Last week, Blackburn Radio Inc. erected a new transmission tower atop its Windsor studio on Wyandotte St. in Walkerville. Blackburn is well known in the area for its stations The Mix 96.7 and the Rock 100.7, each of which broadcast partially from Leamington and Chatham, respectively.
In 2007, Blackburn Radio applied to the CRTC to create a new Windsor-based, community-focused radio station called “The Wolf”, which will start broadcasting this fall on 95.9 FM. The Wolf will be a “New Country” format station, anchored by over seven hours and 76 newscasts of Windsor news per week, supplemented by nearly five weekly hours of community features and spoken-word programming.
Thanks to the CRTC’s publishing of broadcasting decisions online (see here, 13MB zip file if you’re interested), Blackburn’s plans for The Wolf include to:
“talk about news, it will be Windsor and Canadian news; when we talk about traffic, it will be the problems on the 401 and on Windsor streets and when we talk about community events they will be Windsor community events.”
“When local musicians have produced works whether through CD releases or concerts, we will promote their efforts. This will include interviews, where possible, and on air promotion of their events.”
the Wolf is bringing a Country format to Windsor, where one within our borders does not yet exist:
“The Wolf’s format is “New Country”, which will feature the best Country music from the late 80‟s, 90‟s, and today. Our core artists will be Paul Brandt, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Terri Clark and Emerson Drive.”
“We will also feature classic country cuts as ‘spice’ each hour from Country legacy artists likes Johnny Cash, Alabama, and George Strait.”
for news buffs:
“The Wolf will provide newscasts on the hour throughout the morning and afternoon drive with additional updates on the half hour in the morning drive. Each day at lunchtime we will provide a full news package at noon. We also will provide news on the hour throughout the day during the week.”
and to support our city:
“We propose an entirely new and distinctively Canadian editorial voice dedicated exclusively to the Windsor CMA with a substantial amount of local news and other information programming, involvement with the community and coverage of local musicians, moreover, we are supporting Canadian country artists by broadcasting an underserved format in this market. In addition, we have proposed plans to provide a reflection of the multicultural, multiracial nature of Windsor.”
Awesome!
From a technical angle: Atop the Blackburn Studio in Windsor, infrastructure is now in place to support the new station. One array points to the shared CHUM (yes, CHUM) broadcast tower south of Delisle’s Corners in Amherstburg, and another tuned to the Blackburn Tower off of HWY 3 for connections to Blackburn’s Leamington and Chatham programming.
“The WOLF” should start broadcasting after summer, and has all the plans in place to become a truly Windsor-focused radio station!
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