WINNIPEG – After nearly 10 years, Red River College’s student radio station 92.9 KICK FM will go silent this afternoon.
Cre-Comm Radio Inc’s board of directors cited “recent changes to CRTC regulations regarding campus and community radio stations, and financial challenges” for returning the current broadcast license to the CRTC, in a statement posted on their website. The change to the regulations was announced this past January, when the CRTC stated it would cease licensing stations that exist purely for educational reasons.
The station, as planned, never became self-sustaining, and Red River College continued to fund KICK FM and provided the transmitter, equipment and facilities until today’s announcement.
David Wiebe, chairman of Cre-Comm Radio, told the Winnipeg Free Press that it initially applied for a campus and community radio license, but later withdrew the application. He cited a lack of funding from the college and the wish to focus on training students, not community members, as reasons for the decision.
"I think we want to refocus the mandate of the station, which was to provide a training forum for students, as opposed to being a community station," said Wiebe. "It's not a fault of the CRTC, it's a change of the process. It's different from what it was. Had we had enough funding to continue, we could have worked with the CRTC."
The station will continue to train students for a career in radio and there are plans to resume Internet streaming in the fall according to the station’s website.
