CKLN began as a closed circuit station set up in 1970 as Ryerson Community Radio, its broadcasts piped to loudspeakers around campus. In 1972, it became independent of Ryerson's Radio and Television Arts department and adopted the call letters CRFM. In 1978, the station adopted the call letters CKLN and was broadcast through campus via closed circuit cable. It was licensed as an over the air FM broadcaster by the CRTC in 1983 as a Ryerson University-based campus-community radio station and assigned the frequency of 88.1 MHz on the FM band and allowed to retain the CKLN call letters. Ryerson had announced that it would close its earlier radio station, CJRT-FM, in 1973 due to financial constraints; that station was saved in 1974 by the Ontario government headed by Bill Davis in 1974 as a government funded public radio station without formal ties to Ryerson.