The nearby Humber College provided a steady stream of young employees, who were encouraged to play their own selections.

At this point in the station's existence, it operated under the call letters CHIC-FM, broadcasting about 30 hours per week, with a transmitter power of 857 watts ERP mono.

Some of those on air people were Dave Gordon, Mike Lynch, Steve Martak, Rich Elwood, Ted Woloshyn, Scott Cameron; any genre of music was open to airtime.

Engineers Mike Hargrave Pawson and Steve Martak built the new studio and a new transmitter site in Georgetown to increase the coverage from 857 watts to 100 kW ERP, thus able to cover much of the Greater Toronto Area.

Staff employed to that point were fired in favour of hiring a new team and David Pritchard joined the station as CFNY's first program director.

It also began hosting specialty programs of reggae and blues music, and a popular, nationally syndicated Beatles show.

[4] While the fan base was loyal, the station struggled to grow its audience due to its small studio and low broadcasting power of only 679 watts.

CFNY would send DJs to host regular new wave dance parties, both to build a community amongst its fans and to supplement the station's limited advertising revenue through admission fees.

When the new owners went bankrupt in 1979, the station received 6,200 letters and tens of thousands of names on a petition lobbying the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to "save real radio.

[7] By 1985, the station had reached new heights of popularity, capturing over 5.4% of the Toronto area listeners and becoming internationally famous for its music mix, due to its availability via satellite.

Through the early and mid-1980s, CFNY was well-respected for introducing new performers that other stations wouldn't play due to not being well-known names, including Canadian artists such as Martha and the Muffins, Rough Trade, Blue Rodeo, Jane Siberry, 54-40, Skinny Puppy, and Spoons.

[8] Marsden moved to Vancouver, where he created and launched the variety series Pilot One for CBC Television and became program director of Coast 800.

More than 500 radio stations, including one in each Canadian province and American state, plus one in Sydney, Australia played this Dream Network tribute broadcast.

After nearly 13 years of success and popular acclaim as a freestyle rock and alternative radio station, CFNY switched to a primarily Top 40 format and began to identify on-air as FM102.

In support of their new policies and format, station management quickly attempted to put a stop to this by ordering that DJs were to refuse all such calls and fulfill only those requests which were for Top 40 music.

Perhaps the most notable of these was the resignation of program director Don Berns after only two years in the role, in protest against station management's decisions.

[10] Certain radio analyst reports suggested that as many as 100,000 new listeners had been gained by the change, but this masked the fact that the market share dropped considerably, to 4.3%.

In the early 1990s, the station again became an important outlet for new Canadian music, with bands such as Barenaked Ladies, The Lowest of the Low, Rheostatics, and Sloan counting CFNY as their first major radio supporter.

However, alternative rock was the dominant commercial genre by this time, so CFNY did not sound as distinctive compared to other radio stations as it once had.

Unfortunately it would also be some time before the changes were effective in resolving the staff morale problems born during the station's recent turbulent years.

In addition to the growth of the Humble & Fred morning show, Jason Barr also joined the station at this time[14] and would go on to become a significant contributor to CFNY.

A creation of program director Stewart Meyers, on-air personality Alan Cross launched a new feature on the station in 1993, The Ongoing History of New Music.

Taking their place were newcomers Dean Blundell and Todd Shapiro, as well as station regular and Humble & Fred contributor Jason Barr.

Cross returned to the station in 2014 as a programming consultant and to resurrect his popular syndicated show The Ongoing History of New Music.

Program director Alan Cross departed the station once more in 2008 to take a position at Corus Entertainment's interactive division, Splice Media.

Fred joined the Edge as afternoon drive host in August 2009, while Bookman moved to the weekday evenings time slot.

[25] In November 2013, the station faced criticism when Dean Blundell Show cohost Derek Welsman made on-air comments about a criminal trial on which he had been the jury foreman, resulting in allegations both of homophobia—the case involved allegations of sexual assault against a client of a gay bathhouse—and of potentially causing a mistrial by publicly discussing aspects of the jury deliberations.

The departure of both Beharrell to KITS in San Francisco and Benevides back to mornings at CKBT-FM in Kitchener was followed by the apparent dismissal of Diamond, forcing the station to rearrange its broadcast schedule for the third time in less than a year.

The return of Cross and Turner was intended to draw in younger listeners, as well as older audiences from the "Spirit of Radio" era who were alienated by station's "harder-edged" atmosphere.

[35] In November 2018, Kolter Bouchard (ex-CILQ-FM) and Meredith Geddes (ex-CFOX-FM) were announced as the new afternoon drive show, effective immediately.