[2] The station was originally owned by longtime sportscaster Foster Hewitt and began broadcasting on February 21, 1951, as CKFH 1400 before moving to 1430 AM in 1960.

During its early life, the station aired news and sports, Top 40, country music, adult contemporary and talk radio formats.

Due to its location near the top of the AM dial, as well as its transmitter power and height, CJCL covers most of southern Ontario during the day.

It was a news and sports station owned by legendary Canadian broadcaster Foster Hewitt (the "FH" of the call sign), who was best known as the first and long-time play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs on what became Hockey Night in Canada.

The station was subsequently sold to Telemedia in 1981 when it adopted its current CJCL call sign and switched to an adult contemporary format.

[7] In 1983, the station briefly adopted talk programming, but returned to its music format within a few months, with increased emphasis on oldies.

As the 1980s progressed, and the winning Blue Jays became more popular, the sports features became CJCL's profit centre.

Encouraged by the newfound success of sports radio in the United States, in 1992, the year the Blue Jays won their first World Series, CJCL would drop non-sports programming altogether on September 4, and became The Fan 1430, the first all-sports station in Canada.