CHNO-FM

CHNO-FM

Sudbury, Ontario
Frequency	103.9 MHz (FM)
Branding	Rewind 103.9
Programming
Format	classic hits
Ownership
Owner	Newcap Broadcasting
Sister stations	CIGM-FM
History
First air date	1947 (AM) 2000 (FM)
Call sign meaning	CH Northern Ontario
Technical information
Class	B
ERP	100,000 watts
Links
Website	www.rewind1039.ca

CHNO-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts at 103.9 on the FM dial in Sudbury, Ontario. Airing a classic hits format, the station is branded as Rewind 103.9.

History of CHNO

The station began broadcasting on June 24, 1947 on AM 1440. It was a bilingual radio station, airing programming in both English and French, and was an affiliate of both CBC Radio's Dominion Network and Radio-Canada. It was operated by Sudbury Broadcasting, a company owned by F. Baxter Ricard, and was the first bilingual radio station in Canada outside of Quebec. On November 9, 1954, CHNO moved to AM 900.

In 1957, Ricard opened CFBR on AM 550 as a full-time French language station, and CHNO switched to full-time English. The licensing of CFBR, which took over the Radio-Canada affiliation from CHNO, made Ricard the first commercial broadcaster in Canada licensed to operate two AM radio stations in the same city. On December 31, 1969, CFBR and CHNO swapped frequencies, CHNO moving to 550 and CFBR taking over the 900 slot. In 1976, the CRTC denied an application to change CHNO's frequency from 550 kHz to 570 kHz.

In 1980, Ricard launched a new FM station CJMX. That same year, CHNO received approval to increase daytime power from 10,000 watts to 50,000 watts with the nighttime power to remain at 10,000 watts and would remain on 550 kHz. Also in 1980, Ricard also became a major shareholder in Mid-Canada Communications. Sudbury Broadcasting continued to operate independently, although it was eventually merged into Mid-Canada Radio in 1985. In 1990, Mid-Canada sold the stations to Pelmorex. Following this sale, CFBR adopted the new call letters CHYC.

In the 1970s and 1980s, CHNO was Northern Ontario's most listened-to and most influential radio station, broadcasting a Top 40 format branded as "Rock Radio CHNO 55", "Sudbury's Best Rock", and "Sudbury's Hit Music Leader, NO55" (pronounced "N-oh fifty-five"). However, the 1990 launch of CJRQ ended CHNO's dominance, and in July 1992, CHNO flipped to an oldies format as "Oldies 55". After struggling through a variety of formats, including classic rock, country and talk radio, the station reverted back to oldies in 1997. Former program director Scott Jackson, now the manager of CJLF-FM in Barrie, has stated that CHNO and CJMX were the most neglected stations in the entire Pelmorex corporate family during the time that he worked there, despite being the network's nominal flagships.

In 1998, Pelmorex sold CJMX to Telemedia. The following year, Pelmorex sold CHNO and CHYC to Haliburton Broadcasting Group.

Switch to FM

Haliburton applied to the CRTC to move both CHNO and CHYC to FM, which was approved on August 31, 1999. In November 1999, CHNO dropped its oldies format and adopted its new contemporary hit radio format and Z103 branding on the old AM frequency a few months before the station made its official move to FM. CHNO began testing its 103.9 FM signal just days before officially launching on February 3, 2000. The FM and AM signals aired simultaneously for a few weeks, and on February 29, the AM signal was closed permanently.

The station was originally licensed to broadcast at 100 kilowatts, but because of transmitter interference to the Greater Sudbury Airport the station's license was permanently amended to 11 kilowatts.

As a CHR station, Z103 hosted live-to-air programs from area nightclubs in the city, as well as syndicated shows such as the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, American Top 40 and Canadian Hit 30 Countdown. Positioning slogans during the CHR period included "Sudbury's Best Music", "Today's Best Music" and "Sudbury's #1 Hit Music Station."

On November 9, 2001, Haliburton sold CHNO to Newcap Broadcasting. Despite no longer having common ownership, however, CHYC and CHNO continued to operate from the same studio facility at 493 Barrydowne Road in Sudbury until 2009.

Newcap and Rogers Media soon entered into a joint sales agreement, under which Rogers held responsibility for advertising sales on CHNO as well as on its own CJRQ, CIGM and CJMX. In 2002, however, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting filed a brief with the CRTC opposing the station's license renewal — FCB took the position that in practice, the agreement was extending well beyond advertising sales and into both program production and news gathering, and thus constituted an illegal de facto local management agreement. On January 31, 2005, the CRTC disallowed the agreement, ruling in its license renewals for the four stations that the agreement must be terminated no later than May 31 of that year.

Big Daddy arrives

At 12:00 AM on January 1, 2006, with little or no warning, the station flipped to a variety hits format of 1980s, 1990s and current rock and pop music as Big Daddy 103.9, ending another era of Top 40 music in the Sudbury market. Prior to the change to variety hits, the very last song played on the old Top 40 format as Z103 was "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. After the flip, the first song of the new variety hits format was "Start Me Up", by the Rolling Stones. General manager Darlene Palmer said the station wanted to offer Sudbury "music you can dance to, sing to, date to, divorce to." Some promotional bumpers for the station feature a stiff-voiced character representing "Big Daddy" himself. The stiff-voiced character was replaced by a new one around the middle of 2008.

In the first quarter BBM ratings for 2006, CHNO's first ratings book under the Big Daddy format, the station regained the #1 status in the Sudbury market for the first time since 1990. However, the move was controversial with some of the station's prior listeners, and in July 2006, just seven months after flipping CHNO to the adult hits format, Newcap applied to the CRTC for a new contemporary hit radio station in the Sudbury market. In the application, Newcap stated that its market research found that a contemporary hit radio station could only be profitable in the market as one station within an ownership cluster, and not as a standalone entity. However, the application was denied by the CRTC on July 12, 2007.

The denial of the proposed contemporary hit radio station also became controversial, in part because the station that was licensed, CICS-FM, duplicated the format of an existing station in the market, Rogers' CIGM. In July 2008, however, Newcap announced a deal to acquire CIGM from Rogers in exchange for CFDR in Halifax. Both CIGM and CFDR were the sole remaining AM stations in their respective markets, and in both cases the current owner already had the maximum permitted number of FM stations in the applicable market, whereas the acquirer only had a single FM station. Both companies applied to move the stations to FM as part of the trade. This deal was approved on November 24, 2008.

On June 25, 2009, Newcap received approval from the CRTC to increase CHNO-FM's effected radiated power from 11,000 watts to 100,000 watts, to increase the station's antenna height and to relocate the transmitter. On August 17, 2009, the station increased their power to 100,000 watts the same day CHNO-FM's sister station CIGM-FM began on-air tests at 93.5 FM.

2010 format change

On May 21, 2010, at 12:00 AM without warning, the station dropped adult hits and switched to its current classic hits format as Rewind 103.9, playing 60s, 70s and 80s music. The first song after the change was Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll".

External links

• Rewind 103.9
• CHNO history at Canadian Communications Foundation
• CHNO-FM in the REC Canadian station database