the station signed on with a very-short-lived country music format. this was followed by a light-popular music format ("pop for adults"). cfmi was distinguished in its earlier years by being a technical innovator of early automation systems. stereo automation systems of the day relied heavily on reel-to-reel tape machines for music. cfmi's automation had no reel machines, but relied totally on cartridge carousels, which allowed greater programming flexibility ("random access"), but no broadcast cartridges of the day could reproduce quality stereo. the response of cfmi's engineers was to invent a new cartridge that could: the aristocart. parent company western international communications went on to develop a manufacturing division, exporting these improved cartridges to broadcasters around the world. today's broadcasters use computer systems with large hard drives to reproduce music digitally, and have no need of tape systems. but in its heyday (circa 1975-1990), the aristocart was an improvement to a technical problem shared by all commercial stereo broadcasters.