It’s been well over three years since Erin?Radio’s first broadcast, but the small community station continues to evolve.
“We’re still trying to find our feet,” Jay Mowat, chairman of the station’s board, said with a smile from the station’s second floor studio overlooking Main Street in the village of Erin.
The 50 watt station, operated by about 70 regular volunteers and 35 program hosts on 101.5FM, regularly tinkers with programs and personnel to see what fits.
“We try to do as much local programming as we can,” Mowat said, adding the station tries to play one local song an hour, and also produces two regular 60-minute local music programs.
In addition to a myriad of spoken word programs and musical styles ranging from rock, pop and country to jazz, soul and blues, the station also offers live reporting from local events like elections, Remembrance Day services, Santa Claus parades, fall fairs, the Erin Rodeo, the home and lifestyle show and most recently, the Olympic torch relay.
“We try to get out into the community and connect with them,” Mowat said. “We try to be as plugged in locally as we can.”
Erin Radio started in October of 2006 in response to the apparent need for a local emergency broadcaster, Mowat explained.
After the infamous blackout of August 2003, Nestlé Waters Canada offered free bottled water to Erin residents, but many were unaware of the local company’s donation. That caused a few people in town, including Mowat and Erin Mayor Rod Finnie, to muse that a local radio station would help keep residents informed during such emergencies.
A small group of very dedicated volunteers, including Mowat, Brett Girven and David Spencer, took the idea and ran with it. Over the next few years, with the help of the town and other generous benefactors, local support for the idea grew.
“This is a very good community for volunteerism, and residents really support us,” Mowat said. “I think the community likes what we’re doing.”
He stressed the support of the municipality – both financially and otherwise – has been instrumental in the station’s success.
“The town has been incredibly good to us,” Mowat said, noting council’s 2006 donation of $10,000 helped cover half the cost of a new generator, which allows the station to operate during power outages.
The town also supported Erin Radio’s original Canadian Radio-television and Teleco-mmunications Commission (CRTC) application in 2005 and provided written and financial support ($2,500 in 2008) to help the station with its initiative to increase its broadcasting area.
Finnie said council tries to support any organization that provides a benefit to the community, and thus far its relationship with Erin Radio has worked out well.
“It’s been a great addition to our community; it adds an immediacy to our ability to communicate with residents,” Finnie said. “We think they’re important to have.”
In the beginning the main task was getting word out that Erin?Radio was actually on the air, Mowat said, “But now the job is getting regular listeners.”
With that in mind, station officials will be launching a marketing drive this spring to better inform residents of scheduling and the various programs offered by the station.
But if Erin Radio really wants to gain more listeners, it first has to increase its power and change frequencies.
Currently, its 50 watt signal can be received within a five kilometre radius only, meaning that even in nearby Hillsburgh – the municipality’s other major residential area, which is known for its rolling hills – the reception can range from poor to non-existent.
Officials want to increase the station’s power five-fold, to 250 watts, in order to expand its range to include the entire municipality; and they also want to build a larger tower. Those moves would go hand-in-hand with a change in frequency, from 101.5 to 88.1FM.
“We’re unprotected right now,” Mowat said, explaining that anyone could step in and also use the 101.5 frequency and interfere with Erin?Radio. Stations that broadcast at 51 watts and higher are considered protected.
In August of 2008, Erin Radio was threatened by three Guelph companies seeking applications to use the same 101.5 frequency. Fortunately, about a year ago the CRTC?denied all three applications because it was “not convinced that the Guelph radio market could support the introduction of new commercial radio services at this time.”
But the issue has come up again; this time with Durham Radio Inc. – one of the Guelph applicants – seeking a new radio station in Orangeville on what Mowat suspects will be 101.5FM.
“At the end of the day I’m quite happy Orangeville is getting its own radio station,” he said. “I think having more radio stations is a good thing.”
But the Orangeville station, despite having a relatively “small footprint,” could still “knock us off the air,” he added. It also wouldn’t surprise Mowat if there were more applications out of Guelph for the 101.5 frequency next year.
“There’s very little room for anybody any more on the FM spectrum,” Mowat said, explaining why so many companies are after the 101.5 frequency.
So Erin Radio officials applied on Jan. 5 for a change in frequency to 88.1, as well as an increase in power to 250 watts. They hope a funding agreement can again be reached with the town, as costs could range from $20,000 to $30,000 for a new transmitter, antenna and signal processor. Mowat expects to hear back from the CRTC sometime in March.
In the meantime, volunteers are ramping up their fundraising efforts – including another Ontario Trillium Foundation grant application to replace provincial funding that ran out last summer – to accommodate for slumping ad revenue.
“We’ll always sell advertisements, but I don’t think we should be dependent on them,” Mowat opined.
Station officials are also excited about new programs, in particular the December arrival of the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Carol Mott, formerly of Newstalk Radio 1010AM in Toronto.
“They bring a whole new cache. It’s a very professional show,” Mowat said of the Motts. “We’re very happy with the relationship.”
Erin Radio has formed a partnership with the Motts, who were laid off from Newstalk 1010 in August and now distribute their show online at www.themotts.ca.
Because they own a hobby farm just south of the village, the Motts agreed to record the show at Erin?Radio, weekdays from 11 to 12pm, with plans to move to two hours very soon. They are offering the show to any radio station that wants it, with stations in Bolton and Caledon already signed on.
“It’s worked out perfectly,” Carol Mott said of the partnership with Erin Radio. “We’re just thrilled. We’re having so much fun … The people there are so enthusiastic and helpful.”
It doesn’t hurt, she added, that the Motts are now their own boss, nor that the trip to the station is only five minutes including a stop for coffee, as opposed to the long commute to the Toronto area.
And while the Motts may be the station’s newest hosts from the Erin area, they certainly aren’t the the only ones. In fact, all Erin Radio hosts live within a 30 minute drive, with all but a handful from right in the Town of Erin.
Also, the station just might be shaping the careers of future broadcasters through its involvement with?Erin District High School (EDHS) students.
Since its inception the station has always welcomed co-op students from the school, and last year, with the help of a $10,000 grant, it started “The Sesh,” a 30-minute program featuring EDHS students that runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12:30pm and is also broadcast at the school.
“We’ve got a good connection with the youths of Erin, which I think is pretty cool,” Mowat said, adding it’s all part of the station’s ongoing commitment to its community.
“All of this and nobody gets paid,” he said with a laugh.
For more information on?Erin?Radio, visit erinradio.ca.
