About CHOM 97.7

CHOM 97.7

CHOM 97.7 (CHOM-FM) is an English-language mainstream rock radio station broadcasting from Montreal, Quebec, and one of the most storied rock stations in Canadian radio history. Owned by Bell Media and transmitting with 41,200 watts from Mount Royal, the station has aired some form of rock since 1969 — its "Spirit of Rock" branding (the call letters are pronounced "shoam," as if a French word) is known well beyond Montreal's anglophone community. In a city where more than half of its listeners are reported to be francophone, CHOM has spent over five decades as the meeting point of Montreal's rock cultures in both languages.

Overview

CHOM-FM is a commercial FM station licensed to Montreal and owned by Bell Media through its Bell Media Radio division. Its studios are located in the Bell Media Building at 1717 René-Lévesque Boulevard East in downtown Montreal. The station is a Class C1 FM outlet with an effective radiated power of 41,200 watts from a non-directional antenna atop Mount Royal, covering Greater Montreal and surrounding regions.

The station's format is mainstream rock, blending classic rock staples with contemporary rock releases. Its sister stations in the Bell Media Montreal cluster include CJAD 800, CJFM-FM (Virgin Radio 95.9), CITE-FM (Rouge 107.3), CKMF-FM (Énergie 94.3), and CKGM (TSN 690) — the last of these being the station's original AM sister, reunited with CHOM under common ownership after Bell's acquisition of Astral Media.

History

The station was founded by broadcaster Geoff Stirling as CKGM-FM, the FM sister of his AM station CKGM (then at 980 kHz). It signed on the air on July 16, 1963, from studios at 1455 Drummond Street in Montreal. After a few weeks simulcasting CKGM, the FM station launched an automated "beautiful music" format on September 1, 1963 — quarter-hour sweeps of soft instrumental music with low-key announcements. By mid-September it was offering fully separate programming from the AM station, broadcasting in stereo around the clock with a mix of quality music and sophisticated talk.

The defining moment in the station's history came on October 28, 1969, when CKGM-FM abandoned beautiful music for album-oriented rock. On-air advertising was kept to a minimum, and DJ Doug Pringle opened the new format with Richard Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra" followed by the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" — a deliberate statement of intent that gave the FM station an identity wholly separate from CKGM's Top 40 sound. The call letters changed to CHOM-FM on October 19, 1971. (An application by CHUM Ltd. to acquire Stirling's Maisonneuve Broadcasting Corp. was denied on December 11, 1969, keeping the station in Stirling's hands for the time being.)

In 1974, CHOM proposed an unusual experiment to the CRTC: reflecting Montreal's mixed English-French population, the station would become bilingual, with disc jockeys mixing the two languages on air. The Commission accepted the plan on a three-year experimental basis (turning down a companion proposal for quadraphonic broadcasting). When the experiment ended in 1977, the CRTC required the station to choose one language; after considering a switch to French, CHOM reverted to English full-time. On-air advertising increased through the late 1970s, and the original underground AOR sound gradually broadened to include the biggest-selling albums' top tracks.

The station moved several times over the decades: from 1455 Drummond Street to 1310 Greene Avenue in Westmount in the late 1960s (with CKGM), then across the street to 1355 Greene Avenue in 1972, and eventually to 1411 Fort Street in Montreal after Standard Broadcasting acquired the station in 2002. In September 2012, Astral Media consolidated its English-language Montreal stations into its French-language radio facility at 1717 René-Lévesque Boulevard East, where CHOM remains today.

Ownership passed through the major chapters of Canadian radio consolidation: Geoff Stirling's Maisonneuve Broadcasting, then CHUM Ltd. in 1985, Standard Broadcasting in 2001 (2002 in some accounts), Astral Media in 2007, and finally Bell Media in 2013 through its acquisition of Astral. The format evolved with the times — classic rock from 2002, segueing to mainstream rock in 2009 — but the rock identity established in 1969 never wavered.

In 2019, CHOM celebrated fifty years of rock with an anniversary show at MTelus on October 28 — exactly fifty years after Doug Pringle's 1969 launch — featuring the Tea Party, Sam Roberts Band, Michel Pagliaro, and The Damn Truth. Bell Media noted at the time that, according to Numeris PPM data for Summer 2019, more than 1.4 million people tuned in to the station each week. The anniversary programming included Friday-morning reminiscences with longtime host Terry DiMonte and a "Chronicles of Rock" series tracing the station's history back to its first broadcast.

Programming

CHOM's programming is built around mainstream rock, mixing classic rock cornerstones with current rock releases. The station's music presentation has long been personality-driven: legendary hosts associated with the station include Terry DiMonte, Tootall, Peppermint Patti, and Denis Grondin, along with influential music critic Claude Rajotte. Bell Media has noted that CHOM was among the first stations in North America to play artists such as Styx, Supertramp, Genesis, Yes, and Chris de Burgh — a testament to the adventurous AOR programming of its early rock years.

The station's current lineup features personality-driven dayparts including a morning rock show, midday and afternoon drive programming, and weekend specialty blocks. Its presentation remains rooted in rock culture — artist interviews, concert tie-ins, and rock news — aimed at an audience that spans generations of Montreal rock fans.

Coverage and Audience

CHOM's 41,200-watt Class C1 signal from Mount Royal covers Greater Montreal and extends into the surrounding regions. The station is officially an English-language outlet, but its audience has always crossed linguistic lines: published accounts note that more than half of CHOM's listeners are francophone, a remarkable fact that reflects rock music's power to bridge Montreal's language divide and explains why the station's "shoam" pronunciation and French-flavoured branding feel natural to its audience.

Bell Media reported in 2019 that the station reached more than 1.4 million weekly listeners according to Numeris PPM measurement (Summer 2019, all persons 2+), a figure that underscores CHOM's status as one of Canada's most-listened-to rock stations.

Ownership

CHOM-FM is owned and operated by Bell Media, Canada's largest commercial broadcaster, through its Bell Media Radio division. Bell acquired the station in 2013 as part of its purchase of Astral Media, reuniting CHOM with its original AM sister CKGM (now TSN 690), which had also passed into the Astral/Bell portfolio.

Earlier owners included founder Geoff Stirling (as CKGM-FM/CHOM), CHUM Ltd. from 1985, Standard Broadcasting from the early 2000s, and Astral Media from 2007. Each ownership change brought studio moves and corporate restructuring, but the station's rock format — continuous in one form or another since October 1969 — survived them all.

Digital Presence

CHOM maintains an active digital presence through Bell Media's iHeartRadio Canada platform, which streams the station live, and through its social media channels, where it promotes shows, concerts, and rock news. Directory listings associate the station with the chom.com website and the iHeartRadio portal; the official site could not be independently verified in this research environment.

The station's history is documented in detail by the Canadian Communications Foundation's broadcasting-history.ca project and by Bell Media's own anniversary materials, which record the 1963 launch, the 1969 rock conversion, the 1971 call-sign change, and the bilingual experiment of 1974–1977.