Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
radio stations in
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Provi ...
, owned and operated by
Pelmorex
Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian weather information and media company. Based in Oakville, Ontario, it is the owner of the Canadian specialty channels The Weather Network (English) and MétéoMédia (French), and their associated digital properties.
...
.
History
In 1989, Pierre Morrissette founded his own communications company, Pelmorex Media Inc., and acquired several French and
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
radio stations that were serving various small and medium-size markets in northern Ontario. Pelmorex acquired the first stations from
Mid-Canada Radio
Mid-Canada Communications was a Canadian media company, which operated from 1980 to 1990. The company, a division of Northern Cable, had television and radio holdings in Northeastern Ontario.
MCTV
Mid-Canada Television, or MCTV, was created in 1 ...
in 1990.
In 1992, Pelmorex also entered into one of Canada's first
local management agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or ti ...
s, taking over day-to-day management, but not formal ownership, of Telemedia's
CHAS-FM
CHAS-FM (100.5 MHz) is a radio station licensed to and serving Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. Owned and operated by Rogers Sports & Media, the station broadcasts a hot adult contemporary format branded as ''Kiss 100.5''.
History
The stati ...
in Sault Ste. Marie.
Pelmorex became controversial as one of the first radio broadcast groups in Canada to centralize its operations as a cost-saving measure. Almost all local programming on the stations was discontinued, with only local morning shows remaining. This process began slowly in 1991 with a midday program after a satellite uplink was installed at the CHNO- CJMX studios in Sudbury. By 1994, most of the stations' programming was delivered by satellite from a facility in
Mississauga
Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...
, and the stations were reduced to storefronts with just a few staff members.
The controversy came to a head in 1995, when
Environment Canada
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment ( ...
issued a severe weather warning in Sudbury during the Heat Wave of 1995 Derecho Series. The warning, issued barely ten minutes after the stations had switched to the central programming feed, was never broadcast on any of Pelmorex's three stations in the city. Pelmorex, ironically, also owned Canada's
Weather Network
The Weather Network (TWN) is a Canadian English-language weather information specialty channel available in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It delivers weather information on television, digital platforms (responsive websites, ...
.
Scott Jackson, a former program director with the company, has written on his website that Pelmorex often neglected necessary equipment and technology upgrades at the stations, and that the company had him simultaneously serve as program director of both the Sudbury and North Bay clusters, spending half of his working week in each city.
Pelmorex subsequently sold CKNR, CJNR and CKNS to North Channel Broadcasting in 1996. All three stations were merged by North Channel into a new FM station on 94.1 MHz in 1997, known as CKNR.
Pelmorex also converted CHVR Pembroke, CHVR-1 Renfrew and CHVR-2 Arnprior to the FM band in 1996. All three stations were merged into a new single FM station on 96.7 MHz, known as
CHVR-FM
CHVR-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 96.7 FM in Pembroke, Ontario. The station airs a country format branded as '' Pure Country 96.7''. Prior to May 28, 2019, it was branded ''Star 96.7''.
History
The station was originally lau ...
. Pelmorex converted CHUR North Bay to the FM band in 1997.
In 1997 and 1998, staff at the stations in Sudbury were involved in a four-month
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
, during which all programming on the stations aired exclusively from the Mississauga facility.
In 1998, after a change in
CRTC
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
ownership rules, Pelmorex sold CHUR, CHVR, CJMX in Sudbury and CJQM in Sault Ste. Marie to
Telemedia
Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing.
The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CK ...
. (Telemedia had previously been limited to one station on each of the AM and FM bands in each market; with the change, it could acquire two in one band and one in the other, so it added second FMs to its existing AM/FM combos in each city.)
Pelmorex sold the remaining stations to
Haliburton Broadcasting Group
The Haliburton Broadcasting Group was a Canadian group of FM radio stations, located primarily in smaller markets in Ontario. The company was purchased by Vista Broadcast Group in 2012.CRTC Decision 1999-404