Four Senses Entertainment has launched Vibe 99.7 (CFDT-FM) in Squamish, BC in line with the branding of its Whistler CHR station, formerly known as Whistler FM (CKEE-FM).
Initially slated to go live on Monday, Vibe 99.7’s launch was delayed until Thursday afternoon, complicated by wildfires coming within 20 metres of the transmission tower outside Alice Lake, where Vibe is co-located with CBC.
“The whole side of the mountain facing Squamish was burning,” owner Robert Wilson told Broadcast Dialogue. “The head of the BC Wildfire Service gave us special permission to start going up there on Wednesday of this week to finish our installation…It was mission impossible, I was saying – we were dodging bullets with our fingers crossed all the time…but basically we ended up getting everything turned on yesterday at 1:30 p.m. and then notified Industry Canada, so they’re gonna be doing their inspection next Tuesday, which we expect to go fine.”
101.5 Vibe Radio Whistler moved away from playing Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) last September, in favour of what Wilson terms a “regionalized” CHR format.
Originally, the new Squamish station was also slated to carry Alt Rock, but Wilson says the gap between their application in Dec 2019, and CRTC approval in September 2023, led them to reconsider the format.
Vibe’s core artists will include Gracie Abrams, Lady Gaga, Lola Young, Kendrick Lamar, Tate, McRae, Benson Boone, Gotye, Ed Sheeran, and Alex Warren, alongside Canadian singer-songwriters like Cameron Whitcomb, Alexander Stewart, The Wknd, and Shawn Desman, in addition to artists from the Sea to Sky region.
At a time when many stations are calling on the CRTC for more flexibility on Canadian Content, Vibe is proposing to broadcast 40% Canadian music selections, higher than the 35% required. Four Senses also plans to devote at least 15% of its musical selections to Canadian emerging artists, above the five per cent expectation for commercial stations.
“Whistler is such an entertainment mecca, and there’s so many musicians…so it’s extraordinarily relevant. We find performers and artists in the Sea to Sky that create music that is similar to our format, then we pull them in,” explained Wilson, who says the former Whistler FM was approaching a 45% CanCon playlist, prior to its flip to CHR last fall.
Wilson, whose background is in IT, including working with Vancouver’s 94.5 The Beat (CFBT-FM), Shore 104 (CHLG-FM), and University of British Columbia (UBC) campus station CITR-FM, says the stations are essentially developing a new approach to scheduling music.
For now, both will feature the same talent lineup, headlined by new morning man Wayne “Slim” Reid, known for his work with 94.5 The Beat, Toronto urban station Flow 93.5, and KiSS 92.5 (CKIS-FM) Toronto, among others. Bernard Conner-Suen and Sarah Rodriguez joined as station personalities over the last few months, while Music Director Meaghan “Lozen” Mullaly has been a mainstay on Vibe and with Four Senses since 2014.
Wilson says it hasn’t eclipsed him that he’s launching a new station at a time when several licensees have chosen to let stations go dark.
“Radio is still very interesting, very popular if given the right kind of content…all the big guys have sort of homogenized radio because they create the programming from Toronto that gets replicated across the country…so there’s a great opportunity to become hyper local and really continue to speak to all the people that are in these communities,” said Wilson. “I think the younger kids who are digitized currently will turn back to radio as they approach their middle 20s because it’s just easier as life gets more difficult and they have less time to create a playlist on Spotify. Provide them with the news, the localized information about events, you know, everything that radio can do. It can’t be replaced in that way. It’s gonna be around for a long time…forever.”
