CBLA-FM-2 is the

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent o ...

station licensed to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

but primarily serving the nearby Waterloo Region. It broadcasts on the FM band at 89.1

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

. Previously licensed as a

rebroadcaster A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

CBLA-FM CBLA-FM (99.1 MHz) is a non-commercial radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Owned and operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the station is the flagship station of the CBC Radio One network, broadcasting a mix of news and talk. ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, it began originating a limited amount of programming targeting Waterloo Region and surrounding cities in March 2013. Studios are located on King Street West in downtown Kitchener.

History

Prior to 1999, the Kitchener-Waterloo area received CBC Radio programming through CBL

, whose city-grade signal easily covered most of

southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a Region, primary region of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, with approximately 13.5 million people, approximately 36% o ...

. On July 29, 1997, the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(CRTC) approved the CBC's plan to move CBL to FM; this plan included provisions for new or improved rebroadcasters to serve areas that the new Toronto FM transmitter would not reach, including one at 89.1 FM in Paris. Originally, the Paris rebroadcaster simulcasted CBLA's main-transmitter schedule for most of the day, including during most regional programming blocks. It even carried the Toronto-based '' Metro Morning'' on weekdays, instead of the regional '' Ontario Morning'' program also produced in Toronto and carried on most of the Radio One rebroadcasters in southern Ontario. However, like most of these rebroadcasters, it carried (and continues to carry) network programming instead of the first hour of the afternoon-drive program '' Here and Now'', and does not carry any other specially scheduled Toronto-specific programming. In September 2011, the CBC announced plans to launch a new local radio service for the Kitchener-Waterloo area beginning in fall 2012, as part of the corporation's 2011-15 strategic plan. (The launch date was later pushed back in connection with the CBC's 2012 budget cuts.) The other major city in Waterloo Region,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, was originally said to be not part of the initial local coverage focus, though this decision was reversed by the time the station launched. On November 7, 2012, the CRTC published the CBC's application to upgrade CBLA's Paris repeater to a local production centre focused on the Waterloo Region. The application stated that the new station would continue to broadcast programming received from CBC Radio One but would also broadcast a minimum of 12 hours and 30 minutes of local programming targeting Kitchener-Waterloo residents in each broadcast week. On January 22, 2013, the CBC announced that the new radio programming for Kitchener-Waterloo would debut on March 11. Despite CRTC approval having not been received by that date, the launch went ahead as scheduled. As the CBC had previously been permitted to air different program schedules on different rebroadcasters of CBLA-FM (as noted above) it was not obviously clear that the broadcast was improper, even with the conversion application still outstanding. However, in the evening of April 23, 2013, the CBC announced it had been informed that the early launch was in fact not permitted, which it termed an "unfortunate oversight", and that it was pulling the terrestrial broadcasts of ''The Morning Edition'' and other separate Kitchener-Waterloo programming until the new licence was fully approved. In the interim, local programming continued to be produced for

Internet streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

, but 89.1 FM reverted to a rebroadcaster of CBLA-FM. Two days later, on April 25, 2013, the CRTC formally approved the CBC's application for the new Paris station, with its licence replacing the repeater licence used for CBLA-FM-2. However, the transmitter retained its rebroadcaster-like

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

. Over-the-air broadcasts of Kitchener-Waterloo local programming resumed the next day. CBC Kitchener-Waterloo

Local programming

CBLA-FM-2's local morning program, ''The Morning Edition'', hosted by Craig Norris, airs from the studios on King Street West."CBC launches new Waterloo Region station March 11"

CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

, January 22, 2013. A Saturday afternoon regional network program highlighting Ontario arts, music and culture, ''In The Key of C'', also hosted by Norris, is produced at the Kitchener studio and heard on all Radio One transmitters in Ontario on Saturday afternoons (except

Toronto which airs ''Big City, Small World'').

References

External links

CBC Kitchener-Waterloo

CBLA-FM-2
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the

Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cbla-Fm-2 Bla-2 Bla-2 Radio stations established in 2013 2013 establishments in Ontario