CFRA played pop music until the mid-1980s as Ottawa's leading Top 40 music station, known in the late '70s and early '80s for its hugely popular and controversial evening host Mark Elliott.
On August 18, 1986, CFRA changed formats to "Favourites of Yesterday and Today," describing itself as a gold-based adult contemporary station (and mirroring a similar change from Top 40 to gold-based AC that same year at sister station CHUM-AM in Toronto).