The Communications Tower is the tallest structure in Saskatchewan at over with lights and top antenna. The Tower was constructed by Towerectors, a company that specialized in constructing Communications Towers. Towerectors was owned and operated by Gerhard F. Hein and George Anderson. The station first signed on the air on September 6, 1987, under the ownership of Canwest. CFRE and its sister station in Saskatoon, CFSK, were branded as "STV", and became part of the CanWest Global System in 1990 until the Global Television Network brand was expanded to all of Canwest's stations in 1997.
News operation
CFRE-DT presently broadcasts 24½ hours of local newscasts each week. The station also airs the public affairs programFocus Saskatchewan. On May 31, 2011, Shaw Media announced that a new local weekday morning newscast would begin broadcasting on CFRE in late-August 2011. The morning newscast runs for three hours from 6 to 9 a.m. On August 11, 2011, it was announced that Heather Anderson would anchor the program. In late 2011, CFRE-DT became the first television station in the Regina market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. On August 20, 2012, CFRE expanded its half-hour 10 p.m. newscast to one hour, and changed the name of the program from Prime News to News Hour Final ; the addition of the morning newscast and the expansion of the primetime newscast was part of an expansion of local news programming on Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada as part of a benefits package that was included as a condition of the sale of the Global Television Network to Shaw Communications. Starting in August 2015, Global News at 10 and all weekend news programming was being produced out of Toronto; anchors were provided by the centralized news operation, but the broadcasts continued to feature local reporting. However, local news anchors have since returned to the weekday broadcast on Global News at 10. The program is hosted by Global Regina anchors Carlyle Fiset and Elise Darwish, who also produce the newscasts at 6 and 10 for Global Saskatoon. Although the newscasts are anchored from Regina, Global Regina no longer has a permanent evening weather specialist. Instead, meteorologist Peter Quinlan from Global Saskatoon anchors Global Regina's weather reports. Weekend newscasts are still produced in Toronto and anchored by Mark Carcasole.