Hunter's Bay Radio.......arrived and growing

For those who were not at our luncheon meeting last week, attached is Brian's speech.

Here’s Brian’s speech content at our luncheon meeting on October 10^th.

APPLICATION TO OPERATE A NEW COMMUNITY FM RADIO STATION TO SERVE HUNTSVILLE

Who We Are & How We Got Here

·         We feel, under-served in the “on air radio market”.

·         We believe that there is a lack of local content and we have been filling that gap since 2009.

·         We strongly believe that we have something to offer the residents of the area with alternative choices in music and spoken word.

·         Conceived and set-up by Jeff Carter and Brian Thompson as a money making alternative to the current radio market.

·         Jeff’s music, his studio, his programming, his finding the people, his management of them, and his unending creativity and experimentation.

·         Morning show hosted by Brian Thompson and Joe Dechane who was a former longtime morning man. Brian was in the studios here, Joe was in his home in London.

·         Pirate Radio

·         After a couple of years Jeff bought out Brian and after a few months I bought in and Jeff and I formulated plans to get a broadcast license. As we researched and made the business plan we offered a piece of the company to Tom Pinckard who could provide us with all the necessary legal work as well as his business expertise.

·         Three entrepreneurs for most of their lives, we work well together.

·         George Young is now working with us in sales.

·         Muskoka Futures has provided us with a loan to finance us to the grant of our license.

 

What We Are Doing Is What We Want To Do

·         We are now formatted and following the CRTC guidelines and broadcasting under as a Type B Community Radio Station that plays a wide variety of genres with an extensive spoken word programming schedule.

·         We are currently providing programming that includes local news & commentary, local sports, national sports, women's issues, community & people profiles along with featuring local talent performances in studio.

·         We are staffed by more than 19 people. We are always approached by people who want to volunteer and welcome their involvement. Most of our current staff are volunteers.

·         Since our inception we have had in excess of 1.6 million listen sessions via our online streams and we are leaders in social and online media.

·         We provide a wide variety of music genres throughout the broadcast week. We play folk, jazz, blues, classic alternative, rock, & pop, but mainly independent or lesser known artists. We also play Hip Hop, Metal, and experimental music commonly called Mashups and Dubstep, which is not played anywhere in our broadcast area.

·         We provide around fourteen different spoken word shows.

·         Local talent is played extensively throughout the broadcast week in our playlists and in dedicated local talent only shows. Local talent is recorded in studio when needed to help the artist gain recognition. The music is played on air, and on our YouTube Channel which exposes them to a worldwide audience.

·         We are well known in music circles in Central Ontario as a place that is open to independent musicians and we have been approached by many musicians that would like to perform on our flagship show TALENT ON THE BAY. The show has had over 100 performers since its inception. Music is recorded and songs are extracted to be added to our local playlist where applicable.

·         We support a wide variety of community groups by giving access to the station for air time and news stories, and also help them promote events such as:

o        Huntsville Festival of the Arts,

o        Film North Film Fest,

o        Muskoka Novel Marathon,

o        Girl8 Music Festival,

o        Cottage Comedy Festival,

o        Algonquin Theatre, and a variety of community events.

·         Organizations we have helped by featuring their events include:

o         Huntsville Animal Shelter,

o        The Chamber of Commerce

o        Huntsville Hospice,

o        Edge Of The Woods Theatre,

o        Muskoka Parry Sound Independent Animal Rescue,

o        The Huntsville Hospital Foundation, and many more.

·         Muskoka Cash Mob this Saturday.

 

Station Personnel

1.       Grant Nickalls - is an accomplished actor with many movies and TV shows to his credit, including The Firm and Flashpoint most recently. Grant is a trained voice actor and has done work for several U.S. beer firms, GM, and Sears to name a few. Grant is our morning host and host of our flagship program Talent on the Bay.

2.       James Carroll- began his professional career in 1972 in Philadelphia at the now defunct WXPN.

An accomplished director, singer, actor, dancer, stage manager, James spent over 8 years

with the acclaimed Second City, Toronto. With almost 100 T.V. commercials to his credit and six seasons on C.B.c.'s WIND AT MY BACK, James has performed numerous feature films.

3.       Christine Heron - is a-local singer/songwriter as well as an on air personality

4.       Chris Occhuizzi - is a multimedia journalist at What's Up Muskoka, which is a Sunmedia

publication, he does the Sports.

5.       Scott Gilson

6.       Tony Fitzsimmons - British

7.       Jesse Cole

8.       Kareen Burns - Womens

9.       Lorne Michaelis - was an advocate and is the Vice President of People First of Ontario (a self advocate movement for people who have an intellectual disability). Lorne was involved with a variety of groups and advocacy work and loves music and radio. He hosted a program on Hunters Bay Radio Inc. that was about Inclusion, rights for people with intellectual disabilities, and more. Unfortunately lome passed away recently.

10.   Ken Cole - is an award winning producer, and with his dad, Doug Cole, an Order of Canada and Diamond Jubilee Medal Recipient, owned and operated George's Spaghetti House, The Bourbon Street Jazz Club, and Basin Street Cabaret Theatre - home to world class jazz legends. Every Sunday night, Ken brings his vast knowledge, both personal and professional, as host of George's Spaghetti House Jazz.

11.   Michelle Ainsworth - unbelievable talent

12.   Jenny Cressman - World

13.   Michele Bateman

14.   Mandy Davis Gillies

15.   Dr. Jim Bjork - is an advocate for health and other issues and has challenged municipal leaders on the use of fluoride in municipal water systems, presented several documentary film festivals on a variety of subjects which is the basis for his show "Think About It'.

16.   Jamie Hassard

 

What We Want To Do

·         Neighbouring townships form the Almaguin Highlands area north of Huntsville. Other than a weekly newspaper, there is no other source of local information. HBR plans to cover the area and provide local content.

·         Hunters Bay Radio Inc. has a growing listenership via online, but many areas in our proposed coverage do not have access to high speed, or affordable high speed internet to be able to listen. Listeners want access to the immediacy of FM radio to keep up with news and issues in their communities. The newspapers often report news that is seven days old.

·         Our website and social media offerings provide access to the news as it happens and our numbers prove that HBR content is accepted online in far greater numbers than traditional media.

·         We offer variety programming during the day, with genre specific or topic specific shows in the evening and weekends.

·         We propose to play 40% Canadian Content in Category 2, and as much as we can find in Category 3.

How We Will Accomplish It

·         We have submitted an application to the CRTC for an FM Community Broadcast licence which they will review and make judgement on over the coming months.

·         We have formed a non-profit corporation that is managed by a board of directors and run by our vast team of volunteers.

·         We are now 100% in compliance with the CRTC policies for Community Stations so our application to them doesn't simply promise to do things, it proves to them that we are doing them. We are saying to them, we are an unregulated online internet radio station that is willing to be regulated in exchange for an FM broadcast licence. It's a unique application that will garner a lot of interest from them.

·         We raise funds from conventional advertising which is very capably managed thru George Young. We are currently cash flow positive, and with the advent of our licence we will be able to increase the number of advertisers and our rates. We currently have over 30 advertisers with us.

·         We will also obtain funding by conducting a weekly radio bingo.

·         In addition to conventional advertising we are currently seeking program sponsors to help fund our station.

·         Other forms of income will come through event fundraising. Currently we have undertaken to present a series of Concerts with a variety of high quality Canadian performers with local opening acts. The concerts will be recorded for playback on the station and for sale as a fund raising item.

·         9 Artists, 2 Groups, 37 Individuals Letters of Support to date.