As of March 4, Camosun College’s radio station has been taken off the airwaves and is going online. CKMO Village 900, a non-profit, educational radio station located at the Lansdowne campus, has stopped broadcasting its AM frequency and will only be available to listeners by streaming online.
“This is not the end for us,” says Brad Edwards, Village 900 station manager. “We still have a station, we are still going to broadcast and students will still receive the same education.”
The radio station, established in 1973 and formerly heard on an FM frequency, provides training for students in the applied communication program (ACP).
In September of 2000, the station struck a deal with Rogers Communications to relinquish their old FM location with Rogers agreeing to pay for the use of an AM transmitter. When the deal with Rogers recently expired, CKMO’s board of directors decided that the cost to keep the AM transmitter was too large.
“It’s an expensive venture, no matter how you look at it,” says Edwards, who says the yearly cost of the transmitter was over $60,000. “We don’t really have another option. We have to think about what’s cost effective and bringing the station off-air and going online seems like the right answer.”
Allie Bowman, assistant promotion director at the Zone and ACP grad, says going digital isn’t a bad thing.
“I think it’s going to be beneficial,” she says. “Village 900 now gets a chance to play in the social-media world, intrigue new listeners, and, more importantly, students will still be able to gain that valuable studio experience. It’s possible that Village 900’s current supporters will not be able to adapt this change, but streaming online will appeal to a whole new demographic.”
By going fully digital, Village 900 will now be heard all around the world, for anyone who wants to tune into live stream, including those using smartphones.
“It’s time that we embrace new technologies and adapt that into our program,” says Edwards. “I never saw this coming, but Village 900 is embracing this. We are going to focus on where we are going tomorrow and that is what is important: the new frontier.”