CBCS-FM

On July 28, 1975, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation received approval from the CRTC to operate a new english-language FM station at Sudbury, Ontario. The proposed frequency was 97.1 MHz [1] (later read 99.9 MHz when launched).

The station was launched on May 5, 1978 on 99.9 MHz. Prior to its launch, CBC Radio programming aired on private affiliates CKSO and CKSO-FM.[2]

The CRTC decision authorizing the launch of CBCS in fact encouraged, but did not direct, the CBC to retain an AM frequency for CBC Radio, and to reserve CBCS for its CBC Stereo network.[3] However, the station launched in 1978 as an affiliate of the talk network after the CBC was unable to negotiate an agreement with Cambrian Broadcasting to directly acquire CKSO.

The CBC later applied for a second license for its Stereo network, which was granted in 1984.[4] However, that station remain unlaunched throughout the 1980s, and the CBC was forced in 1991 to surrender all of its non-operating licenses. Consequently, CBC Radio 2 service was not available in the city until the launch of CBBS-FM in 2001.

In the CBC's service reductions announced in March 2009, CBCS was slated to lose half of its existing staff. Several hundred people attended a rally at the city's Tom Davies Square on April 5 to protest the cutbacks, with participants including federal MPs Glenn Thibeault, Claude Gravelle and Charlie Angus, and musicians Kevin Closs and Stéphane Paquette.[5]

In September 2014, the station announced that it would move in late 2015 from 15 Mackenzie Street, where it had been located since its launch in 1978, to a new leased studio and office space on Elm Street.[6] The move was completed in December 2015.[7] The CBC had an open house in September 2016. [8] The former studio on Mackenzie Street was then rented out to Siena Films as the police station in the 2017 drama series Cardinal.[9]

The station's local programs are Morning North, hosted by Markus Schwabe, and Up North, hosted by Jonathan Pinto, in the afternoon. In May 2009, Morning North won the Radio and Television News Directors Association's Peter Gzowski Award for Best Information Radio Program in Central Canada,[10] and in June 2009, the program won the award for all of Canada.[11]

The CBC announced in August 2014 that Up North, which premiered on August 11, would replace the former afternoon program Points North.[12] The new program extends its coverage to all of Northern Ontario, also replacing Voyage North on CBQT-FM in Thunder Bay.[12]

Former Points North host Dan Lessard retired from the program in June 2010.[13] He was replaced by Jason Turnbull, who served as host of Points North, and then of Up North, until leaving the station in 2018 to take a job in media relations with Health Sciences North.[14] Turnbull, in turn, was succeeded by Waubgeshig Rice, who hosted the show until leaving the CBC in May 2020.[15] Jonathan Pinto was named the new host of the program, effective September 2020.

In the CBC's proposed new regional programming strategy released in 2005, North Bay was scheduled to receive its own local news bureau, although North Bay would continue to receive CBCS' local programming apart from news updates. As of 2020, however, no separate local news service has been launched in North Bay.

• CBC Sudbury
• CBCS-FM history – Canadian Communications Foundation
• CBCS-FM in the REC Canadian station database