CKOI-FM
Encyclopedia
CKOI-FM is a French-language Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

 located in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

.

Owned and operated by Cogeco
Cogeco
Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian media and communications company. The name is an acronym for Compagnie Générale de Communication .-History:...

, it broadcasts on 96.9 MHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....

 from the roof of the CIBC Tower in Downtown Montreal with an effective radiated power
Effective radiated power
In radio telecommunications, effective radiated power or equivalent radiated power is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency energy using the SI unit watts, and is determined by subtracting system losses and adding system gains...

 of 307,000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...

s (class C1) using an omnidirectional antenna
Omnidirectional antenna
In radio communication, an omnidirectional antenna is an antenna which radiates radio wave power uniformly in all directions in one plane, with the radiated power decreasing with elevation angle above or below the plane, dropping to zero on the antenna's axis. This radiation pattern is often...

. It is one of the few Montreal FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...

 stations to not use the standard Mount Royal
Mount Royal
Mount Royal is a mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the city to which it gave its name.The mountain is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachians...

 tower, and it is one of North America's most powerful FM stations.

The station has a hot adult contemporary format
Radio format
A radio format or programming format not to be confused with broadcast programming describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. Radio formats are frequently employed as a marketing tool, and constantly evolve...

 because of 1970s
1970s in music
For music from a year in the 1970s, go to 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1970s....

 and 1980s
1980s in music
For music from a year in the 1980s, go to 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89For a history of music in all times, see Timeline of musical events....

 music in the playlist. For many years CKOI-FM was the most popular station in Montreal according to BBM Canada ratings using full coverage reach numbers (as opposed to central reach numbers which only take into account listeners from the central market area); however, full coverage reach numbers are no longer available for Montreal radio stations as BBM now relies on the Portable People Meter
Portable People Meter
The Portable People Meter is a system developed by Arbitron to measure how many people are listening to individual radio stations and television stations, including cable TV. The PPM is worn like a pager, and detects hidden audio tones within a station or network's audio stream, logging each...

 (PPM) technology to measure ratings in Montreal.

More recently, the station's branding has been extended to sister stations CKOF-FM in Gatineau
Gatineau
Gatineau is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is the fourth largest city in the province. It is located on the northern banks of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario, and together they form Canada's National Capital Region. Ottawa and Gatineau comprise a single Census...

, CKOY-FM in Sherbrooke, CFEL-FM
CFEL-FM
CFEL-FM is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Quebec City, Quebec, but the station's official city of license is Lévis....

 in Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

 and CKOB-FM in Trois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières means three rivers in French and may refer to:in Canada*Trois-Rivières, the largest city in the Mauricie region of Quebec, Canada*Circuit Trois-Rivières, a racetrack in Trois-Rivières, Quebec...

.

History

CKVL-FM, as the station was originally known, was founded by Jack Tietolman and Corey Thomson and probably went on the air at some point between 1947 and 1957. Sources disagree on the date, and at least seven different years (including three post-1957 ones) are known to have been reported as the station's first air date. The confusion is increased by the fact that there is no known report suggesting that the station went silent for any noticeable period of time after getting on the air, despite this phenomenon being relatively common among 1950s FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...

 stations. In any case, the Canadian Communication Foundation, which claims the station's first air date was in 1947, does report that CKVL-FM was confirmed as being on the air in 1957.

The station was originally a full-time repeater of AM
AM broadcasting
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...

 sister station
Sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio and/or television stations operated by the same ownership....

  CKVL. As such, the station was bilingual (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

/English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

), with the majority of programming being in French.

By 1962, CKVL-FM increased its power from 10,000 watts to 307,000 watts omnidirectional from the rooftop of the CIBC Tower in Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is nearly enitirely located at the southern most slope of Mount Royal and is approximately bounded by Sherbrooke Street to the north, Papineau Avenue to the east, Guy Street or until Shaughnessy Village to the west,...

. It is often believed that this high power was the result of a clerical error by the CRTC, but that organization did not exist at the time as radio was still regulated by the CRTC's predecessor, the Board of Broadcast Governors
Board of Broadcast Governors
The Board of Broadcast Governors was a Canadian arms-length government agency created in 1958 to regulate television and radio broadcasting, originally taking over that function from the CBC. It was replaced by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in 1968....

, and regulations limiting effective radiated power to 100,000 watts on FM, which came into force that same year, do not apply to stations which had already received approval for a higher power.

The simulcast of CKVL ended in 1970, as CKVL-FM launched an automated oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....

 format.

On December 6, 1976, CKVL-FM became CKOI-FM, and the station's format was changed to progressive rock
Progressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...

. It evolved into a largely New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 based format in 1979 and adopted a rock-leaning
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

 format in 1980.

The Fall 1991 Bureau of Broadcast Measurement
Bureau of Broadcast Measurement
BBM Canada, also known as BBM, is an audience measurement organization for Canadian television and radio broadcasting.BBM was established on May 11, 1944 as a division of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. The organization was originally known as the "Bureau of Broadcast Measurement", and...

 ratings were a defining moment for the station, as it found itself in first place with over a million listeners in full coverage. It was the first time ever in Montreal that any FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...

 station obtained the first place in the Fall ratings, which are by far the most important for the radio industry as they are used to determine prices charged for publicity. CKOI-FM would get over a million listeners in 32 consecutive books (excluding Summer ratings starting in 2001 which were only done for the central area of the market), from Fall 1991 to Fall 2002 inclusively. (The station had already managed to get a million listeners on a few occasions during Summer ratings before 1991.) The station's best-ever results under the old diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

 system were obtained in the Spring 1995 ratings, in which CKOI-FM got 1,341,300 listeners; by comparison, CKAC
CKAC (AM)
CKAC is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, currently broadcasting a traffic information format as Radio Circulation 730....

, which was the station's closest competitor, got only 775,500 listeners.

CKOI-FM, along with sister station CKVL, was sold in 1992 by its founder Jack Tietolman to Metromedia CMR, a company owned by Pierre Arcand and Pierre Béland. Both stations would be sold again in 2001, this time to Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian media and entertainment conglomerate.Corus is a leading Canadian specialty television and radio producer, with additional assets in pay television, advertising services, television broadcasting, children's book publishing and children's...

.

On January 1, 2002, the station's city of licence became Montreal (it had always officially been Verdun until then), as a result of forced municipal mergers which made Verdun a Montreal borough.

Unlike other North American superpower FM stations which have lowered their power since the 1990s, CKOI-FM does cherishes its signal; as a result, when Industry Canada
Industry Canada
Industry Canada is the department of the Government of Canada with responsibility for regional economic development, investment, and innovation/research and development. The department employs 6104 FTEs across Canada....

 advised the station in 2004 that it was not compliant with updated Code 6 safety regulations (which deal with acceptable levels of radiation), owner Corus Entertainment invested to make the transmitter compliant, instead of taking the "easy way" out, which would have been in this specific case to reduce power to "only" 122,800 watts.

The station's studios were moved for the first time ever in July 2006, after decades at 211 Gordon Avenue in Verdun; the new studios are located at Place Bonaventure
Place Bonaventure
Place Bonaventure is an office, exhibition and hotel complex in Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, adjacent to the city's Central Station. At in size, Place Bonaventure was the world's largest building upon its completion in 1967....

 in Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is nearly enitirely located at the southern most slope of Mount Royal and is approximately bounded by Sherbrooke Street to the north, Papineau Avenue to the east, Guy Street or until Shaughnessy Village to the west,...

. Also, by September 2008
2008 in radio
Several events occurred in radio in 2008.- Events :* January 2: WWFT finished Christmas music stunting, rolling out the red carpet for Adult contemporary music branded as "Warm."...

, when the station changed programming and added the 2 plus 1 program, it morphed to more of a modern adult contemporary format, even though still listed by Mediabase
Mediabase
Mediabase is a music industry service that monitors radio station airplay in 180 US and Canadian markets. Mediabase publishes music charts and data based on the most played songs on terrestrial and satellite radio, and provides in-depth analytical tools for radio and record industry professionals...

 & BDS as a top 40 station. When the station moved to modern AC, it began beating rival CKMF-FM
CKMF-FM
CKMF-FM is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec.Owned and operated by Astral Media, it broadcasts on 94.3 MHz with an effective radiated power of 41,400 watts using an omnidirectional antenna from the Mount Royal candelabra tower.The station has a contemporary hit...

 (NRJ) again. By 2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....

, NRJ began beating CKOI-FM again.

On April 30, 2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....

, Cogeco
Cogeco
Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian media and communications company. The name is an acronym for Compagnie Générale de Communication .-History:...

 announced it would purchase Corus Quebec
Corus Québec
The Corus Québec network, previously known as the Radiomédia network as it used to be called until May 2005, was a French-language Canadian news/talk radio network serving most of Quebec...

's radio stations, including CKOI-FM, for $80 million, as Corus's Quebec stations were less profitable than its stations in other parts of Canada. On December 17, 2010, the CRTC approved the sale of most of Corus' radio stations in Quebec, including CKOI-FM, to Cogeco.

On November 24, 2011, the CRTC determined that CKOI-FM had abusively used musical montages
Sound collage
In music, montage or sound collage is a technique where sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage, the use of portions of previous recordings or scores...

 of English-language songs in order to get around the French-language music quotas, and imposed a condition of licence on the station limiting the broadcasting of montages to 10 percent of the broadcast week.

Programming

On weekdays from the 2009
2009 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2009.- Events :* January 1: Kurdish TV starts broadcasting in Turkey.* January: Michael Smerconish, morning host at talk radio WPHT Philadelphia, begins syndication of his morning show to WHFS in Washington and WOR in New York City.* January 17: Two well...

-2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....

 season, they had the Top du top DJ mix show mixing four English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 songs at 10am, 11am, 1pm & 2pm, mixing mostly newer hits, recurrent hits and gold hits. In addition, another DJ mix show with English songs existed as 2 plus 1, where it aired at 10:30am, 1:30pm & 2:30pm. The show consists of it DJ mixes, starting with two classics/recurrents followed by a newer song, or as a result, when a new song aired between the two classics/recurrents. Sometimes it would start with a newer song followed by two classics/recurrents. Other mixshows are Le super 16 (similar to Le top du top), which during the 9am hour on weekdays would usually have 9 English-language hits, with the rest of the hits in French. Another mixshow is 3 par 3 at 3pm, 4pm & 5pm (also on weekdays, during the Tout un retour show), airing 3 hits, also old or new in general. In addition, 3 par 3 airs every hour on the CKOI ta toune show on weekends, but renamed the weekend 3 par 3 version as Puissance 3 on August 28, 2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....

. The 9am-3pm mixshows that aired prior to August 20, 2010 were discontinued, and a new mixshow called La puissance musicale au travail (or also Jeux de puissance) airs with three currents/recurrents plus one gold song (pre-2004) from 9am, 9:30am, 10am, 10:30am, 11am, 1pm, 1:30pm, 2pm & 2:30pm, all in the same timeslots as the former mixshows. During the Le prolongation du 6 à 6 @ 7pm, Le duel is aired, where you vote off 2 classics after calling the station. If one of the classics is highly-voted, then it is played @ 7:15pm. By August 2010
2010 in radio
The following events occurred in radio in 2010.-Events:*Date Unknown: CHOI/Quebec City flips from Alternative Rock to News/Talk.*January 4: KJCS/Lufkin, Texas goes silent....

, CITE-FM
CITE-FM
CITE-FM is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec.Owned and operated by Astral Media, it broadcasts on 107.3 MHz with an effective radiated power of 42,900 watts using an omnidirectional antenna from the Mount Royal candelabra tower.The station has had an adult...

 & the RockDétente
RockDétente
Rouge FM is a network of French-language adult contemporary radio stations broadcasting throughout Quebec, Canada. Established in 1990 as RockDétente, they are owned by Astral Media....

 radio network began airing a similar Le duel show on the Monday-Thursday editions of the 1980s music
1980s in music
For music from a year in the 1980s, go to 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89For a history of music in all times, see Timeline of musical events....

-based Mix 80 (6-8pm).

Personalities

In recent years, the station has been known especially for pranks by the Masked Avengers
Masked Avengers
The Masked Avengers, or Les Justiciers Masqués, are a Canadian radio duo from Montreal, Quebec, made up of disc jockeys and comedians Sébastien Trudel and Marc-Antoine Audette, known for making prank calls to famous persons by pretending to be government officials or officers in charitable...

, a duo composed of Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel, against internationally-known personalities such as Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...

, Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...

, Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

 and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

. The duo appeared on the program's afternoon show Les Cerveaux de l'info, along with co-host Richard Z. Sirois
Richard Z. Sirois
Richard Z. Sirois is a Canadian radio and television comedian. Previously associated with the programs 100 Limite, Les Bleu Poudre et Rock et Belles Oreilles, he currently cohosts the afternoon program Les Cerveaux de l'info on CKOI-FM in Montreal with the comedy duo Masked Avengers.He also hosts...

.

Comedian Pierre Brassard
Pierre Brassard
Pierre Brassard is a Québécois actor, comedian, television personality and radio broadcaster. He is associated with CKOI-FM in Montreal and famous for his phone call hoaxes. He managed to arrange phone calls with Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II, pretending to be Canadian Prime Minister...

, also known for prank phone calls, was also previously associated with the station.

CKOI-FM lost its longtime morningman Normand Brathwaite
Normand Brathwaite
Normand Brathwaite is a Quebec comedian, movie and television actor, radio and television host and musician. He is known for hosting variety televisions shows for over 10 years, including Piment Fort as well as the Montreal radio morning show Yé trop de bonne heure on CKOI-FM for 15 years...

 on March 17, 2006, following a conflict with former co-host Jean-René Dufort; the latter became the station's morning man until June 22, 2007.

External links

  • CKOI 96.9 official site
  • CKOI history at Canadian Communications Foundation
    Canadian Communications Foundation
    The Canadian Communications Foundation is a history of Canadian broadcasting for radio and television chronicles and documents. It also provides a history of radio and television stations, including networks, programs, broadcasters and many others....

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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