Who Owns EZ Rock Branding?

[jon]

I first ran into the Easy Rock/EZ Rock branding when Telemedia was still around, at the end of the last century. After all the dust settled in ownership changes, Astral appeared to have exclusive rights to its use.

A quick check and I see a bunch of Astral stations in B.C. (e.g. - Salmon Arm) and the Niagara region of Ontario still using the EZ Rock moniker. And a bunch of Ontario stations owned by Rogers (e.g. - Sudbury) using it.

It just seems odd that such a brand crazy company as Astral -- the word "Brand" is in nearly every middle management job, at least on the Radio side -- would allow a competitor to use their Brand.

[radiofan]

Astral owns the Okanagan statiosn using the EZ Rock branding. Are teh Ontario stations ones that Astral might have sold or traded to Rogers at some point?

One of Pattison's brands is The Drive. Last week Fabmar rebranded The Hawk in Chilliwack as The Drive.

E-Z Rock is one of the dumber names used in Canada where is should be called E-Zed Rock ....

[Aaron]

BellMedia owns the brand. (as of tomorrow anyway)

The northern Ontario stations were part of Telemedia, but weren't kept by Standard, who allowed the new owners (Rogers) to continue to use the brand on those stations so long as Standard wasn't operating competing stations in that market.

[Doug]

Great question, jon! I've wondered this myself. I realize no other radio station can use the "EZ Rock" branding in the same market (why would they anyway!? getting your station known is all about unique branding and marketing it the right way!) but nationally, as I assume trademarks are federal jurisdiction like copyrights and patents, the trademark would be owned by one player and used under licence. Maybe all the major radio station operators have a master licence agreement that they have all signed that let them use each other's branding in a market so long as that trademark owner isn't already using it in a market and, if that trademark owner enters said market, they retain first rights to start using that branding in said market after a brief notice period? Or, maybe they're licensed on an ad hoc basis, either for free or for monetary gain? I'm not sure. It'd be interesting.

At any rate, I'm surprised they don't state, in the footer, "EZ Rock" is a registered trademark/trademark of Astral Media, used under licence by Rogers Broadcasting, as an example.

Does Canada have a free, publicly accessible trademark registration database?

Cheers,
Doug

[CT40]

In related news, the Rogers owned Ontario EZ Rocks will be rebranded in the very near future. Flare, Hello, Hits, Kiss, and Sonic are all in the running.