Lighthouse Radio, a new online radio station in Metro Halifax, is hoping to fill the void left by the closure of the city’s only commercial news/talk station last month.

95.7 NewsRadio (CJNI-FM) was among six stations abruptly shuttered by Rogers Sports & Media in early July.

Lighthouse Radio has now been operating for just over a month. Co-founded by Dan Budgell and local videographer Matt Dagley, the station is streaming a Nova Scotia-focused music playlist and local news updates, in addition to featuring local weather and community events, and a daily local news brief that streams on YouTube.

Budgell told Broadcast Dialogue that the loss of News 95.7 has been felt in the region and he’s hoping Lighthouse Radio can give local communities a new platform.

“What News 95.7 was for Halifax was the voice for the people,” said Budgell. “There were call-in shows, there was a chance to speak with your local member of government…and a lot of people went there for their news and their traffic. We would like to know what’s going on in the rest of the country, but we mainly want to know what’s going on in our own backyard.”

“So, the fact that Rogers did that and cut 95.7 off midday, a lot of people felt that they lost their voice and I didn’t like that personally,” Budgell continued. “My co-founder, Matt, actually made a post to social media, like, ‘I wonder how hard it would be to start a radio station?’ So, I started looking into it and now a month later, we have one.”

Currently streaming from a studio in Budgell’s home in Lower Sackville, Lighthouse has ambitious plans to launch a weekly, two-hour call-in show, and both live and pre-recorded shows, reflective of what’s happening across the province. He envisions the station evolving into the radio equivalent of public access television.

The station is in the midst of recruiting several seasoned broadcasters to the Lighthouse team of roughly a dozen volunteers, to help produce its news on the half hour, which is already airing seven days a week.

Among them are former 95.7 NewsRadio anchor Blake Priddle, who was one of 80 staff who lost their jobs across the country as a result of Rogers station closures in July, in addition to recent Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) grad Nickolas Basque. Two former Halifax Regional Municipality councillors – media veteran Lisa Blackburn, who was also most recently filling in as a talk host at 95.7 NewsRadio, and Paul Russell – are set to join as hosts of The Lighthouse Line, when the call-in show makes its debut in September.

Budgell is continuing to research pursuing a broadcast licence, but for now is focused on getting the station’s content out digitally. He’s also actively working on advertising and sponsorship.

“The want and need is definitely there,” said Budgell. “The excitement is there. The public support has been huge. A lot of our local government from local to provincial to federal have been very welcoming to us,” crediting local support on social media with helping the station grow its reach as quickly as it has. “We couldn’t do it without them. And that’s why we do it, the community deserves their voice and we want to make sure they still have that.”