EDMONTON -- An Edmonton radio station's recent rebranding as POWER 107 will be short lived, as a Calgary court has ordered Harvard Broadcasting not to use the trademark and trade names associated with "POWER."
The injunction was made Monday, and restricts Harvard from using the names and logos of POWER 97 and POWER 107, as well as "POWER."
Harvard's CJNW FM station was renamed from Hot 107 to POWER 107 in August.
The next month, Corus filed a claim alleging it was not a coincidence Harvard's POWER 107 marketing was similar to that of a former Corus station.
POWER 92 operated in Edmonton from 1991 to 2004. In 1999, it was bought by Corus.
POWER 92 used black-and-white branding and the slogan, "POWER 92 plays today's best music, now show me my money." The Corus property also had a sister station in Calgary called POWER 107. However, the associated trademarks expired in 2015.
When Harvard's POWER 107 rebranded earlier this year, it also used black-and-white imaging and a slogan: "POWER 107 plays Edmonton's best music, now show me my money."
Monday evening, Harvard released a statement addressing the court loss.
"While we don’t agree with the decision, we will respect it. And while we believe we have grounds for an appeal, we do not wish to consume any more of the courts time on this case," reads part of the statement, signed by "The POWER 107 Team."
Every instance of "POWER" in the public letter is crossed out.
"We’ll continue to play our awesome playlist and we’ll continue to deliver top notch entertainment with our amazing team of hosts. The only thing that will change is our name, and with that we need your help," the station wrote.
It is asking listeners to send in suggestions, and offering a $1,007 prize to the winner.
