CJRQ-FM (92.7

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

) is a Canadian

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

, which broadcasts in Sudbury, Ontario. The station uses the on-air brand ''Q92''. The station airs a

mainstream rock Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. Format background Mainstream rock stations represent a cross between classic rock, active rock and alternativ ...

format and is owned by Rogers Radio, a division of

Rogers Sports & Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties. Operations Current television brands owned by Rogers include two television sy ...

. The station first aired as CJRQ-FM in 1990. From 1935 to 1990, it was an AM station, airing under the call letters CKSO.

History

CKSO

The station was launched in 1935 under the ownership of W. E. Mason, the owner and publisher of the ''

Sudbury Star ''The Sudbury Star'' is a Canadian daily regional newspaper published in Sudbury, Ontario. It is owned by the media company, Postmedia. It is the largest daily paper in Northeastern Ontario by circulation. History The ''Sudbury Star'' began ...

''.C.M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson, ''Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital''.

Dundurn Press Dundurn Press is one of the largest Canadian-owned book publishing companies of adult fiction and non-fiction. The company publishes Canadian literature, history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Hum ...

, 1993. . CKSO's original frequency was at 780 kHz, until it moved to 790 kHz in 1941. For much of its history, the station was an affiliate of the

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

's Trans-Canada Network."Sudbury Radio History Highlights"
. '' Sudbury Living'', July 23, 2013. CKSO was the first commercial radio station in northern Ontario. Following Mason's death in 1948, ownership was passed to a charitable foundation set up by his estate, with the Sudbury Memorial Hospital as the primary beneficiary."Sudbury Star Sale Unopposed; Reserve Decision". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', February 2, 1951. The station was acquired by Sudbury businessmen George Miller, Jim Cooper and Bill Plaunt in 1950; the same trio subsequently launched CKSO-TV, the city's first television station, in 1953. In 1976, 790 CKSO received approval to increase their power from 10,000 watts day and 5,000 watts night to 50,000 watts full-time. Following the power increase, the station's AM signal could be heard as far away as

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and some areas of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

during the nighttime hours. CKSO disaffiliated from

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

in 1978 after CBCS-FM signed on. CKSO and sister station CIGM were by this time owned by Cambrian Broadcasting, who sold them to United Broadcasting in 1979 as part of the corporate restructuring that created Mid-Canada Communications as the new holder of the CKSO-TV license. In 1986, United sold CKSO and CIGM to

Telemedia Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CKAC r ...

."Telemedia Takes Over: New Owners for Sudbury Radio Stations". ''

Northern Ontario Business Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

'', December 1986. In the 1980s, the station aired an

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

format, distinguishing itself from competitor CHNO's more youth-oriented Top 40/CHR format. During this era, the station used brandings such as ''Radio 79 CKSO'', ''Music Radio CKSO'' and ''Favourite Hits AM 790''.

Conversion to CJRQ-FM

On March 16, 1990, the CRTC approved Telemedia Communications Ontario Inc.'s application to amend the Promise of Performance for CIGM-FM by changing the music format from Group III (Country and Country-Oriented) to Group IV (40% Pop and Rock-Softer; 60% Pop and Rock-Harder). Two months later on May 18, 1990, CKSO and CIGM swapped frequencies. CIGM moved to CKSO's 790 slot on the AM band, and CKSO took on the new call letters CJRQ and CIGM's 92.7 FM frequency. The new rock format signed on as ''Q92''. After the 1990 swap, the CKSO call sign no longer existed in the Sudbury area until CKSO-FM, a

Christian music Christian music is a genre of music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christianity, Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence and lament, and its f ...

station which had no ownership affiliation with CJRQ, signed on in 2003. While CKSO had been a perennial second in the radio ratings against CHNO, CJRQ quickly became the most-listened to radio station in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on p ...

, and retained that status until the late 1990s, when CJMX's

format overtook CJRQ in the ratings."FM dial a competitive place to be in Sudbury". ''

'', December 16, 2000. The station took its biggest ratings hit after CHNO converted to the FM band in 2000, dropping to 22.9 per cent of the radio audience in 2000 from 30.9 per cent in 1999. In 1997, the station was censured by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council over a 1995 broadcast."Radio station censured over sexist poll". ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, and is the larg ...

'', May 9, 1997. The station aired a daily programming feature in which it asked a daily

poll Poll, polled, or polling may refer to: Forms of voting and counting * Poll, a formal election ** Election verification exit poll, a survey taken to verify election counts ** Polling, voting to make decisions or determine opinions ** Polling pla ...

question on an issue in the news, and subsequently broadcast a selection of listener comments; the CBSC complaint pertained to a question about whether the Ontario Health Insurance Plan should cover sex-reassignment surgery for

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

residents of the province, and one listener comment that was broadcast was singled out as especially

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...

and transphobic. In 1999, Telemedia acquired CJMX from the

Pelmorex Radio Network The Pelmorex Radio Network was a system of Canada, Canadian radio stations in Northern Ontario, owned and operated by Pelmorex. History In 1989, Pierre Morrissette founded his own communications company, Pelmorex Media Inc., and acquired several ...

as well. In 2002, Telemedia was purchased by Standard Broadcasting. Shortly afterward, Standard sold CJRQ, CIGM and CJMX to

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...

. In 2009, CJRQ's longtime sister station AM 790 CIGM was sold to Newcap Broadcasting and moved to the FM dial in August that same year. On June 7, 2016, Q92 was rebranded as ''92.7 Rock'' retaining the slogan and rock format. This was the first time CJRQ rebranded since the station signed on as "Q92" on May 18, 1990. The station uses the same general format as, and shares some programming with,

CKFX-FM CKFX-FM (101.9 Hertz, MHz) is a Canadian radio station in North Bay, Ontario. The station airs a mainstream rock format under the brand name ''101.9 The Fox''. The station uses the same general format as, and shares some programming with, CJRQ-F ...

in North Bay and CJQQ-FM in

Timmins Timmins ( ) is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada, located on the Mattagami River. The city is the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region with a population of 41,145 at the 2021 Canadian census and an estimated population of ...

. The stations currently air a mixture of locally hosted dayparts with syndicated programming, including the ''Brock & Dalby'' morning show from CIKR-FM Kingston, and the internationally syndicated '' Greg Beharrell Show'' in the evenings. On June 28, 2024, Rogers dropped the ''92.7 Rock'' branding and resurrected the original 1990s ''Q92'' branding. Rogers had also resurrected the original 1990s brandings for CJQQ-FM Timmins (as ''Q92'') and

North Bay (as ''101.9 The Fox'').

Former logos

Image:Q92 Sudbury.png, Q92 logo from 1990's-2016 Image:927Rock.jpg, 92.7 Rock logo 2016–2024

Notes

C.K.S.O. Road near McFarlane Lake off Highway 69, was named after the radio station, CKSO, as the station's transmitter was formerly located on that road. In 2004, Doug McCann a former broadcaster at CKSO created a website, and later a Facebook page to keep in touch with the people he worked with at CKSO and providing historical information on the station. In 2021, McCann also published a book about The Story of the Birth of Broadcasting in Sudbury.Then & Now: New book details the rich (and convoluted) story of broadcasting in the Nickel City
''Sudbury.com'', December 21, 2021

References

External links

Q92 - Sudbury's Rock Station
- Official website
CJRQ-FM
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the Canadian Communications Foundation ''(See als
CIGM-FM
''
Historical information on CKSO Radio and Television in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
* {{coord, 46, 30, 03, N, 81, 01, 12, W, type:landmark_region:CA, display=title JRQ JRQ JRQ Radio stations established in 1935 1935 establishments in Ontario