CFTR (AM)
CFTR (AM)
CFTR’s studios are located at the Rogers Building at Bloor and Jarvis in downtown Toronto, while its 8-tower transmitter array is located on the southern edge of Lake Ontario at Oakes and Winston Road (near the QEW and Casablanca Road) in Grimsby. While CFTR broadcasts at the maximum power for Canadian AM stations, 50,000 watts, it must use a complicated directional antenna system to avoid interfering with other stations on six hundred eighty AM.
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The station launched on August 8, 1962. [1] Its original frequency was one thousand five hundred forty kHz, using the call letters CHFI, simulcasting the beautiful music of sister station CHFI-FM, one of Canada’s very first FM radio stations. Because one thousand five hundred forty is a clear-channel frequency assigned to stations in the United States and the Bahamas, CHFI was authorized to broadcast only during the daytime. In 1963, it sought to pay CHLO in St. Thomas, Ontario to stir from six hundred eighty to another frequency, to free up six hundred eighty for CHFI’s use. No deal was finalized, but, by 1966, the stations reached an agreement to share 680, and CHFI moved to 24-hour operation at that frequency.
In 1971, it switched its call letters to CFTR, with the TR a tribute to Ted Rogers, Sr., radio pioneer and father of controlling shareholder Ted Rogers.
In 1972, it abandoned the beautiful music simulcast of CHFI and adopted a Top forty format. For many years, it was the primary competition to Toronto’s original Top forty station, one thousand fifty CHUM.
In 1973, programmer Chuck Camroux upped the ante in the Toronto radio “Rock and Roll Wars” by tweaking CFTR’s notoriously bad signal, adding some reverb, and hiring fresh morning man Jim Brady to rival one thousand fifty CHUM’s Jay Nelson. Both stations hovered near one million listeners per week. Albeit Brady ultimately topped Nelson in the ratings in 1979, over-all, CFTR didn’t surpass CHUM in the Toronto BBM ratings until 1984. Once CFTR gained ratings supremacy, CHUM dropped Top forty in favour of an adult contemporary music format in 1986.
CFTR also hired John Records Landecker from WLS in Chicago in 1981. Landecker spent two years at the station before returning to Chicago to work at WLUP.
Other announcers included Duke Roberts, Paul Godfrey, Dick Joseph, Peter “Crimson Knight” Thompson, Bobby Day, Rick Hunter, Bill Gable, Tom Jeffries, George Hamburger, Bill Hayes, Steve Gregory, Dan Williamson, Bob Saint, Tom Rivers, Bob Callahan, Mike Cooper, Big “G” Glenn Walters and “Big Don” Biefer, among others. The newsroom was headed by Robert Holiday and included Larry Silver, John Wilson, Ted Bird, Clint Nickerson, Evelyn Macko and others.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, more music listening switched over to FM, prompting AM stations to find non-music formats; CFTR was no exception. On June 1, 1993, at ten a.m., CFTR announced it would be discontinuing the Top forty format. [Two] After the announcement, the station began airing a jockless countdown of “the top five hundred songs of the (then) past twenty five years” titled “The CFTR Story.” At six a.m. on June 7, after playing Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” (which was the #1 song in the countdown) and Starship’s “We Built This City” (which also ended CHUM’s Top forty era in 1986), CFTR adopted its present all-news format. It was the very first all-news radio station in Canada since the end of the former CKO network in 1989. With the Toronto station’s success, Rogers later expanded the format to stations in Vancouver (CKWX) in 1996, Calgary (CFFR) in 2006, and Ottawa (CIWW) in 2010.
In addition to these stations, Rogers wields news-talk stations in Kitchener (CKGL) and Halifax (CJNI-FM), and formerly did so in Saint John (CHNI-FM), and Moncton (CKNI-FM) (The latter two stations have since been sold to different owners and flipped formats). All of these are branded similarly to the company’s all-news stations, and use a similar all-news wheel during morning and afternoon drive.
As part of a promotion, six hundred eighty News had a contest with a “guaranteed high” temperature for the day. The forecast was set in the morning and the “guaranteed high” was announced on all weather reports. Listeners would inject the contest on the station’s website, and if the forecast high and the actual recorded temperature at Pearson International Airport differed by three or more degrees Celsius a name was drawn from a pool of listeners. The winning listener won a jackpot (kicking off at $1,000) which was enlargened by $100 every day the station got the temperature correct.
The largest jackpot for the weather assure was awarded on April Five, two thousand ten to Charmane Palmer. The station got the temperature correct (within the parameters of the contest) two hundred eighty six days consecutively, making the jackpot total $35,200. Extra funds were added to the prize during the two thousand ten Winter Olympics and two thousand ten Winter Paralympics. [Three]
CFTR (AM)
CFTR (AM)
CFTR’s studios are located at the Rogers Building at Bloor and Jarvis in downtown Toronto, while its 8-tower transmitter array is located on the southern edge of Lake Ontario at Oakes and Winston Road (near the QEW and Casablanca Road) in Grimsby. While CFTR broadcasts at the maximum power for Canadian AM stations, 50,000 watts, it must use a complicated directional antenna system to avoid interfering with other stations on six hundred eighty AM.
Contents
The station launched on August 8, 1962. [1] Its original frequency was one thousand five hundred forty kHz, using the call letters CHFI, simulcasting the beautiful music of sister station CHFI-FM, one of Canada’s very first FM radio stations. Because one thousand five hundred forty is a clear-channel frequency assigned to stations in the United States and the Bahamas, CHFI was authorized to broadcast only during the daytime. In 1963, it sought to pay CHLO in St. Thomas, Ontario to budge from six hundred eighty to another frequency, to free up six hundred eighty for CHFI’s use. No deal was finalized, but, by 1966, the stations reached an agreement to share 680, and CHFI moved to 24-hour operation at that frequency.
In 1971, it switched its call letters to CFTR, with the TR a tribute to Ted Rogers, Sr., radio pioneer and father of controlling shareholder Ted Rogers.
In 1972, it abandoned the beautiful music simulcast of CHFI and adopted a Top forty format. For many years, it was the primary competition to Toronto’s original Top forty station, one thousand fifty CHUM.
In 1973, programmer Chuck Camroux upped the ante in the Toronto radio “Rock and Roll Wars” by tweaking CFTR’s notoriously bad signal, adding some reverb, and hiring fresh morning man Jim Brady to rival one thousand fifty CHUM’s Jay Nelson. Both stations hovered near one million listeners per week. Albeit Brady ultimately topped Nelson in the ratings in 1979, over-all, CFTR didn’t surpass CHUM in the Toronto BBM ratings until 1984. Once CFTR gained ratings supremacy, CHUM dropped Top forty in favour of an adult contemporary music format in 1986.
CFTR also hired John Records Landecker from WLS in Chicago in 1981. Landecker spent two years at the station before returning to Chicago to work at WLUP.
Other announcers included Duke Roberts, Paul Godfrey, Dick Joseph, Peter “Crimson Knight” Thompson, Bobby Day, Rick Hunter, Bill Gable, Tom Jeffries, George Hamburger, Bill Hayes, Steve Gregory, Dan Williamson, Bob Saint, Tom Rivers, Bob Callahan, Mike Cooper, Big “G” Glenn Walters and “Big Don” Biefer, among others. The newsroom was headed by Robert Holiday and included Larry Silver, John Wilson, Ted Bird, Clint Nickerson, Evelyn Macko and others.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, more music listening switched over to FM, prompting AM stations to find non-music formats; CFTR was no exception. On June 1, 1993, at ten a.m., CFTR announced it would be discontinuing the Top forty format. [Two] After the announcement, the station began airing a jockless countdown of “the top five hundred songs of the (then) past twenty five years” titled “The CFTR Story.” At six a.m. on June 7, after playing Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” (which was the #1 song in the countdown) and Starship’s “We Built This City” (which also ended CHUM’s Top forty era in 1986), CFTR adopted its present all-news format. It was the very first all-news radio station in Canada since the end of the former CKO network in 1989. With the Toronto station’s success, Rogers later expanded the format to stations in Vancouver (CKWX) in 1996, Calgary (CFFR) in 2006, and Ottawa (CIWW) in 2010.
In addition to these stations, Rogers wields news-talk stations in Kitchener (CKGL) and Halifax (CJNI-FM), and formerly did so in Saint John (CHNI-FM), and Moncton (CKNI-FM) (The latter two stations have since been sold to different owners and flipped formats). All of these are branded similarly to the company’s all-news stations, and use a similar all-news wheel during morning and afternoon drive.
As part of a promotion, six hundred eighty News had a contest with a “guaranteed high” temperature for the day. The forecast was set in the morning and the “guaranteed high” was announced on all weather reports. Listeners would come in the contest on the station’s website, and if the forecast high and the actual recorded temperature at Pearson International Airport differed by three or more degrees Celsius a name was drawn from a pool of listeners. The winning listener won a jackpot (embarking at $1,000) which was enhanced by $100 every day the station got the temperature correct.
The largest jackpot for the weather assure was awarded on April Five, two thousand ten to Charmane Palmer. The station got the temperature correct (within the parameters of the contest) two hundred eighty six days consecutively, making the jackpot total $35,200. Extra funds were added to the prize during the two thousand ten Winter Olympics and two thousand ten Winter Paralympics. [Trio]