CFFR (660 AM) is a Canadian AM radio station broadcasting at 660 kHz in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

, and began broadcasting on January 10, 1984. As of April 3, 2006, it operates in an

all-news All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news. All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news stations can run the ...

format, branded as ''

CityNews ''CityNews'' (corporately styled City''News'') is the title of news and current affairs programming on Rogers Sports & Media's Citytv network in Canada. The newscast division was founded on September 28, 1975 as ''CityPulse'' as a standalone lo ...

660''. It is a Class B, 50,000 watt station broadcasting on the

clear-channel A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-cou ...

frequency of 660 AM. CFFR's studios are located on 7th Avenue Southwest in

downtown Calgary Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...

, while its transmitters are located near

Okotoks Okotoks (, originally ) is a town in the Calgary Region of Alberta, Canada. It is on the Sheep River, approximately south of Calgary. Okotoks has emerged as a bedroom community of Calgary. According to the 2016 Census, the town has a population ...

. Previously, CFFR had operated a gold-based

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

station entitled ''66 CFR''. "CFR" initially stood for "Calgary Family Radio" (with the additional "F" in the call sign being incidental), and later for "

Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference, and are the third major professional ice hockey te ...

Radio", although game coverage moved to sister station

CFAC :''CFAC also stands for Commander Fleet Activities Chinhae'' CFAC is an AM radio station serving Calgary, Alberta. Owned by Rogers Sports & Media, the station broadcasts a sports format branded as ''Sportsnet 960 The Fan'', co-branded with t ...

upon its relaunch as all-sports. The first song they played was at 7:16 am, was " A Hard Day's Night" by

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

after signing on with the station stunting with a sound of a clock ticking, CFFR's announcements with the same early 1980's jingles as CFTR in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, and various number 1 songs from 1964 to 1983; and it was an ode to the work they had done just to get the station up and running. "66 CFR" during its early years played various hits from the late 1950s to the 1980s. The last song played before the format change was "

We Built This City "We Built This City" is a 1985 song by American rock band Starship. It was released as their debut single on their album '' Knee Deep in the Hoopla''. It was written by English musicians Martin Page and Bernie Taupin, who were both living in Lo ...

" by

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1882 in '' Oahspe: A Ne ...

. The announcement of 66 CFR leaving the air was accompanied by the closing chord of the Beatles' " A Day in the Life", which had also been the first sound heard at the start of the production piece introducing the station. As of winter 2020, CFFR is the 11th-most-listened-to radio station in the Calgary market according to a PPM data report released by

Numeris Numeris (formerly the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, or BBM Canada) is a Canadian audience measurement organization. Established on May 11, 1944 as a division of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Numeris is the primary provider of viewers ...

. In June 2021, Rogers announced that it would rebrand CFFR and its other all-news and news/talk radio stations under the ''

'' brand beginning October 18, 2021. The radio station's website is co-branded with CityNews and includes reporting from Citytv Calgary's newscasts.

Past station logos

File:660 News logo.png File:660 News Calgary logo.png

References

External links

660 News

CFFR history
-

Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) is a Canadian nonprofit organization which documents the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television. Since 1995, the organization has distributed its collection via an inter ...

* FFR FFR FFR Radio stations established in 1984 1984 establishments in Alberta {{Alberta-radio-station-stub