Sensation station
The last 365 days have been huge for CJLO. Especially since it’s roughly 50 percent of the time they’ve been on the AM airwaves.
Listen to this.
In October, the station won five awards at the annual CMJ Awards, including the co-title of best station in North America – sharing the award with WKDU Philadelphia at Drexel University – earning them a prominent spot in a Huffington Post article in October.
In September, Program Director Brian Joseph and Head Music Director Omar Husain were invited to the first International Radio Festival in Zurich, Switzerland to represent CJLO – the only Canadian station among the 30 attending.
And this summer, the station received funds from Community Radio Fund of Canada to establish a Youth Program to allow CJLO mentors to train Montreal high school students on the fundamentals of radio production. That program ended December 7 (see related links section below to sample the final product).
“It’s been crazy. It’s been great. It’s a bit scary,” says Station Manager Katie Seline, “because we’ve reached a certain point and we don’t want to dip back down.”
Despite taking a bit of time this holiday season to reflect on the last 12 months and take stock of their developments, Seline and CJLO staff are already making moves to keep the momentum going in their favour.
They recently hired second-year Communication Studies/Cultural Studies student Kayleigh Jordan-MacGregor to serve as Campus Outreach Coordinator to connect with students and associations that want to learn more about how CJLO can help them spread the word about whatever they’re doing.
“Jordan-MacGregor’s appointment will ensure we really are serving the student body, to make sure they do have a voice,” Seline says. “We give a voice to the things I think are important to students. After all, they pay for us to be here.”
CJLO currently gets roughly 88 percent of its annual $194,000 budget from student fees. (The remaining 12 percent is raised by fundraising and a small amount of ad sales.)
“Most of our overall budget is dedicated to land rental for the antenna, insurance, powering the transmitter and salaries for two full-time employees, as well as six small stipends and one larger stipend for our volunteer core staff,” she says. “We’re spread pretty thin. Hopefully, as we grow, so too will our budget.”
While the station has made its strongest impact on the Montreal university station landscape – a solid scene with stalwarts CKUT Radio McGill 90.3 FM and the Université de Montréal’s CISM 89.3 FM – since hitting the AM waves in 2008, CJLO has been not-so-quietly active in carving out its niche since its online launch in 2003.
“I’ve seen the progress we’ve made,” says Seline, who’s been at CJLO for upwards of seven years, first as a DJ, then promotions director and volunteer, now station manager.
To do even more, station personnel are continuing to look into ways to expand. Currently only receivable on radios close to the station’s Loyola location, they’re hoping to find the funds for a repeater on a downtown building so downtown and the Plateau Mont Royal neighbourhood can listen in. They’re also experimenting with expanding a podcast service.
In the meantime, the station has developed a free iPhone/Pod/Pad app so anyone can listen from anywhere.
It looks like 2011 might be just as good for the station. CJLO has its fullest schedule in history (Fridays go from 6 a.m. til 2 a.m.) and the station remains on the lookout for show ideas. The passion for radio, says Seline, has never been stronger.
“These people are here because they’re dedicated and they really, really want to be here and help the station,” she says. “For everyone out there, give us a shot. We play the music nobody else does. I know we won’t please everybody, but you’ll find something you won’t find elsewhere.”
Related links:
• CJLO
• CJLO iPhone app from iTunes
• CJLO voted best in college radio – NOW, November 1, 2010
• CJLO Execs invited to Zurich for radio summit – Concordia Journal, August 30, 2010