CKCU-FM

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CKCU-FM

City of license	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Broadcast area	National Capital Region
Branding	CKCU, The Mighty 93.1
Slogan	Ottawa's Community Radio Station
First air date	November 14, 1975
Frequency	93.1 MHz (FM)
Format	freeform music & spoken word
ERP	12 kW
Class	B
Callsign meaning	CK + Carleton University
Owner	non-profit
Webcast	Real Audio stream
Website	ckcufm.com

CKCU-FM is a Canadian community-based campus radio station, broadcasting at 93.1 FM in Ottawa, and offering a live Real Audio stream (Listen Now) from its website. The station broadcasts 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

The station's studios are located on the campus of Carleton University (on the fifth floor of the Unicenter building). The station's signal is radiated from the Camp Fortune radio tower in the Gatineau Hills along with most of Ottawa's other commercial radio stations, meaning that it enjoys full broadcast power and a listening area with a radius of 100 km.

CKCU was Canada's first community-based campus radio station. It first broadcast on November 14, 1975 when it played Joni Mitchell's "You turn me on, I'm a radio".

Often dubbed the mighty 93.1 by devotees, CKCU has a freeform format that allows the hosts to pick all the music played, and has many cultural/community programmes. The schedule includes both general and specialty music programs, public affairs and spoken word programming, and features many shows with a topical or international flavour. Some shows feature live in-studio performances by local artists. CKCU actively supports, sponsors and promotes local independent musicians, venues, concerts and festivals including the CKCU Ottawa Folk Festival.

The listener-supported station has an annual funding drive in late October and early November, to raise one-third of its annual operating budget. In 2006, this raised over $108 000 (unofficial total as of 5 November 2006). In recent years the funding drive regularly raised over $100 000 towards the station's budget of just over $300 000 per year. A further $100 000 is raised from university student levies, with the balance is supplied by advertisers and sponsors. The station self-produces much of the advertising material it carries, giving the advertising a campus flavour popular with listeners.