Update 8/29: The four “EZ Rock” branded stations all rebranded as “Kiss” at 8:00 this morning. No other discernible changes took place at what is now “99.3 Kiss” CKGB-FM Timmins, “100.5 Kiss” CHUR-FM North Bay, “100.5 Kiss” CHAS-FM Sioux Ste. Marie, and “105.3 Kiss” CJMX-FM Sudbury.
While “Lite 95.9” CHFM Calgary has yet to make its reported rebranding to Kiss, we can add that one more Rogers owned station appears in line for a facelift. “102.7 The Lake” WLYK Cape Vincent, NY, which is operated by Rogers as part of its Kingston, ON cluster has seen domain registrations for Kiss1027.net, Kiss1027.fm and Kiss1027.ca, as well as Sonic1027.com, .net, .fm and .ca.
Original Report 7/8: On the heels of rebranding all of its Country formatted stations with the “Country” moniker, Rogers Media is now turning its attention to the four “EZ Rock” branded AC’s it owns in Northern Ontario.
99.3 CKGB-FM Timmins, 100.5 CHUR-FM North Bay, 100.5 CHAS-FM Sioux Ste. Marie, and 105.3 CJMX-FM Sudbury have begun surveys with five possible options for a new name.
All four stations are proposing the same five possible names for the stations: Flare, Hello, Hits, Kiss, and Sonic. Canada.com reports that Flare and Hello are names of magazines published by Rogers in Canada, while Kiss and Sonic are brands used by radio stations in other markets. The rebrandings are brought on by Bell’s merger with Astral as Bell will continue to operate stations with the “EZ Rock” moniker in British Columbia and St. Catherines, ON and own the rights to the name.
Coincidentally KissNorthBay.com, KissSioux.com, KissSoo.com, KissSudbury.com, and KissTimmins.com were registered by Rogers on June 23.
