From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CKUA
Broadcast area	Alberta
First air date	1927
Frequency	Broadcast Frequency List
Format
Owner
Website	Official Site

CKUA is a Canadian radio station. Originally located at the University of Alberta in Edmonton (hence the UA of the call letters), it now broadcasts from studios in downtown Edmonton and south Calgary. Created in 1927 through a provincial grant, CKUA was the first public broadcaster in Canada and also the first to offer educational radio programming, including music concerts, poetry readings, and university lectures.

In 1997 the station was nearly shut down due to political squabbles, poor management, and attempts at privatization. The station was saved from demise when control was handed over to the public from directors appointed by the provincial government. As of 2005, more than two-thirds of the station's funding came from its listeners in the form of donations. Most donors live in Canada and the United States, but they also hail from such places as China, Australia, Ecuador, Mexico, Italy, France, Sweden, Abu Dhabi, Egypt, and Hong Kong.

Contents 1 Culture 2 Broadcast Technics 3 Notable hosts 4 External links and references

CKUA is considered a cultural icon by many musicians throughout Canada. The station's practice of supporting local, independent, and non-commercial artists has helped launch the careers of such renowned musicians as k.d. lang, Jann Arden, and Bruce Cockburn. In addition, the employ of CKUA has contributed to the careers of Arthur Hiller, Robert Goulet, and Tommy Banks, among others.

CKUA schedules different programs throughout the week and thus can offer many different genres. These include, but are not limited to: blues, bluegrass, R & B, Celtic, country, classical, jazz, reggae, house, hip hop, dance, funk, rock, and world music. CKUA's music library boasts one of the largest and most diverse music collections in Canada, with over 70 000 CDs, 50 000 LPs, and 10 000 78 rpm records, as well as a few aluminium transcription discs, 45s, and other various media formats. CKUA also continues its history of educational programming with its broadcast of telecourses offered by the music and history departments of Athabasca University on weeknights. A highlight of weekday programming is the daily Call of the Land, a farm and agribusiness news program rumoured to be the basis of the SCTV parody, "Farm Film Blow-Up".

The station broadcasts its signal across the Province of Alberta at 580 kHz on the AM band through one Edmonton-based transmitter. The signal is also carried province-wide on FM through a network of 16 transmitters. CKUA also broadcasts in western Canada on select satellite providers. As of February 29, 1996, CKUA became the first radio station in Canada to stream their broadcast online, and now has upgraded the service to carry in excess of five hundred streams. The station currently has over 160 000 weekly listeners.

Due to CKUA's extensive coverage, the station is one of only a handful of broadcasters (another being Access) to carry the Alberta Emergency Public Warning System. The provincial government-funded programme provides the station with 12% of its annual income. CKUA is especially suited as the primary originator of this service as (unlike many commercial stations) its studios are manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Terry David Mulligan
• Holger Petersen

• CKUA: Radio Worth Fighting For, by Marylu Walters; University of Alberta Press
• Official Site
• Broadcast Frequency List