Banff Centre Radio is leaving before it ever really got started.
The community radio station, which was launched last June, 2014, is no more, the Banff Centre announced in a release.
Podcasts of shows produced by the Banff Centre will still be available online, said Banff Centre vice-president of arts Carolyn Warren, but the final live episode of the Rocky Mountain Morning Show will air Feb. 27 at 8 a.m. The station — at 101.1 and 103.3 FM will continue to broadcast reruns after that, until the CRTC approves the centre’s application for revocation of their licence.
In a phone conversation Monday, Warren explained that the CRTC mandate of the terrestrial radio stations made it difficult to broadcast some of best of what comes out of the Banff Centre.
“It really was content for and about the Banff National Park,” she said. “Essentially the community, but also visitors and tourists to the park.
“That was very limiting (for the Banff Centre),” she added, “because our key goal is to actually communicate more about the core artistic activities that happen here and the leadership programs and research that happen here.”
Presenting Banff Centre podcasts, she said, “gives us much more opportunity to really share simple things — like the amazing music that gets produced here — (that) we couldn’t broadcast on the mountain stations.”
Four employees who work for the station won’t have their contracts renewed, while senior producers from the station will stay on to produce the podcasts.
While the station was costing no more than the centre originally budgeted, Warren said what seemed affordable in 2014, when it was launched, might not be in 2015, given the dramatic changes in the Alberta economy.
“It didn’t cost more than we were expecting it to cost,” she said, “but I would say in constrained financial times — and obviously our economy in Alberta is not what it was a year ago — it has impacted on deciding to really focus our efforts and resources on the digital strategy that will be the most successful for us in the long term. ”
The radio station blended arts programming with a variety of programming created by community residents.
“The voice I want at Banff Centre radio,” said producer Dominic Girard, in a May, 2014 interview with the Herald, “is just people talking. Just hanging out at a brew pub with a pint. That’s where I want the network to end up.”
shunt@calgaryherald.com
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