Call changes in Winnipeg give a hint of things to come

[Dan Sys]

Evanov has changed the call letters on ENERGY 106 in Winnipeg from CFJL to CHWE. In the meantime the CFJL calls have been transferred to Evanov's recently acquired CHNK 100.7 in Winnipeg.

It also appears as if the new CFJL 100.7 has flipped to All Christmas and judging by their new URL the station will be branded as "THE LOUNGE" after the Holiday Season, undoubtedly with an Adult Standards-Soft AC format along the lines of Evanov's JEWEL stations in Ontario.

http://www.theloungefm.com/

[schultz93]

It also appears as if the new CFJL 100.7 has flipped to All Christmas and judging by their new URL the station will be branded as "THE LOUNGE" after the Holiday Season, undoubtedly with an Adult Standards-Soft AC format along the lines of Evanov's JEWEL stations in Ontario.

http://www.theloungefm.com/

According to CFJL's Wikipedia Page, they have officially flipped to "The Lounge 100.7FM - Music with Style". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHNK-FM
And their new Facebook Page also reflects the change: http://www.facebook.com/theloungefm

[RoadRunner65]

Dan do you know if the lounge would still have the same specialty liscence as Newcap had when they owned the station?

RR65

[Dan Sys]

Yes, The Lounge will still operate under a specialty license, however they did receive approval to increase the amount of Category 2 (popular music) from 60% to 70%. Here's the actual decision from this past September:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-661.htm

Kind of ironic because when this station first signed on the air in 2002 as CHNR they had an Adult Standards format. A few formats later (Triple A, Country, Classic Rock) along with a couple sets of calls (CKFE & CHNK) they appear to be heading full circle back to Standards again.

[Thompson]

Interesting change. "The Lounge, Music With Style". Same as Parksville's 99.9 that Paul Larsen started when he was Island Radio G.M. some years ago.

[Anotherwpgguy]

As my friends in the legal profession are oft heard to say .. "I will watch this development with interest.

As a stand-alone independent, CHNR came out of the box with a 5.5 share, enjoying excellent audience support and strong allegiance to the brand. However, the chain stations often approached CHNR's clients as soon as they hit the air, and offered them excellent deep discount off-rate-card deals to go over to them in exchange for immediate cancellation on CHNR.

That's "just business" I guess, but that process of slow starvation is how Adult Standards in Winnipeg eventually had to be dropped by the owner group, and then went to the light pop and smooth jazz mix to comply with the category 3 music quota programmed by Russ Tyson as "The Breeze, 100.7 FM" until Newcap made an offer and flipped to "Cafe 100."

Hopefully "The Lounge" will offer something that a large portion of the original supporters of CHNR will find appealing, and Evanov will have the depth of pocket to compete in the financial games played behind the scenes by the chain stations in addition to the on-air programming wars. Being able to bunch their Energy, ethnic, and Lounge audiences may provide the market a buy diversity that will allow for enough sales to keep the lights on and transmitters humming.

AWG

[slowhand]

As a stand-alone independent, CHNR came out of the box with a 5.5 share, enjoying excellent audience support and strong allegiance to the brand. However, the chain stations often approached CHNR's clients as soon as they hit the air, and offered them excellent deep discount off-rate-card deals to go over to them in exchange for immediate cancellation on CHNR.

I wasn't aware of that but my father was faced with the same kind of legal extortion in the 1960s. In his case, a large multinational forced him to sell the company he co-owned by threatening to underprice him in his local market. Part of the deal required him to sign a 2 year no-compete clause which almost sunk him when he was forced out of the multinational by the jealous and lazy local manager.

This makes one want to blame this extortionist behaviour on the clustering of radio stations and wish for the days of true limits on ownership. Yeah, you could own an AM and an FM in the 1960s, but who cared about FM back then?

A little more thought and I realized that there were individual AM stations in major markets with that kind of clout back in the 60s, too. Dunno if they pulled off those kind of stunts but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Dan Sys]

AWG said:

As a stand-alone independent, CHNR came out of the box with a 5.5 share

That is amazing considering the station only operated with 1,300 watts at the time. Along comes Newcap and raises the power to 100,000 watts and ends up with a whopping 0.9 share in the last book.

[Anotherwpgguy]

Like in real estate, the words "Location, location, location" are very important.

It was 1300 watts on top of The Richardson Building ... smack dab in the middle of the city at the corner of Portage and Main, and was one of the strongest field strengths of anything on the dial, coming from one the tallest buildings in the city.

Further, it was a mono signal, giving a substantially increased signal to noise ratio at the receiver by limiting the bandwidth the 1300 watts was spread across.

AWG

[Howaboutthat]

Kind of ironic because when this station first signed on the air in 2002 as CHNR they had an Adult Standards format. A few formats later (Triple A, Country, Classic Rock) along with a couple sets of calls (CKFE & CHNK) they appear to be heading full circle back to Standards again.

It's almost as if they were owned by Rogers!