and CHUR (100.5), which used to be owned by Pelmorex and used
to be on 840.  Like CJMX, CHUR switched from "Mix" to "EZ Rock"
sometime last year.  Its old studios sit next to the MCTV studios,
home to CHNB (Channel 4, CTV) and CKNY (Channel 10, CBC).  We found
the CKAT transmitter south of town alongside Lake Nipissing, with the
old CFCH calls covered with a smaller banner placed there when the
CKAT calls moved from 101.9.  An old CKAT-FM sticker still sits on the
door of the 101.9 transmitter, on a hill east of town with the CBC
transmitters on 95.1 (CBON-11) and 96.1 (CBCN).  And the MCTV outlets,
along with a TVOntario channel 6 and CHUR-FM, are on a hill south of
the AM 600 sticks.

Then it was back to Sudbury to check out the studios -- followed by a
most unusual tourist attraction: a 27 foot tall model of the 1951
Canadian nickel, which marks the Big Nickel Mine southeast of
Sudbury.  As neat as that was, all that driving caused us to miss our
chance to make the drive over to Manitoulin Island to take the ferry
south to the Bruce Peninsula...which meant the 4-hour-plus drive back
down highway 69 and 400 instead.

There's really just one note to offer from that trip: as we headed
towards Owen Sound, we again heard the newest station in Barrie.  CJLF
(100.3) is now testing with a loop consisting of one gospel song and a
message giving an address, phone number, and a website
<www.fm100.net>.

And so here we are in Owen Sound, getting ready for another day of
radio tomorrow.  We'll see you then!

- -=Scott Fybush with Garrett Wollman - NorthEast Radio Watch - (c) 1999=-

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