I had heard recently that the entire operation was shutting down in a few weeks, due to lack of funding. The signal does cover a lot of ground, pretty good into metro Vancouver, and coastal parts of Seattle, and everywhere in between, but it's obvious the transmitter and grounding haven't been maintained to optimize its output for years. You get a mile inland on the Washington coast and their moderately strong signal along the shore melts into mush.
Seems like a lack of entrepreneurial spirit in this case in Canada is part of the problem, and I guess it's too late now to try to find a way to emulate non-comm radio funding in the US. I do hear commercials on CKMO during the Grizzlies hockey games, but that's it. Never heard any fundraising appeals to raise money on CKMO, and their website makes it appear they have a staff of one now. As much as I like a lot of the music (despite the mispronunciations of student announcers), I confess I forget to tune it, since the AM 900 signal gets buried by KIXI on Interstate 5 now.
I am a big fan of "world music," and remember when the PD at 96.1 CHKG in Vancouver tried to extend that format beyond the morning and midday dayparts on that big signal. I even have a CD he gave me of the world music artists they were promoting in 1998. In that attempt to create a world music "format," it sounds like he didn't have the backing of the Hong Kong-based ownership at Fairchild Media. I think it's all Mandarin-based and Hindi pop music in separate dayparts now. I just now realized the CHKG call letters probably stand for "Hong Kong."
Wonder if anyone else will try get the license for AM900? I suspect it will be another big AM to go dark for good. And that's really not good for our industry.
