The station was launched by its original owners, Border Television at 8am on 14 April 1993 when Managing Director and Breakfast show host John Myers played "The Best" by Tina Turner as its first song. Originally CFM only broadcast from their Caldbeck mast to Carlisle on and Penrith, from the top of , on. In September 1995, they also started transmitting to West Cumbria from their transmitters at Broughton Moor and Whitehaven. From its launch, the station broadcast from premises adjacent to the ITV Border studios in Durranhill, Carlisle. In April 2010, CFM moved to a new base at Atlantic House in Kingstown, Carlisle. In 2005, Emap bought CFM and branded it as one of its Big City Network of stations. Three years later, Emap was bought by Bauer. Previously, CFM has won numerous industry awards including the Radio Academy's North West Station of the Year 2005 and Emap Station of the Year 2006. In May 2013, CFM became the first radio station to broadcast from a nuclear reprocessing site at Sellafield, West Cumbria. CFM is one of two stations within the Hits Radio Network that does not broadcast on DAB. This is due to the lack of local DAB multiplexes in Cumbria. However, in May 2019, Ofcom announced plans to advertise three local multiplexes in Cumbria & South WestScotland. Bauer made the sole application to Ofcom to run the North & West Cumbria DAB Multiplex, stating that they planned to place CFM as well as other Bauer owned stations on it, alongside BBC Radio Cumbria. In December 2019, Ofcom confirmed that the multiplex licence would be awarded to Bauer Digital Radio, with the multiplex expected to begin transmission in late 2020.
Programming
Networked programming originates from Bauer's Manchester headquarters. Local programming is produced and broadcast from Bauer’s Carlisle studios, weekdays 6am-7pm.
News
Bauer’s Carlisle newsroom broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am-7pm on weekdays and from 7am-1pm on weekends. Headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons, usually originating from Bauer's Leeds newsroom.
