City | Toronto, Ontario |
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Broadcast area | Greater Toronto Area |
Branding | 103.9 Proud FM |
Slogan | "The Pride of Toronto" |
Frequency | 103.9 MHz (FM) |
First air date | April 16, 2007 |
Format | LGBT-oriented Hot AC/CHR |
ERP | 225 W |
HAAT | 123 m |
Class | A1 |
Callsign meaning | CI Rainbow Radio (pre-launch name) |
Owner | Evanov Communications |
Webcast | player.evanradio.com/CIRRFM |
Website | www.proudfm.com |
CIRR-FM, branded as 103.9 Proud FM, is a radio station in Toronto, Ontario, licensed to serve the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, launched in 2007. It is the first radio station in Canada targeted specifically to an LGBT audience, and the first commercial terrestrial LGBT radio station in the world — all earlier LGBT radio stations, such as Joy Melbourne in Australia, Radio Rosa in Denmark and SIRIUS OutQ on satellite radio, were operated by community non-profit groups or aired on non-traditional radio platforms.
Originally broadcasting from Toronto's Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, CIRR's studios are currently located on Dundas Street West in the Eatonville neighbourhood of Toronto, while its transmitter is located atop the Sheraton Centre on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto across from Toronto City Hall.
The application was filed by Rainbow Media Group, a partnership between Evanov Communications and other private investors, in 2005, and was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on April 5, 2006. The company first applied for this licence in 2000, but was denied in favour of Milestone Radio's CFXJ, Canada's first urban music station. The 2005 application received widespread support from the city's LGBT community. The station proposal was originally branded as "Rainbow Radio"; the branding that would make it to air, "Proud FM", began to be used in promotional announcements and job advertisements in early 2007.