Flow 93.5.

The urban era (2001–2005)

Milestone Radio, first applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for an urban music station in 1990, but were passed over in favour of a country music station, CISS (now CKIS-FM).[1] They applied again in 1997, and were passed over in favour of CBLA, the city’s existing Radio One station, which the CBC wanted to move to FM for technical reasons.

Both decisions sparked controversy in Toronto, as the CRTC’s reasons for passing over an urban-format station (which Toronto did not have) in favour of existing radio services were widely believed to be racist in nature. The lack of an urban station also created immense difficulties for Canadian hip hop, reggae and R&B musicians, who had no radio outlets in Canada to play and promote their music.

As well, the 99.1 signal which was awarded to the CBC was believed to be the last available FM frequency in the city. However, in 1998, the CBC found that it was able to surrender two repeater transmitters outside of Toronto due to CBLA’s superior coverage of the region. In 2000, the CRTC opened applications for new services on these two frequencies, and on Milestone’s third application, the CRTC awarded the 93.5 frequency to the company.

CFXJ officially debuted on March 1, 2001, after airing as a testing signal for several days in February of that year, using the name FLOW 93-5. Before the station became prominent in the Greater Toronto Area, many listeners would tune-in to Buffalo, New York’s 93.7 WBLK, which has used an urban contemporary format since the 1960s.

The rhythmic top 40 era (2005–present)

Flow and R&B/Hip hop in Canada

Since CFXJ’s debut, many Canadian hip hop and R&B musicians – including Jully Black, k-os, Kardinal Offishall and Jarvis Church, among others – have made the types of significant career breakthroughs that often eluded Canadian urban musicians in the 1990s. Since 2005, CFXJ constantly “tweaked” its sound, experimenting with combinations of rhythmic Top 40 and classic urban formats by adding artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, Eva Avila and Pussycat Dolls, while still striving to satisfy hip hop and R&B enthusiasts by breaking new North American/international music in Canada, such as Chamillionaire, Young Jeezy, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown and Akon. In August 2007, the station launched a new campaign using the moniker “The New Flow 93.5” on air. This was in order for the station to have a competitor since Rogers flipped Toronto’s first rhythmic top 40, Kiss 92.5 to Jack FM on June 4, 2003; Kiss 92.5 returned to the Toronto airwaves on June 5, 2009, just one day past the sixth anniversary of its 2003 flip from “Kiss” to “Jack”.

Popular urban and rhythmic music, such as Jay-Z, Usher, Alicia Keys and Kanye West remain staples on the playlist as well as popular dance and old school classics.

Urban-format stations quickly followed in several other Canadian cities as well. However, since then CIBK-FM in Calgary, CFBT-FM in Vancouver, CKEY-FM in Niagara Falls, CKBT-FM in Kitchener, CIHT-FM in Ottawa, and CHBN in Edmonton, have evolved to mainstream Top 40 due to the lack of R&B, hip hop and/or dance product by Canadian acts being released and the pressure to follow the CRTC’s guideline on Canadian content music quotas.

By 2009, with the arrival of top 40 station CKIS-FM (Kiss 92.5), FLOW 93-5 continued as a rhythmic top 40 station, but leaned back towards its urban roots, with some of the rhythmic pop songs phased out. CFXJ-FM continues to be reported on Mediabase and Nielsen BDS on the Canadian top 40 panel, since there are no rhythmic top 40 stations in Canada. However, this move back towards a Urban-lean was unsuccessful, and many of the adult urban tracks were dropped by March 2010. In February 2011, CFXJ re-tweaked its format back to a conventional Rhythmic Top 40 direction that once again includes Dance product and began billing its slogan as “Hip-Hop, Dance, and R&B.” It also saw a mass exodus of air staffers (including the Program Director and sales staff, as well as all specialty programs and mix show DJ’s) being let go as Bell Media Radio took over the ownership of the station from Milestone. CHUM VP/Programming David Corey replaced Wayne Williams as PD and has reshuffled the lineup, bringing in fellow ex-WJMN/Boston imaging director Scott Morello as APD and re-teaming morning host Melanie Martin with her fellow CKIS alumni J.J. King. MD Justin Dumont was the only personnel that was carried over the transition.

Sale to CTVglobemedia

On June 23, 2010, it was announced that CHUM Radio, a division of CTVglobemedia (the owners of two Toronto radio stations, Hot AC 104.5 CHUM FM and CP24 RADIO 1050, a radio simulcast of its 24-hour television news service, CP24) would acquire full control the station, subject to CRTC approval. On December 23, 2010, the CRTC approved the sale of CFXJ to CHUM. CHUM previously joint ventured with Milestone with CHBN in Edmonton, which was sold to Rogers Radio along with CHST in London. The station’s headquarters was relocated to CTV’s 250 Richmond Street West near 299 Queen Street West, where Much Music is based, in February 2011 after CTV GM took control of the station. On April 1, 2011, Bell Canada completed its acquisition of 100% of the shares in CTV Globemedia it didn’t already own. It renamed the company Bell Media and likewise renamed the radio division Bell Media Radio.