is a
Canadian radio station. It is the
CBC Radio One station in
Toronto, Ontario , broadcasting at 99.1
FM .
The station originally aired in
1925 as
AM 910 , a commercial station owned by
Gooderham And Worts . Due to the instability of frequency allocations in
North America at the time, the station's frequency changed several times over the next number of years, to 960, 690, and finally
Clear Channel 840. In
1932 , the station was leased by the
CBC 's predecessor, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. It used the call letters '''CRCT''' until
1937 , when the station was purchased outright by the CBC and adopted the callsign '''CBL'''. With
NARBA in
1941 , the station moved to 740
KHz ; its former channel, now 860, went to
CFRB . (See
Canadian Allocations Changes Under NARBA .)
Between 1938 and 1943, CBL had a rebroadcaster to supplement coverage in Toronto. CBY broadcast on 960, switching to 1420 in 1939 and then to 1010 in 1941. CBY is now '''
CJBC ''' 860, Toronto's SRC station.
In
1946 ,
CBL-FM was launched, bringing the CBC's FM network (now known as
CBC Radio Two ) to Toronto. It originally broadcast on the same 99.1 frequency now used by CBLA, but moved to 94.1 in
1966 . (The 99.1 frequency was vacant until
1977 , when it was assigned to the
CKO radio network. CKO ceased operations in
1989 , and the frequency was again vacant until it was assigned to CBLA.)
The CBC's transmitter tower on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto, built in
1952 , was for many years the tallest structure in Canada. The facility was used by CBL, CBL-FM,
CBLT ,
CBLFT ,
CJRT and
TVOntario . In
1976 , almost all broadcast signals in Toronto moved to the
CN Tower ; although the Jarvis St. transmitter was no longer in use, the CBC continued to use the studio facilities at that site until moving to the
Canadian Broadcasting Centre in
1992 .
In
1998 , CBL applied to the
Canadian Radio-television And Telecommunications Commission for conversion to FM, citing
Radio Frequency Interference that made the station nearly unlistenable in some parts of downtown Toronto. In a controversial decision, the CBC was awarded the 99.1 frequency over
Milestone Radio , who had applied to open an
Urban Music station, which would have been the first station operating under that format in Canada, to serve the city's large
Black community. Expanding the controversy, 99.1 was believed at the time to be the last available FM frequency in the city.
On
June 18 ,
1999 , the station completed its move to FM, adopting the CBLA calls. It subsequently surrendered two relay transmitters outside the city which ended up overlapping with the CBLA signal. In
2000 , the CRTC awarded one of the new frequencies to Milestone, who launched
CFXJ in
2001 , and the other to
Aboriginal Voices , who launched
CFIE in
2002 .
The Jarvis Street transmitter site was demolished in
2002 to make way for the RadioCity
Condominium development.
The station's
Local Programs are ''Metro Morning'', hosted by
Andy Barrie , in the morning and ''
Here And Now '', hosted by
Matt Galloway , in the afternoon.
The station also produces a second morning program, ''Ontario Morning'', which airs on most of the network's transmitters in
Southern Ontario outside of the
Toronto ,
Ottawa and
Windsor metropolitan areas. ''Ontario Morning'' is currently hosted by
Wei Chen .
As of October
2005 , ''Here and Now'' begins at 3 p.m. on CBLA's main station in Toronto, unlike most CBC Radio One stations whose local afternoon programs begin at 4 p.m. However, the station's rebroadcast transmitters outside of Toronto air regular CBC network programming for the first hour and join ''Here and Now'' in progress at 4.
CBLA-FM has the following rebroadcasters:
CBLA-FM's Ontario Feed:
