680NEWS

In 1992, Rogers Radio Execs had some tough decisions to make. CFTR-AM, once a powerhouse contemporary hit radio station with a long legacy of success was feeling the effects of music on the FM band. Audiences were dwindling and so were the revenues. By 1993, the station was worth little more than the tower it broadcast from.

Ted Rogers charged his radio managers with developing a plan for the future of CFTR. Top executives did their research and returned from a trip to New York with a format never before heard on Canadian Radio -- All News.

A flurry of activity and closed door meetings then took place and finally, Ted Rogers agreed to back the new idea. With Ted’s okay, a group of senior executives at Rogers Radio Toronto started laying the ground work for what would become Canada’s number one radio station. As CFTR was still on the air as a music station, a committee of about five people met at an off-sight hotel for one month – meeting early in the morning, late into the evening, never arriving or departing at the same time.

On June 7, 1993, Rogers Radio shocked the broadcasting world when, without warning CFTR became all news radio, 680News. Skeptics said it would never work; Toronto’s population was too small; it was repetitive; people got their information from newspapers and television; there were no big name personalities to draw audiences; the format didn't lend itself to extravagant promotions that forced tuning and it was just too expensive to staff and operate.

Making no money, in fact losing money, it was a format with no previous track record. In fact, in the summer of 1993, CFTR had a 7 share of the market. In the beginning of 680News, that plummeted to a 1.3 share. They waited for the next book, thinking that the format had caught on and that listeners were tuning in. And the share for that next book? 1.3! In its first book, 680News had a cume of just 286,000 listeners. Today, that figure stands at 1.3-million.

This was the right format at the right time. The population of Toronto was exploding with immigration forcing more and more people to move to the suburbs. Traffic was getting worse by the day. Demand for immediate news around the clock, seven days a week was increasing as CNN was discovering with their growing audiences. 680News could offer even more: local coverage of events happening in our communities; a consistent and reliable news wheel for appointment tuning and portability -- something other news sources can't provide.

Audiences soon came to rely on news on demand, Traffic and Weather on the 1s, Business at :26 and :56 and Sports at :15 and :45. Major community and world events exposed even more people to the format, spiking audience figures after 9/11, the Blackout of 2003, the ice storm of 2004, the O.J. Simpson trial and every major news event affecting Torontonians.

680News continues as one of the most successful formats in Canadian radio history.