Application and launch The application was filed by Rainbow Media Group, a partnership between
Evanov Radio Group and other private investors, in 2005, and was approved by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on April 5, 2006. The company planned a format featuring a mix of popular and classic music (with daytime focused primarily towards current and classic hits, and evenings featuring more specialty rhythmic, dance, and
world music), with spoken word programming oriented towards Toronto's LGBT community (including at least 7 hours of news programming, and 21 hours of talk/information programming per week). The station also promised to fund a $5,000 annual
scholarship to journalism, art or music students at
Humber College and
Carleton University, and a $30,000 stage showcase for musical artists at Toronto's
Pride Week celebrations. Programming would be partially overseen by a community advisory committee. 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. Several interventions opposing the application, as well as
National Post columnist
Lorne Gunter, noted that the CRTC had not issued an open call for other applications, alleging that the application was given special treatment by the CRTC for "
politically correct" reasons — notably, Gunter directly linked the station's approval to the CRTC's denial in 2003 of a licence for a
Roman Catholic radio station in Toronto, alleging
religious discrimination.
Post-launch In 2009, Evanov bought out the remaining owners of Rainbow Media Group, becoming the station's sole owner. In the station's early years, some listeners noted that even in the Church and Wellesley Village itself, the station's signal was sometimes drowned out by
CBL-FM's rebroadcaster in
Peterborough or by
CKDK-FM from
Woodstock. In 2010, the station applied to the
CRTC to increase its signal from 50 watts to 128 watts, with an ERP of 250 watts, which received CRTC approval on June 9, 2010. However, the station still broadcast from a transmitter location near
Yonge and Eglinton in the
Midtown region, rather than from a downtown location like most other radio stations in the city, and its signal later deteriorated even further as
condominium development increased in the area. CIRR has since relocated its transmitter to the top of the Sheraton Centre on Queen Street. CIRR was the first commercially licensed LGBT-oriented radio station in Canada and the world. Evanov Communications was granted a license in November 2011 for a second LGBT-oriented station, a
French language signal in the
Montreal,
Quebec market. The station,
CHRF, which was originally proposed to have launched in 2013 at the 990 AM frequency, after a series of delays that also included a frequency change to 980 AM. However, the format was not successful, resulting in CHRF dropping the
Radio Fierté format on December 1, 2015, after just 10 months, switching to an
adult standards format, and later shutting down in 2020 due to continued low ratings. In September 2011, Evanov submitted an application with the CRTC to move CIRR to 88.1 MHz, formerly held by
CKLN-FM, and to increase its transmitter power. Per the CRTC's competitive licensing process, a call for competing applicants for the frequency was issued (where Evanov also proposed a "
new easy listening" station). The license was ultimately awarded to Rock 95 Broadcasting Ltd., which launched
adult album alternative CIND-FM on the frequency. On August 16, 2023, Evanov announced that
Proud FM would be shut down at the end of August 2023, citing that "all broadcasters are now contending with the challenges of increased competition, a difficult economic climate, and the residual effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic." CIRR's remaining local personalities Jaret Sereda and Tyler Carr took on roles at CIDC, with Carr moving his weekend show to the station, and Sereda serving as an on-air contributor. ==Programming==