Update 8/17: CIQM made the shift to CHR “97.5 Virgin Radio” at 8:00 this morning. Billed as “London’s New #1 Hit Music Station”, the station is debuting jockless but will be fully staffed in the next few weeks. Programming will include Ryan Seacrest’s daily syndicated show as well as Canadian Mix DJ’s “The Angry Kids”, who are syndicated across all of Astral’s Vrigin Radio properties in the country.
Listen to the launch of 97.5 Virgin Radio at FormatChange.com.
Original Report 8/15: Astral Media AC “97.5 EZ Rock” CIQM London ON has begun counting down to a new format.
The station will debut its new format on Friday, August 17 at 8:00am. We had reported last December that Astral had registered 975VirginRadio.com, VirginRadio975.com, and Boom975.com for the station. The first two would indicate a shift to the CHR brand run by Astral in five other Canadian markets. Boom would be the Classic Hits format run by the company in Toronto and Ottawa.
In the most recent BBM ratings, EZ Rock registered a 5.4 share, placing it 6th out of 11 stations in the market. That was down from a 7.4 in Spring 2011 and 9.3 in Spring 2010.
Chris 
johndavis
CIQM has actually been a Hot AC for some time now despite continuing to use the “EZ Rock” brand. While it’s true that Canadian AC is “hotter” than the American version of same, I think very few Canadian mainstream ACs are playing Nicki Minaj or Flo Rida. I do find it funny that they’ve been getting pummeled in their own market by super-soft Easy 101 out of Tillsonburg.
Does the student station at Fanshawe get any traction? Some of the student DJs can be a challenge to listen to, but when I’ve been up there they’ve had the music fairly well dialed in.