The End of an Era: The CFTR Story, Part 1 | June 4, 1993

680 Toronto CFTR


For more than two decades, CFTR had been known for being one of TWO contemporary hit music stations in Toronto. The other was the legendary 1050 CHUM. CHUM moved away from Top 40 in 1986 in favor of an Adult Contemporary format, leaving CFTR alone as Toronto’s Top 40 station.

It all came to an end on Monday, June 6, 1993 when CFTR became 680 News. Leading into the change, was a weekend countdown of the Top 500 songs of the past 25 years. There was a conspicuous lack of jocks this particular weekend. The countdown was simply voiced by someone unnamed, and there were promos running all weekend long for listeners to tune in Monday morning for the new News format. One promo even suggested listeners tune down the dial to AM 640, which by then, was doing a Rhythmic leaning CHR format!

The CFTR ‘Story’ isn’t much of a story, at least on air. It was simply a music countdown. No celebrations marking the event, no old airchecks, no personalities to look back at CFTR’s storied history. In all, this was simply for the music, and apparently something just to mark time between when the jocks were let go (presumably that previous Friday) and when the News anchors began.

Still, if you want to re-live the Summer of 1993, or for that matter, the 1980s – since much of the music in this countdown is 80s-based, this is definitely worth your time.