Pelmorex Radio Network

The Pelmorex Radio Network was a system of Canadian radio stations in Northern Ontario, owned and operated by Pelmorex.

In 1989, Pierre Morrissette founded his own communications company, Pelmorex Media Inc., and acquired several French and English-language radio stations that were serving various small and medium-size markets in northern Ontario. Pelmorex acquired the first stations from Mid-Canada Radio in 1990.

In 1992, Pelmorex also entered into one of Canada's first local management agreements, taking over day-to-day management, but not formal ownership, of Telemedia's CHAS-FM in Sault Ste. Marie.

Pelmorex became controversial as one of the first radio broadcast groups in Canada to centralize its operations as a cost-saving measure. Almost all local programming on the stations was discontinued, with only local morning shows remaining. This process began slowly in 1991 with a midday program after a satellite uplink was installed at the CHNO-CJMX studios in Sudbury. By 1994, most of the stations' programming was delivered by satellite from a facility in Mississauga, and the stations were reduced to storefronts with just a few staff members.

The controversy came to a head in 1995, when Environment Canada issued a severe weather warning in Sudbury during the Heat Wave of 1995 Derecho Series. The warning, issued barely ten minutes after the stations had switched to the central programming feed, was never broadcast on any of Pelmorex's three stations in the city. Pelmorex, ironically, also owned Canada's Weather Network.

Scott Jackson, a former program director with the company, has written on his website that Pelmorex often neglected necessary equipment and technology upgrades at the stations, and that the company had him simultaneously serve as program director of both the Sudbury and North Bay clusters, spending half of his working week in each city.

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