Bell Media has debuted an All-Comedy format on CFRW/1290 (Winnipeg), replacing what had been Manitoba’s only All-Sports station.
The 10kW CFRW, along with Bell stations in Hamilton and Vancouver, dropped “TSN Radio” on Tuesday. In the interim, CFRW carried a mix of music as of midday Tuesday with announcements saying that “something brand new is arriving this Friday at 9 a.m.”
“It was a difficult decision, but the realities of the quickly evolving broadcast media landscape in Canada have made this change unavoidable,” the company said in a statement posted to the former TSN 1290 website.
“Funny 1290” debuted on Friday.
There is no other All-Sports station in Manitoba. Corus Radio’s 50kW CJOB/680 carries a significant amounts of Sports programming and recently secured the rights to the Winnipeg Jets, formerly heard on CFRW.
Bell operates CFRW alongside Adult Hits “99.9 Bob FM” (CFWM-FM), Contemporary Hits “103.1 Virgin Radio” (CKMM-FM), and CTV affiliate CKY-DT/7.
The format changes come a week after Bell reportedly cut more than 200 jobs nationwide.