VICTORIA — When CHEK began broadcasting on Vancouver Island at 5 p.m. on December 1, 1956, it was the first commercial TV station in British Columbia. Now independent and employee-owned, CHEK is celebrating its 64th anniversary on air with the launch of its first podcast.
Focused on Indigenous culture on Vancouver Island and beyond, the new podcast, Our Native Land, is hosted by Tchadas Leo, a Vancouver-based broadcaster from the Homalco First Nation.
The first episode of the weekly podcast features an interview with Melanie Mark, B.C.’s first female Indigenous MLA and currently the province’s minister of tourism, arts, culture and sport.
CHEK Media Group general manager Rob Germain told Cartt.ca the company plans to produce more original podcasts and vodcasts from its new podcast studios in Victoria, and is also making the studios available to other content creators, including non-profit and for-profit podcasters. CHEK Media will help to amplify and distribute some of their work to make it more discoverable, said Germain in an email.
The Our Native Land podcast is available now on CHEK’s website here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and other podcast platforms.
