Ottawa has a very interesting and diverse radio dial and I thought I'd give my opinions on it and a review.
AM
580 CFRA. One of the top rated stations in the city, mostly because there's almost no competition. The stations has a VERY conservative slant and it's one they're proud of. CFRA is the second most conservative station in Canada, behind CHQR in Calgary. Most of the station's programming consists of financial and health talk with a healthy dose of politics. The mid morning guy, Lowel Green is horrible. Unless you're a card carrying Conservative, anti-immigrant french hating person, his show holds nothing for you. If you disagree with him he won't hesitate to hang up on you after he name-calls you. The early afterno0n host, Michale Harris, while I can't stand his voice, is actually one of the best talk show hosts I've heard. He holds very intellectual discussions with his listeners (when he's not talking about health) and will not hesitate to hold callers over during commercial or news breaks to make sure they get their points across. Even if you don't agree with his viewpoints, he'll hold a calm, rational and intellectual conversation with you. He writes a decent editorial from time to time for the Ottawa Sun. I'm not a fan but I like him, how he conducts his show, and the fact that he brings a sense of balance to the station. THe evening guys, Ron Corbett and John Counsel are also very go0d. Ron is an author and columnist for the Ottawa Sun, and a damn go0d one. I like his show the best, to0 bad it's on while I work, and it's impossible for me to listen to the radio and do my job since I work on the phone. When I get the chance to hear him, it's very engaging listening. John Counsel is a pastor, and has a segment on Wedenesdays called Ask The Pastor, other than that he brings a lot of energy, and fun to his show. His friday night trivia shows are a hit with people both young and old, he offers great prizes and it's a fun listen. That being said, the rest of the station is god-awful. The sound is clipped, you'll never hear an "S" on the station, the news is very unbalanced and often when it comes to international story, they omit half the details, giving a one sided story. The bottom of the hour newscasts are 3 headlines and 3 minutes of financial news about companies that I've never heard of. Unless you're a very hardcore investor, their financial reports are incomprehensible to the average person. THe weekends are brokered health, home and finance shows except for a couple on sunday which actually play music. CFRA has the second best traffic reports in the city
1150 CJRC. A station that won't be on the air much longer, it's completing it's (pointless) conversion to FM. This is the talk station for the Francophone community, and is heavily centred on the Quebec side of the river. Late nights are a simulcast of CKAC Montreal. I don't speak French, so I can't comment on the quality of the shows. If I did, I'd probably be listening
1200 CFGO. The team 1200. I hope you like hockey, especially Ottawa Senators Hockey, because that's mostly what you get here, The Ottaw 67's are also carried (when there's no Sens game, if there is the 67's get bumped to CFRA). They're only live from 5:30 AM to about 7, and when they are, it's hockey talk and not much else, even in the 2 month off season. On the rare occasion there ISN'T a hockey game during the NFL season, you MIGHT hear a fo0tball game....don't hold your breath. Evenings and overnights are Fox sports radio. Weekends are brokered sports talk shows, including a 2 hour show on Saturdays about running....yes you read right...running...a real ratings winner there.
1310 CIWW. I actually like this station at times. Despite being voice tracked most of the time, the music's pretty decent, spanning the mid 60's to 1992. There's an hour of 50's music at 5 am, and big band on Sunday mornings. They carry Blue Jays baseball and have an hour sports talk show at nights from the Fan 590 in Toronto
1630 CHYW. Owned by the Ottawa International Airport. Wow, an airport station that gives more than just parking info, this bilingual 99 watt radio station actually gives flight arrival and departure times as well during certain times of the day, and will tell you if the flight is on time or not. More airport stations should do this.
FM
88.5 CILV. I love this station, and what it's been doing since day one. They play local and other unsigned acts in regular rotation, hold a contest for local bands that takes 8 months to go through for serious money. The winners actually have to sit down with the station and plan out how the money will be spent as it's intention is for talent developement. CILV is also the only station that has it's own bar! Yes you read that right, they own a bar that's open 4 nights a week, the Live Lounge, Wednesday night is open mike night, Thursday and Fridays have concerts with up and coming bands that get regular airplay. Those shows are recorded and often some of the songs make it onto the air. Saturday nights are the hard drive...6 hours of commercial free request driven radio broadcast live from the bar. They draw a HUGE crowd and play lots of great music. CILV started out with a policy of not repeating a song more than once every 6 hours, that's since been dropped to once every 4. It's VERY Interactive with it's listeners, all hosts have email accounts that they give over the air, myspace, facebo0k and twitter pages and accept text messages. They listen to the kinds of programing the listeners want. Sundays are very eclectic, with a more tripple A formated sunday morning show that really plays some very deep album cuts and obscure material, Sunday afterno0ns feature classic alternative, and there's a show of brand new music on Sunday nights. Alan Cross' Ongoing History Of New Music airs both Saturday and Sunday morning.
89.1 CHUO. A community/campus radio station that serves many communities in many languages. Sundays are ethnic, Saturdays feature Spanish language and carribean programming. The rest of the time the schedule is split between English and French, with block programming to every sub culture. There are excellent mix shows featuring hard-core electronic music, a very go0d metal show, punk music, spoken word programming.
CIHT 89.9. A CHR station, I don't listen to. To0 much rap and teen-pop. You're guaranteed to hear Rihanna every hour at least.
Radio Canada Premiere Chaine, 90.7 THE national French language service of the CBC. I like some of the music they air overnights. I don't speak french so I don't listen at any other times. They seem to feature lots of spoken word programming, current affairs and news.
CBC RADIO ONE 91.5. A VERY popular radio station. Typical CBC fare of current affairs and news programming. I like some of the weekend shows if I remember to listen.
93.1 CKCU. Just like CHUO but with no french language programming, and ethnic shows during the weekdays. I really like their spanish language news and current affairs show on Wednesdays when I'm not working. A couple of go0d metal shows, lots of new and developing artists, and an excellent show of international folk and devotional music on Thursday afterno0ns. I also enjoy An Indian Morning on Sunday mornings if I'm up, it fetures an hour of devotional and sacred music. The music the rest of the time is the same as you hear on CHUO.
93.9 BOB FM. Sometimes I tune in. The station is very 80's focused and is somewhat all over the map, Ottawa's version of the Jack format, but with live announcers. More tolerable than most of the commercial FM's in my opinion
94.9 Rock Detante French AC, I don't listen to it. Apparently it does well with Anglo listeners as well...or so I've read.
95.7 CKAV, Aboriginal Voices radio. An iPod ho0ked up to a 5000 watt transmitter. An iPod that plays a weird mix of rap, country, blues and world music done by aborigina artists. No announcers, no commercials, just the occasional ID. Sunday is the ONLY day they break away from that with some EXCELLENT spoken word programming, incuding stories from Elders. The station only seems to be worth the electricity it's consuming on Sundays.
96.5 Tag radio. I like this station to0. It launched a couple of years ago as a CHR, but recently flipped to Alternative/rock. A French radio station, they play some really go0d music, some songs that Live 88.5 won't play. They rock harder than any other station in the city, with the exception of CKCU/CHUO'S metal shows. They're very diverse musically and I can actually understand it most of the time, and that's probably because of the english promos. No censored songs here.
97.1 Planete FM. Until a couple of months ago this was a French classical/jazz radio station, now it's really light AC. I don't listen at all.
97.9 CJLL. Known on air as CHIN radio, this is our main ethnic radio station, days are devoted to Italian in the morning, Arabic afterno0ns, Chinese drive times, Hindi/Punjabi from 8 to 10. Late evenings feature various other languages, as do the weekends. Overnights are commercial dance music...in English. My biggest problem with this station is that there is TO0 MUCH English programming for an Ethnic station. 95% of the commercials are in English, Half of the programming to the Indian community is in English. No0n hours and overnights are English. There are only 3 things they get right. The Italian programing (which sadly still has an hour or so of english content), the Arabic programming and they FINALLY stopped airing CRI international and calling that their Chinese programme. During that time, 2 out of the 3 hours were in English. Now they have a locally produced show in either Mandarin or Cantonese (or both?) 3 hours a day, with current music.
98.5 the Jewell. A soft AC station. I don't listen, but they are very successful
99.1 CHRI. The christian station, that is all things to the Christian community, they play mostly CCM but have a lot of hours devoted to worship music and air two 3 hour blocks of preaching in the afterno0ns and overnights. Friday nights feature 2 hours of Metal and Punk.
99.7 CIIO. Ottawa Information Radio. (English) This 25 watt station covers the entire metro with the best traffic reports in the city, gas prices, an event calendar, road construction updates, and in case of an emergency, live detailed reports. Weather reports are also featured. There are some little history pieces on national and local history. All of this in a 10 minute lo0p that's updated as often as needed. A very useful station for both tourists and locals. This frequency is up for licensing in a CRTC hearing, CIIO is applying for a power increase. It was (almost) licensed to Astral media for a few months before the CRTC pulled that license...see 101.9 for more
100.3 CJMJ. Ottawa's soft rock...typical AC station...enough said
101.1 CKBY Country, located in Smiths Falls but powerful enough to reach 70% of the city. I don't listen to this station ever.
101.9 This is a storied frequency. For a few years it was home to Radio Enfant. Radio Enfant is now in the process of getting an AM signal on the air. Now it's home to the French version of Ottawa Information Radio, but only temprorarily...maybe. They're also applying for the frequency, but they've been using it for almost a year. The frequency was briefly licensed to Frank Torres for a blues station, but the CRTC pulled it last fall, along with 99.7. The head of the CRTC was not pleased with the way the licenses were granted out of all the applications for both frequencies so the licenses were pulled and the applicants were encouraged to apply again. Current programming on 101.9 is the same as 99.7, except in French
102.5 Espace Musique. I like this station. Although I can't understand it, I like the variety of music they play. Lots of spanish language music, along with other cultural and classical music. Some rock and dance music to0
103.3 CBC radio 2. Same as every other radio 2 outlet in Canada
104.1 Energie. A French CHR. This one isn't so bad, it's very popular with both Anglo and Francophone listeners, and they're not afraid to rock. If I had to be forced to listen to a CHR, I'd pick this station.
104.7 CJRC..the new home for 1150 AM...horrible signal...very strong and dominant downtown, weak everywhere else, non-existant in the suburbs. What's the point of talk on FM when it drops out as you drive around town...the AM signal is much better.
105.3 CISS. HOT AC day, CHR night. I rarely listen
106.1 CHEZ. The same tired old classic rock day after day after day. I hope you like the scorpions. You can set your watch by how often they play them.
106.9 the bear...I mean Virgin radio. More classic rock. I've removed this station from my radio presets
107.9 CKDJ Algonquin College's instructional radio station. This station is where the students in their broadcasting programme get to apply what they've learned in the classro0m. Many of their graduates have gone on to very successful tv and radio careers. Music is half Alternative, half rap. They air commercials, have very well done newscasts produced by the students, traffic reports, to0 bad it's only on 5 and a half days a week durring the scho0l year.
AM
580 CFRA. One of the top rated stations in the city, mostly because there's almost no competition. The stations has a VERY conservative slant and it's one they're proud of. CFRA is the second most conservative station in Canada, behind CHQR in Calgary. Most of the station's programming consists of financial and health talk with a healthy dose of politics. The mid morning guy, Lowel Green is horrible. Unless you're a card carrying Conservative, anti-immigrant french hating person, his show holds nothing for you. If you disagree with him he won't hesitate to hang up on you after he name-calls you. The early afterno0n host, Michale Harris, while I can't stand his voice, is actually one of the best talk show hosts I've heard. He holds very intellectual discussions with his listeners (when he's not talking about health) and will not hesitate to hold callers over during commercial or news breaks to make sure they get their points across. Even if you don't agree with his viewpoints, he'll hold a calm, rational and intellectual conversation with you. He writes a decent editorial from time to time for the Ottawa Sun. I'm not a fan but I like him, how he conducts his show, and the fact that he brings a sense of balance to the station. THe evening guys, Ron Corbett and John Counsel are also very go0d. Ron is an author and columnist for the Ottawa Sun, and a damn go0d one. I like his show the best, to0 bad it's on while I work, and it's impossible for me to listen to the radio and do my job since I work on the phone. When I get the chance to hear him, it's very engaging listening. John Counsel is a pastor, and has a segment on Wedenesdays called Ask The Pastor, other than that he brings a lot of energy, and fun to his show. His friday night trivia shows are a hit with people both young and old, he offers great prizes and it's a fun listen. That being said, the rest of the station is god-awful. The sound is clipped, you'll never hear an "S" on the station, the news is very unbalanced and often when it comes to international story, they omit half the details, giving a one sided story. The bottom of the hour newscasts are 3 headlines and 3 minutes of financial news about companies that I've never heard of. Unless you're a very hardcore investor, their financial reports are incomprehensible to the average person. THe weekends are brokered health, home and finance shows except for a couple on sunday which actually play music. CFRA has the second best traffic reports in the city
1150 CJRC. A station that won't be on the air much longer, it's completing it's (pointless) conversion to FM. This is the talk station for the Francophone community, and is heavily centred on the Quebec side of the river. Late nights are a simulcast of CKAC Montreal. I don't speak French, so I can't comment on the quality of the shows. If I did, I'd probably be listening
1200 CFGO. The team 1200. I hope you like hockey, especially Ottawa Senators Hockey, because that's mostly what you get here, The Ottaw 67's are also carried (when there's no Sens game, if there is the 67's get bumped to CFRA). They're only live from 5:30 AM to about 7, and when they are, it's hockey talk and not much else, even in the 2 month off season. On the rare occasion there ISN'T a hockey game during the NFL season, you MIGHT hear a fo0tball game....don't hold your breath. Evenings and overnights are Fox sports radio. Weekends are brokered sports talk shows, including a 2 hour show on Saturdays about running....yes you read right...running...a real ratings winner there.
1310 CIWW. I actually like this station at times. Despite being voice tracked most of the time, the music's pretty decent, spanning the mid 60's to 1992. There's an hour of 50's music at 5 am, and big band on Sunday mornings. They carry Blue Jays baseball and have an hour sports talk show at nights from the Fan 590 in Toronto
1630 CHYW. Owned by the Ottawa International Airport. Wow, an airport station that gives more than just parking info, this bilingual 99 watt radio station actually gives flight arrival and departure times as well during certain times of the day, and will tell you if the flight is on time or not. More airport stations should do this.
FM
88.5 CILV. I love this station, and what it's been doing since day one. They play local and other unsigned acts in regular rotation, hold a contest for local bands that takes 8 months to go through for serious money. The winners actually have to sit down with the station and plan out how the money will be spent as it's intention is for talent developement. CILV is also the only station that has it's own bar! Yes you read that right, they own a bar that's open 4 nights a week, the Live Lounge, Wednesday night is open mike night, Thursday and Fridays have concerts with up and coming bands that get regular airplay. Those shows are recorded and often some of the songs make it onto the air. Saturday nights are the hard drive...6 hours of commercial free request driven radio broadcast live from the bar. They draw a HUGE crowd and play lots of great music. CILV started out with a policy of not repeating a song more than once every 6 hours, that's since been dropped to once every 4. It's VERY Interactive with it's listeners, all hosts have email accounts that they give over the air, myspace, facebo0k and twitter pages and accept text messages. They listen to the kinds of programing the listeners want. Sundays are very eclectic, with a more tripple A formated sunday morning show that really plays some very deep album cuts and obscure material, Sunday afterno0ns feature classic alternative, and there's a show of brand new music on Sunday nights. Alan Cross' Ongoing History Of New Music airs both Saturday and Sunday morning.
89.1 CHUO. A community/campus radio station that serves many communities in many languages. Sundays are ethnic, Saturdays feature Spanish language and carribean programming. The rest of the time the schedule is split between English and French, with block programming to every sub culture. There are excellent mix shows featuring hard-core electronic music, a very go0d metal show, punk music, spoken word programming.
CIHT 89.9. A CHR station, I don't listen to. To0 much rap and teen-pop. You're guaranteed to hear Rihanna every hour at least.
Radio Canada Premiere Chaine, 90.7 THE national French language service of the CBC. I like some of the music they air overnights. I don't speak french so I don't listen at any other times. They seem to feature lots of spoken word programming, current affairs and news.
CBC RADIO ONE 91.5. A VERY popular radio station. Typical CBC fare of current affairs and news programming. I like some of the weekend shows if I remember to listen.
93.1 CKCU. Just like CHUO but with no french language programming, and ethnic shows during the weekdays. I really like their spanish language news and current affairs show on Wednesdays when I'm not working. A couple of go0d metal shows, lots of new and developing artists, and an excellent show of international folk and devotional music on Thursday afterno0ns. I also enjoy An Indian Morning on Sunday mornings if I'm up, it fetures an hour of devotional and sacred music. The music the rest of the time is the same as you hear on CHUO.
93.9 BOB FM. Sometimes I tune in. The station is very 80's focused and is somewhat all over the map, Ottawa's version of the Jack format, but with live announcers. More tolerable than most of the commercial FM's in my opinion
94.9 Rock Detante French AC, I don't listen to it. Apparently it does well with Anglo listeners as well...or so I've read.
95.7 CKAV, Aboriginal Voices radio. An iPod ho0ked up to a 5000 watt transmitter. An iPod that plays a weird mix of rap, country, blues and world music done by aborigina artists. No announcers, no commercials, just the occasional ID. Sunday is the ONLY day they break away from that with some EXCELLENT spoken word programming, incuding stories from Elders. The station only seems to be worth the electricity it's consuming on Sundays.
96.5 Tag radio. I like this station to0. It launched a couple of years ago as a CHR, but recently flipped to Alternative/rock. A French radio station, they play some really go0d music, some songs that Live 88.5 won't play. They rock harder than any other station in the city, with the exception of CKCU/CHUO'S metal shows. They're very diverse musically and I can actually understand it most of the time, and that's probably because of the english promos. No censored songs here.
97.1 Planete FM. Until a couple of months ago this was a French classical/jazz radio station, now it's really light AC. I don't listen at all.
97.9 CJLL. Known on air as CHIN radio, this is our main ethnic radio station, days are devoted to Italian in the morning, Arabic afterno0ns, Chinese drive times, Hindi/Punjabi from 8 to 10. Late evenings feature various other languages, as do the weekends. Overnights are commercial dance music...in English. My biggest problem with this station is that there is TO0 MUCH English programming for an Ethnic station. 95% of the commercials are in English, Half of the programming to the Indian community is in English. No0n hours and overnights are English. There are only 3 things they get right. The Italian programing (which sadly still has an hour or so of english content), the Arabic programming and they FINALLY stopped airing CRI international and calling that their Chinese programme. During that time, 2 out of the 3 hours were in English. Now they have a locally produced show in either Mandarin or Cantonese (or both?) 3 hours a day, with current music.
98.5 the Jewell. A soft AC station. I don't listen, but they are very successful
99.1 CHRI. The christian station, that is all things to the Christian community, they play mostly CCM but have a lot of hours devoted to worship music and air two 3 hour blocks of preaching in the afterno0ns and overnights. Friday nights feature 2 hours of Metal and Punk.
99.7 CIIO. Ottawa Information Radio. (English) This 25 watt station covers the entire metro with the best traffic reports in the city, gas prices, an event calendar, road construction updates, and in case of an emergency, live detailed reports. Weather reports are also featured. There are some little history pieces on national and local history. All of this in a 10 minute lo0p that's updated as often as needed. A very useful station for both tourists and locals. This frequency is up for licensing in a CRTC hearing, CIIO is applying for a power increase. It was (almost) licensed to Astral media for a few months before the CRTC pulled that license...see 101.9 for more
100.3 CJMJ. Ottawa's soft rock...typical AC station...enough said
101.1 CKBY Country, located in Smiths Falls but powerful enough to reach 70% of the city. I don't listen to this station ever.
101.9 This is a storied frequency. For a few years it was home to Radio Enfant. Radio Enfant is now in the process of getting an AM signal on the air. Now it's home to the French version of Ottawa Information Radio, but only temprorarily...maybe. They're also applying for the frequency, but they've been using it for almost a year. The frequency was briefly licensed to Frank Torres for a blues station, but the CRTC pulled it last fall, along with 99.7. The head of the CRTC was not pleased with the way the licenses were granted out of all the applications for both frequencies so the licenses were pulled and the applicants were encouraged to apply again. Current programming on 101.9 is the same as 99.7, except in French
102.5 Espace Musique. I like this station. Although I can't understand it, I like the variety of music they play. Lots of spanish language music, along with other cultural and classical music. Some rock and dance music to0
103.3 CBC radio 2. Same as every other radio 2 outlet in Canada
104.1 Energie. A French CHR. This one isn't so bad, it's very popular with both Anglo and Francophone listeners, and they're not afraid to rock. If I had to be forced to listen to a CHR, I'd pick this station.
104.7 CJRC..the new home for 1150 AM...horrible signal...very strong and dominant downtown, weak everywhere else, non-existant in the suburbs. What's the point of talk on FM when it drops out as you drive around town...the AM signal is much better.
105.3 CISS. HOT AC day, CHR night. I rarely listen
106.1 CHEZ. The same tired old classic rock day after day after day. I hope you like the scorpions. You can set your watch by how often they play them.
106.9 the bear...I mean Virgin radio. More classic rock. I've removed this station from my radio presets
107.9 CKDJ Algonquin College's instructional radio station. This station is where the students in their broadcasting programme get to apply what they've learned in the classro0m. Many of their graduates have gone on to very successful tv and radio careers. Music is half Alternative, half rap. They air commercials, have very well done newscasts produced by the students, traffic reports, to0 bad it's only on 5 and a half days a week durring the scho0l year.
I'm listening to the music and it's probably been a very long time since 1150 was a full time music station. They were go0d in the 80's when I'd listen to them at night from Iowa. I guess I win the what would happen first, CJRC going music or signing off 1150. For the record they sound great playing music on AM.