CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

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CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby radiofan » Tue Mar 31, 2020 2:43 pm

Word around Kelowna and the Okanagan is that the license for Glacier Media's has been handed into the CRTC and the station will be going dark on Friday.

The staff were informed and terminated this morning.

More on this as we get it.

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Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby radiofan » Tue Mar 31, 2020 4:26 pm

Kelowna's Soft 103.9 shutting down operations
Soft 103.9 closing down
Contributed - Mar 31, 2020 / 3:35 pm | Story:


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Photo: Castanet staff

The ownership of SOFT 103.9 is closing down the radio station.

Avenue Radio Ltd. launched SOFT 103.9 on November 1, 2017. But, the crowded radio market, the past real estate downturn, and now the coronavirus have caused dramatically-declining radio revenues.

The staff of SOFT 103.9 have worked hard to earn the support of listeners and advertisers — but it just isn't to be. Staff and ownership thank the loyalty of many listeners and clients.



https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/2 ... ons#296019
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby Howaboutthat » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:44 pm

Sorry for the staff, but there are too many stations in a city that size.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby paterson » Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:47 pm

I was trying to find out home many stations were in Kelowna but when I went to wikipedia couldn't find anything. A few other sites only listed a few stations or were somewhat vague as to the number so i knew they wouldn't be accurate. The city has about 140,000 people, and with surrounding area around 220,000? So would they have 10-12 stations including all CBC frequencies? And how many out of town stations would they receive off air?
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby albertaboy4life » Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:55 pm

This might be of help - https://radiowest.ca/okarad.html

radiofan has done a great job assembling a directory of western Canadian stations - https://radiowest.ca/regional.html

Feel free to check out the other resources at www.radiowest.ca
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby Aaron » Thu Apr 02, 2020 3:23 pm

paterson wrote:I was trying to find out home many stations were in Kelowna but when I went to wikipedia couldn't find anything. A few other sites only listed a few stations or were somewhat vague as to the number so i knew they wouldn't be accurate. The city has about 140,000 people, and with surrounding area around 220,000? So would they have 10-12 stations including all CBC frequencies? And how many out of town stations would they receive off air?


I don't know how many you can get off-air, but if you're talking viability, you're talking about local rated commercial stations. In that case, there are now 7.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby oldnewsie » Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:14 pm

The population of the central Okanagan is 194,000. Kelowna's population is 132,000. There are now 7 radio stations (although the 7th is a Penticton-licensed station with a strong signal that reaches almost to Vernon. It is Country 100. They have studio's in Kelowna and Penticton. The Morning show is a network simulcast with Stingray's country station in Kamloops). So really only 6 local stations now.
The city of Saskatoon is 273,000 people and has 7 radio stations.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby paterson » Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:53 pm

Thanks Albertaboy, Aaron and Oldnewsie. Sorry about my lack of knowledge on the Kelowna market and the fact the info. was right here on site. Hopefully the station will not be lost forever and come back possibly as a community outlet. A shame when a good station goes silent, and sadly there will be more to come. It's already been happening with a few smaller chains in the US.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby paterson » Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:21 am

Looks like Soft 103.9 is still on line. Just heard a Canadian Press newscast with a local news promo and into music. Looks like their website has been removed however.
I thought they were closing down yesterday, but here they are. Management on air announcement is saying that they are closing and thank listeners for their support.
https://onlineradiobox.com/ca/juice1039 ... 9&played=1
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby beddows » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:56 am

Gord Lansdell's okanaganbroadcasters.com is a good place for a list. I thought the okanagan oldies format they had before was a winner, but I guess not.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby slowhand » Wed Apr 08, 2020 1:01 pm

paterson wrote:Looks like Soft 103.9 is still on line. Just heard a Canadian Press newscast with a local news promo and into music. Looks like their website has been removed however.
I thought they were closing down yesterday, but here they are. Management on air announcement is saying that they are closing and thank listeners for their support.
https://onlineradiobox.com/ca/juice1039 ... 9&played=1

To paraphrase, "We don't need no stinkin' transmitter"
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby groundskeeper willy » Wed Apr 08, 2020 1:18 pm

Sounds like they forgot to turn off the playout machine. Sad to hear station liners still playing promoting staff that have been laid off. Maybe it'll stop when it runs out of logs to play??

Considering the current economic landscape, gotta wonder how many other financially challenged stations (primarily stand-alone operations in mid-size and smaller markets) may also pull the plug over the next month or two. Not a happy time to be working in the broadcast biz.

****EDIT**** and it looks like the plug has been pulled. Online signal was still rolling a couple days ago, but just checked the onlineradiobox.com feed and it comes up with a playback error.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby beddows » Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:55 pm

Radio stations dont seem affected so far, but i suppose if the economy stays shut down much longer advertising revenues will drop to the point they are not viable. This thing is affecting all of us. I am now a resident of Mexico, but decided to come back home just in case it got bad down there cause their medical system is not as good.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby Aaron » Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:53 pm

beddows wrote:Radio stations dont seem affected so far, but i suppose if the economy stays shut down much longer advertising revenues will drop to the point they are not viable.


Radio is getting absolutely slammed. National sales are down up to 80% depending on the market.
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Re: CKOO Soft 103.9 Kelowna going dark

Postby groundskeeper willy » Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:14 pm

beddows wrote:Radio stations dont seem affected so far

Sorry Beddows, but stations are being seriously affected. Case in point, Stingray gave temporary layoffs to 90 staffers, a direct result of, to quote Steve Jones from a Broadcast Dialogue article last week, a "sudden and dramatic drop in advertising.” Also, the remaining Stingray staff across the country took a wage rollback.

According to friends at Corus & Bell, similar measures may be happening in those orgs soon (if they haven't been implemented already in the past day or two).

Ask any traffic manager how their March was, how many cancellations they dealt with. While many of the advertisers who didn't pull their spots have now repurposed their current buys over to Covid messaging, the books are bare going forward. Companies that don't know if they'll actually be in operation in two to three months are NOT engaging in an ad buy.
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