For the CKOI radio network, see CKOI (network). CKOI-FM is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Verdun, Quebec and serving the Greater Montreal area, airing a CHR/Top 40 radio format. Owned and operated by Cogeco, CKOI-FM broadcasts on 96.9 MHz with its transmitter on Mount Royal with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 148,000 watts (Class C1) using an omnidirectional antenna. It was one of the few full market Montreal-area FM stations not to use the Mount Royal broadcasting tower, until it moved there in late 2018. It is one of North America's highest-powered FM stations. Its studios are located at Place Bonaventure. History CKVL-FM, the station's original call letters, was founded by Jack Tietolman and Corey Thomson and probably went on the air at some point between 1947 and 1957. Sources disagree on the date, and at least seven different years (including three post-1957 ones) have been reported as the station's first air date. The confusion is increased by the fact that there is no known report suggesting that the station went silent for any noticeable period of time after getting on the air, despite this phenomenon being relatively common among 1950s FM stations. In any case, the Canadian Communication Foundation reports the station first signed on in 1947 and that CKVL-FM was confirmed as being on the air in 1957. The station was originally a full-time FM simulcast of its AM-based sister station, CKVL. As such, the station was bilingual (French/English), with the majority of programming being in French. By 1962, CKVL-FM increased its power from 10,000 watts to 307,000 watts omnidirectional from the rooftop of the CIBC Tower in downtown Montreal. It is often believed that this unusual high power was granted as the result of a clerical error by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), but that government organization did not exist at the time as radio was still regulated by the CRTC's predecessor, the Board of Broadcast Governors. Regulations limiting effective radiated power to 100,000 watts on FM, which came into force that same year, did not apply to stations which had already received approval for a higher power. The simulcast of CKVL ended in 1970, with CKVL-FM launching an automated oldies format, calling itself "VL-FM." The station played French-language Top 40 hits of the 1950s and 1960s, including remakes of English-language hits translated into French as well as a few original English-language