According to Samantha Liss of the St. Louis Business Journal, RAF-STL begins broadcasting April 8th at 107.3 FM, and at 96.3 HD2.
RAF stands for Radio Arts Foundation, a small non-profit that has been determined and dedicated to bringing back classical music to the airwaves in St. Louis. The former classical music station, KFUO switched formats in 2010.
Thanks to a $1 million start-up grant from the Centene Charitable Foundation, RAF-STL was able to start the radio station, which is located in Clayton.
“Listeners in the St. Louis community will now have a resource on the radio dedicated solely to the arts,” said Bill Rusnack, president of the RAF-STL board of directors, in a statement. “This is a community-driven effort that we hope will bring enjoyment and enrichment to classical music fans, as well as the general community, throughout the St. Louis area.”
The station will partner with the St. Louis Symphony and Opera Theatre of St. Louis to broadcast performances, in addition to covering other cultural and local arts issues.
Former program director for Classic 99, Jim Connett, will serve at the station’s general manager.
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New station in Winnipeg, too. This appeared Monday in the professional website Upper Midwest Broadcasting (www.northpine.com):
MANITOBA:
Winnipeg will be getting an all-Classical format with the CRTC’s approval of CFEQ-FM/107.1’s flip to the format. The station will drop its Christian Hits “Ignite 107” format, which owner Golden West Broadcasting said was unprofitable. Golden West also owns Christian-formatted CHVN-FM/95.1. 107.1’s format change may be a relief to Classical music fans, who have been outspoken nationally about the CBC’s cutbacks to Classical programming on Radio Two in recent years. (4/8/2013)
Michael Dorner
Here is more information about classical music, posted on radio-info.com. This is the latest in a thread of postings, and it talks about a new commercial classicals tation coming on the air soon in Ontario:
e-dawg, if anyone has the vision for a network/string of classical music stations in Canada, it would be Moses Znaimer, with his commercial (Classical 96) format. When you see the numbers, CFMZ/CFMX does well in Toronto (putting the boots to Radio Two), is opening up a frequency in Collingwood Ontario (interesting choice) and I know they’re interested in the crowded Ottawa market.
In Quebec, the drive along Autoroute 20 is surprisingly well covered, from the Ontario border, to well east of Quebec City with the CJPX/CJSQ siblings. Though I don’t believe Mr. Collier and company have plans to test the waters outside of Quebec (or at least in purely Anglo markets). If they ran a simulcast/repeater in the Ottawa area (Moncton NB could possibly support such a project too), like Radio Ville Marie has now done, it would make more sense than Radio Nord’s (CHLX) failed stand alone project.
Here is more information on the new Collingwood, Ontario, station: The call sign is CFMO, the dia pointl 102.9 FM, and it is a class C1 that will operate with 23,000 watts ERP from an antenna 255 meters (about 837 ft) above average terrain. The owner is also the owner of classical CFMX 103.1 Coburg, Ontario, the original station, and classical CFMZ 96.3 FM Toronto. Coburg is about 60 miles east of Toronto on Lake Ontario; Collingwood is on the northern shore of the big peninsula formed by Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario. Precisely, it is on Georgian Bay. CFMX Coburg went on the air on May 28, 1979, some 34 years ago. The website for all three stations is http://www.classical963fm.com/ One can listen online.