City Sudbury, Ontario Branding CBC Radio One Format public broadcasting | Broadcast area Northeastern Ontario Frequency 99.9 MHz (FM) | |
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First air date May 5, 1978 (1978-05-05) | ||
CBCS-FM is a Canadian radio station. It is the CBC Radio One station in Sudbury, Ontario, broadcasting at 99.9 FM, and serves all of Northeastern Ontario through its network of relay transmitters.
Contents
History
The station was launched in 1978 on FM 99.9 MHz. Prior to its launch, CBC Radio programming aired on private affiliates CKSO and CKSO-FM.
The CRTC decision authorizing the launch of CBCS in fact encouraged, but did not direct, the CBC to retain an AM frequency for CBC Radio, and to reserve CBCS for its CBC Stereo network. However, the station launched in 1978 as an affiliate of the talk network after the CBC was unable to negotiate an agreement with Cambrian Broadcasting to directly acquire CKSO.
The CBC later applied for a second license for its Stereo network, which was granted in 1984. However, that station remain unlaunched throughout the 1980s, and the CBC was forced in 1991 to surrender all of its non-operating licenses. Consequently, CBC Radio 2 service was not available in the city until the launch of CBBS-FM in 2001.
In the CBC's service reductions announced in March 2009, CBCS was slated to lose half of its existing staff. Several hundred people attended a rally at the city's Tom Davies Square on April 5 to protest the cutbacks, with participants including federal MPs Glenn Thibeault, Claude Gravelle and Charlie Angus, and musicians Kevin Closs and Stéphane Paquette.
In September 2014, the station announced that it would move in late 2015 from 15 Mackenzie Street, where it had been located since its launch in 1978, to a new leased studio and office space on Elm Street. The move was completed in December 2015. The former studio on Mackenzie Street was then rented out to Siena Films as the police station in the 2017 drama series Cardinal.
Local programming
The station's local programs are Morning North, hosted by Markus Schwabe, in the morning and Up North, hosted by Jason Turnbull, in the afternoon. In May 2009, Morning North won the Radio and Television News Directors Association's Peter Gzowski Award for Best Information Radio Program in Central Canada, and in June 2009, the program won the award for all of Canada.
The CBC announced in August 2014 that Up North, which premiered on August 11, would replace the former afternoon program Points North. The new program extends its coverage to all of Northern Ontario, also replacing Voyage North on CBQT-FM in Thunder Bay.
Former Points North host Dan Lessard retired from the program in June 2010.
In the CBC's proposed new regional programming strategy released in 2005, North Bay was scheduled to receive its own local news bureau, although North Bay would continue to receive CBCS' local programming apart from news updates. As of 2016, however, no separate local news service has been launched in North Bay.
Rebroadcasters
On October 25, 2013, the CRTC approved the CBC's application to decrease the power of CBLJ-FM Wawa from 50,000 watts to 4,807 watts, combined with an increase in the effective height of antenna above average terrain (EHAAT) from 114.6 to 132.6 metres.
On July 4, 2014, the CBC submitted an application to convert CBEU (1340 kHz) Temagami from the AM band to the FM band at 106.1 MHz, which received CRTC approval on November 4, 2014. Temagami's new FM transmitter signed on at 106.1 FM in late 2014 with its new callsign, CBCS-FM-1.
On February 26, 2016, the CBC submitted an application to convert CBEY (1340 kHz) Moosonee from the AM band to the FM band at 99.9 MHz. Its proposed callsign will be CBEY-FM. On June 20, 2016, the CRTC approved the CBC's application to operate an FM rebroadcasting transmitter in Moosonee to replace its existing low-power AM transmitter CBEY Moosonee. The new transmitter will operate at 99.9 MHz (channel 260A1) with an effective radiated power of 135 watts (non-directional antenna with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 8.97 metres).
On March 9, 2016, the CBC received CRTC approval to change CBCG-FM's (Elk Lake) transmitter class from low power to regular power A1, increasing the effective radiated power from 8 to 115.7 watts and decreasing the effective height of antenna above average terrain from 71.5 to 54.3 metres.