Branding 570 VOCM First air date October 3, 1960 | Slogan Local News Now Format News/Talk | |
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Broadcast area Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador Frequency 570 kHz C-QUAM AM Stereo | ||
CFCB is an AM radio station in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, broadcasting at 570 kHz operating at a power of 1000 watts. Owned by Newcap Radio, CFCB first went on the air on October 3, 1960. The year 2010 marked CFCB's 50th anniversary of broadcasting. The station was founded by Dr. Noel Murphy. On March 26, 2012 CFCB rebranded, which included a new slogan, logo, programming, and more. The "Local News Now" slogan was adopted from VOCM in St. John's who had rebranded just weeks before. The new CFCB logo also features the VOCM color scheme, which includes yellow, and red.
Contents
As of September 2016, CFCB is branded as '570 VOCM'.
Shows and music format
Being owned by Newcap, CFCB carries VOCM's Open Line, Backtalk, and Night Line live phone-in shows, Saturday Evening (Lions Club & VOCM Cares Radio Bingo) Host Greg Smith, Producer Jordan Keating, and the Saturday Night Cabin Party, which is devoted to classic country music from the 1950s to the 1980s, as well as the 1:00 PM and 5:30 PM VOCM newscasts (though those newscasts are carried on weekdays only), but not the 7:45 AM newscast, or the 5:00 newscast, as CFCB has its own 8:00 AM and 5:00PM newscast. The station's regular music format is primarily country music. Prior to the early 2000s, CFCB was an adult contemporary station.
The longest-running radio show on the station (and in the province) is This One's for You, which is broadcast every Saturday from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM. After airing on Sunday mornings from 9AM-12PM since its inception, on January 29, 2017, CFCB announced that the program would be moved to Saturday mornings. No reason was given for the change, although this new time slot corresponds with 590 VOCM St. John's Irish Newfoundland Show. It is believed this change was made so CFCB could carry the syndicated talk programming bring broadcast Sunday mornings on 590 VOCM.
Without notice, on April 25, 2015 at 12:00am, CFCB along with its other network station CFSX dropped its country music format in favour of soft AC and classic hits. This format change was also made on VOCM-AM in St. John's just weeks prior, a network of which CFCB is part of. Both stations previously aired a country music format, but switched to classic hits. Due to this format change on CFCB, there are now no longer any country music stations outside of the Avalon peninsula.
Since CFCB's rebrand to VOCM in late 2016, there have also been significant changes to the station's programming. Besides the elimination of virtually all music in favour of talk, there is now virtually no programming coming from Corner Brook. The only local programming that remains is the local weekday morning show from 6-9AM, and This One's for You, the longest running radio program in the province, which was recently moved from Sunday (where it was for many decades) to Saturday mornings. The majority of CFCB's programming now comes from VOCM-AM in St. John's, or is syndicated from national networks, all of which is talk in format. One of the notable syndicated programs is Coast to Coast AM, a paranormal show which fills the entire overnight period.
Repeat transmitters
CFCB also operates repeat transmitters in the following locations:
For some time now, the repeater CFNW-AM in Gros Morne National Park has been off-the-air leaving the Northern Peninsula without radio service from CFCB. The cause of this transmitter failure is due to an ice and wind storm in late 2011 which damaged the tower. When the transmitter site was constructed in 1971, the area was not a national park. Now that the station has to construct a new facility for their equipment, there are some issues with disturbing the environment in the park, all that have yet to be resolved. As of 2012 the signal in this area is still off-the-air. On October 3, 2012, Newcap Broadcasting applied to convert CFNW Port aux Choix from the AM band to the FM band. On January 25, 2013, the CRTC approved Newcap's application to convert CFNW from the AM band to the FM band. CFNW's new transmitter in Port aux Choix will operate at 96.7 MHz.
In September 2013, the CFCB transmission tower on Lewin Parkway in Corner Brook was taken down. Construction on a new AM tower has been recently completed with a modern three-legged guyed mast radiator. The previous mast radiator was in terrible shape and over 50 years old prior to being taken down. The old mast radiator, according to the website www.broadcasting-history.ca, was a second hand tower that was erected and begun broadcasting at 1000 watts in 1961. No CRTC or Industry Canada records indicate the station filed any application to do this work. However, according to the broadcasting-history.ca web site, the CRTC approved the daytime transmitting power to 10,000 watts from 1000 watts which could be achieved with the new and more modern mast radiator now located on the same plot of land that the previous one had been erected. Photos of the old and new towers are illustrated below.
1 In the daytime, CFSX operates independent of CFCB aside from the phone-in shows and the weekday 1:00 PM and 5:30 PM news. CFGN and CFCV serve as repeaters of CFSX. At night, CFSX and its repeaters serve as repeaters to CFCB.
2 Originally a full-time repeater of CFCB.
On April 2, 2001, the sale of Humber Valley Broadcasting Co. Ltd. to Newcap Inc. was approved. This included a number of radio stations such as:
As of early September 2016 (date unknown), CFCB's network station 870 CFSX and its repeaters (97.7FM and 1230AM) went off the air, with programming being replaced by CFCB-AM in Corner Brook.