In 1960, Ted Rogers Jr. gained ownership of his first radio station, CHFI-FM Toronto. He passed away on December 2, 2008.
In 1973, CKVN Vancouver became CFUN once again. CHUM now owned the station and had effectively purchased, rumoured in the $80K range, the CFUN call letters from a station in Newcastle, New Brunswick. CKVN had dropped the CFUN call letters on June 30, 1969, to become the Voice of News (VN) on July 1st. On February 14, 1955, at 6:00 p.m., the CFUN call letters were first used on 1410 KHz in Vancouver, having previously been CKMO (1928) and CFCQ since April 20, 1922, when the station signed on the air with 40 watts on 450 metres. Ignoring wavelengths, the station has only ever been on two frequencies, 1410 and 730, its current frequency and that of its long-time Top 40 competitor, CKLG. CKMO was one of the few stations that did not move in The Great Frequency Shuffle of 1941, having been on 1410 KHz from 1933 until now. 730 KHz was its home from 1925 to 1933.
The station celebrated the switch back to the CFUN call letters with a special voiced by Mike Cleaver. Click Here to hear the 45 minute aircheck of the event. And you can read about it in the CKVN Press Release.
In 1994, Telemedia and Radiomutual merged their AM radio operations. The CRTC revoked six of their broadcast licenses after the two companies shut down CJMT Chicoutimi, CJMS Montreal, CJRP Quebec, CJRS Sherbrooke, CJTR Trois-Rivieres and CKCH Hull.
In 2005 at 4:00 p.m., CFCW-FM Camrose officially signed on to 98.1 MHz with 50,000 watts, with a license to serve Camrose and surrounding areas, but NOT Edmonton. So far, their Edmonton BBM ratings have been around the 0.1 level.
During their test period, CFCW-FM played a Classic Rock music mix much like JOE-FM (CKNG-FM) Edmonton was playing at the time, and CFCW-FM would play later as CAM-FM. But, near the end of the test period, the station began interrupting their broadcasts with what was supposed to sound like CB radio interference. Not long after, they began running announcements requesting information on someone in Camrose named Earl using a modified CB radio to interfere with the station's testing. It was, of course, all a hoax, used to promote the new Big Earl Jack-FM style (playing anything) Modern Country format that debuted on this day in history in 2005 at 4:00 p.m. that Friday afternoon.
There actually was some logic behind the Big Earl debut as CISN-FM had started to blend some Traditional Country into its Modern Country format. The CISN move was to try and capture some of the CFCW-AM audience, but backfired as it turned off many listeners who had grown up with Top 40, not Country music.
The Big Earl format moved to CKRA-FM Edmonton on December 12th at 9:00 a.m., and CFCW-FM switched to CAM-FM "the Greatest Hits of All Time". But the staff stayed put with their respective stations, not with the formats.
