CFCH-FM (90.5 FM) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

radio station in

North Bay, Ontario North Bay is a city in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is the seat of Nipissing District, Ontario, Nipissing District, and takes its name from its position on the shore of Lake Nipissing. North Bay developed as a railroad centre, and its airpo ...

. Owned by

Vista Radio Vista Radio Ltd. (also formerly known as Vista Broadcast Group) is a Canadian radio broadcasting company. The company only owned stations in British Columbia until 2007, when it expanded outside the province by acquiring an existing station in Ye ...

, it broadcasts a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informati ...

branded as ''Country 90.5'', "North Bay's Best Country."

History

On September 27, 2018, the CRTC issued call applications to operate new operate a new commercial FM radio station to serve North Bay, Ontario. Vista Broadcast Group, the owner of CFXN-FM North Bay submitted an application to operate a new FM station in North Bay on the frequency of 90.5 MHz. At the time, no formats were announced for the new proposed station. On October 29, 2019,

Ltd. (formerly Vista Broadcast Group) applied for a broadcasting licence to operate an oldies music station in North Bay. The station would operate with an effective radiated power of 45,800 watts, and would broadcast 126 hours of local programming per broadcast week. On May 25, 2020, the

CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

approved an application by

for a new FM radio station in North Bay, which would operate on the frequency 90.5 MHz, and carry an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as wel ...

format.

Return of CFCH and Launch

In June 2020, Vista announced that it had acquired the heritage callsign CFCH, which once belonged to what is now

Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

-owned

CKFX-FM CKFX-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts at 101.9 FM in North Bay, Ontario. The station airs a mainstream rock format under the brand name ''101.9 Rock''. The station uses the same general format as, and shares some programming wit ...

. Vista Radio's owner Sherry Brydson is a granddaughter of CFCH's original owner Roy Thomson, and she described the station as being established in Thomson's legacy. From 2005 to 2014, the CFCH callsign was previously used at an unrelated

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

Chase, British Columbia Chase is a village located in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It has a population of 3,399, and its main industries are forestry and tourism. It is located at the outlet of Little Shuswap Lake, which is the source of the South ...

. On June 15, 2021, at 7:15 am ET, CFCH-FM officially signed on the air at 90.5 FM as ''Country 90.5'', "North Bay's Best Country." Its first song on the air was "

Outlaws and Outsiders "Outlaws & Outsiders" is a song co-written and recorded by Canadian country rock singer Cory Marks. Ivan Moody of Five Finger Death Punch, Travis Tritt, and Mick Mars of Mötley Crüe are featured on the track. The song was released in Novembe ...

," the first gold-certified single by North Bay’s

Cory Marks Cory Gerald Joseph Marquardt (born October 11, 1989) is a Canadian country rock singer-songwriter, drummer, actor and former ice hockey player better known by his stage name Cory Marks. He is signed to Better Noise Music. He has released two albu ...

.Oschefski returns to morning radio with launch of new FM station
''baytoday.ca'', June 15, 2021 This makes it the first country music station on FM in the North Bay market since

CKAT CKAT is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 600 AM in North Bay, Ontario. The station, owned by Rogers Media, airs a country, news and sports format. History The station originally launched in 1967 at 93.7 FM, and was acquired by Norther ...

took over the original CFCH's AM 600 frequency, and CFCH moved to 101.9 FM, adopting the new callsign CKFX in the 1990s. The launch of Vista Radio's new ''Country 90.5'' also makes

Rogers Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties, such as the Citytv and Omni Television terrestrial television stations, Sportsne ...

's CKAT the second country music radio station in the North Bay market with the similar branding of CKAT's ''Country 600''.

References

External links

CFCH 90.5 FM
- Official site
www.mynorthbaynow.com

broadcasting history.ca

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 intern ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cfch-Fm Fch Fch Fch Radio stations established in 2021 2021 establishments in Ontario