Q107 (a.k.a. “the mighty Q”) redefined classic rock radio in Toronto when they underwent a slight format change in the spring of 2014.
Veteran shock jock/guy John Derringer gave this audio explanation at the time, talking about the station adding much more post-1994 “rock” to the playlists. JD said the station was swerving to meet the listening demands of “Ryan and Johnny in [their] late 30s” who apparently respect Led Zeppelin, even if they didn’t grow up on Led Zeppelin.
In short, Q107 now plays a lot more Stone Temple Pilots. Who seem underrated at this point. More on that later (or never).
With the format change, Q107 also had to recalibrate their CanCon quotas, which basically meant mixing a little Sam Roberts and Finger Eleven amid the Kim Mitchell and Triumph “deep cuts”.
Curious (for some reason) about how this CanCon shuffle shook down, I took a sample of every Canadian songs played by Q107 between September 10-16, 2014.
Click on these graphs to tell the story of what now defines classic rock in a CanCon context:
Completely Ignored 