CFBC 930 has been part of Saint John's radio landscape since well before country music became its format, first signing on the air on November 21, 1946. Nearly eight decades later, the station is still broadcasting from the same corner of New Brunswick, though almost everything else about it has changed at least once.
A Call Sign Named After Its Founder
The station's call letters trace directly back to its original owner, the Fundy Broadcasting Company, later known as Fundy Cable, a name that ties the station permanently to the Bay of Fundy region it has always served. From launch, CFBC operated as an affiliate of the CBC Dominion Network, a national radio service that carried the station's programming until the network was dissolved in 1962.
Growing Into an FM Sister Station
Fundy expanded its Saint John radio presence in 1965 with an FM sister station at 98.9 MHz, which would eventually become CJYC-FM. For more than three decades, CFBC operated out of several different studio locations across the city before Maritime Broadcasting System acquired both stations from Fundy in 1997 and consolidated operations onto Union Street, bringing them under a single roof for the first time.
From Oldies to Country
CFBC spent years running an oldies and classic hits format before making a decisive shift in August 2013, switching to country music, the format it still carries today. That change lines up with a broader pattern across North American AM radio, where legacy stations increasingly moved toward country programming as a way to hold onto a loyal, geographically broad audience that FM stations were pulling away from elsewhere.
A Strike That Spawned Its Own Internet Radio Station
In June 2012, unionized staff at CFBC and two sister Maritime Broadcasting System stations in Saint John walked out, triggering public calls to boycott the stations' advertisers. Rather than go silent, the striking staff set up their own internet radio station to keep programming going until the dispute was resolved, an improvised workaround that says as much about the crew's commitment to being on air as any official station history could.
Scaling Back to Stay on the Air
CFBC once broadcast at a substantial 50,000 watts through a directional four-tower antenna array, but rising operating costs, equipment failures and declining AM revenue led the station to seek permission in January 2020 to drop to 2,000 watts by day and 150 watts overnight, running from a single non-directional antenna. It is a common trajectory for AM stations across North America, trading raw broadcast power for a leaner, more sustainable operation.
Still on 930, After Everything
From a Dominion Network affiliate to an independent oldies station to today's country outlet, CFBC has changed format, ownership and even its own transmission power more than once. What has not changed is the frequency, 930 kHz, still carrying Saint John's country music to the same stretch of the Fundy coast it first reached in 1946.