Some Nice Press for Indie 88/Toronto

January 22, 2014 Alan Cross 1 Comment 1 min read

I’m the “guidance counsellor” for Toronto’s newest radio station, Indie 88. (“Guidance counsellor” is a much better name than “consultant.”) Marketing Magazine has this feature on the station.

Broadcasting out of the city’s Liberty Village area, Indie 88.1 is a rare independent in a market dominated by stations operated by conglomerates like Bell Media, Rogers Media and Corus Entertainment. The CRTC awarded Bingley’s company the coveted spot on Toronto’s crowded FM dial in 2012 after stripping Ryerson University’s campus station, CKLN, of its license for repeated violations. Central Ontario Broadcasting beat out 22 other applicants, including Newcap, the CBC and Moses Znaimer, for the license.As one of its license conditions, 60% of Indie 88.1’s Canadian music must come from emerging artists, broadly defined as artists who have never had a hit single.

Operating under a philosophy of “giving great music a home,” Indie 88.1 soft-launched in August, before formally debuting in September. Like any fledgling station, it is gradually building its audience: BBM data shows that it currently boasts a 0.6 share among its core demo of adults 18-49, and attracts an estimated 200,000 2+ listeners per week (63,000 per day).

However, a recent CRTC decision giving the station permission to quadruple its power from 875 to 4,000 watts means that its signal, formerly limited to the Metro Toronto area, now reaches east into the Oshawa area and west into the neighbouring city of Hamilton.

Keep reading.