Early years

The station launched on August 8, 1962.^[4] Its original frequency was 1540 kHz, using the call letters CHFI, simulcasting the beautiful music of sister station CHFI-FM, one of Canada's first FM radio stations. Because 1540 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 move from 680 to another frequency, to free up 680 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.^[5]

First CFTR logo as a top 40 station.

Broadcast towers in Grimsby, Ontario

In 1971, so as to distinguish itself from CHFI-FM, the station changed its call letters to CFTR; the "TR" being a tribute to Ted Rogers, Sr., radio pioneer and father of controlling shareholder Ted Rogers.^[1]

In 1972, CFTR abandoned the beautiful music simulcast of CHFI and adopted a Top 40 format. For many years, it was the primary competition to Toronto's original Top 40 station, CHUM.^[5]

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 new morning man Jim Brady to rival CHUM's Jay Nelson. Both stations hovered near one million listeners per week. Although Brady finally 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 40 in favour of an adult contemporary music format in 1986.^[6][7][8]

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.^[5]

All-news era

680 News logo (2017-2021)

Through the 1980s and 1990s, music listeners switched to FM, prompting AM stations like CFTR to find non-music formats. On June 1, 1993, at 10 a.m., CFTR announced it would be discontinuing the Top 40 format,^[9] and began broadcasting a countdown of "the top 500 songs of the (then) past 25 years" titled "The CFTR Story." At 6 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 40 era in 1986), CFTR adopted its present all-news format as "680 News". It was the first all-news radio station in Canada since the end of the former CKO network in 1989.

The station offers listeners a "weather guarantee" jackpot, which is drawn from a pool of listeners who enter the contest.

In June 2021, Rogers announced that it would rebrand CFTR and its other all-news and news/talk radio stations under the CityNews brand.^[10] The rebranding took effect on October 18, 2021.^[11][12]