CJFO-FM

On August 26, Radio de la communauté francophone d’Ottawa had its application for a new FM station in Ottawa turned down by the CRTC. 

In November, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages issued a statement that called on the CRTC to review its earlier approval of two new stations in the Ottawa area (Astral Media and Frank Torres). He asked the commission to assess whether the francophone population of the area was sufficiently well-served by existing French radio stations, and to consider licensing one or more of the French language applications from earlier in the year. 

On August 11, the CRTC approved in part an application by Radio de la communauté francophone d’Ottawa for a broadcasting licence to operate a new French-language Type B community FM radio station. Within 60 days of the date of this decision, the applicant would have to submit an amendment to its initial application proposing the use of an FM frequency other than 101.7 MHz (channel 269A) that is acceptable both to the Commission and to the Department of Industry. An average effective radiated power of 718 watts was proposed. The applicant planned to offer a format of Rock, Pop and Dance (80%), as well as country, concert, folk, world beat and international, jazz and blues. Local programming per broadcast week: 94 hours. Spoken word programming per broadcast week: 31 hours, 50 minutes. French-language vocal music per broadcast week: 65% category 2.  

On February 4, the CRTC approved the application by Radio de la communauté francophone d’Ottawa for the use of frequency 94.5 MHz (channel 233B1) for the operation of the new French-language community FM radio programming undertaking in Ottawa.  

CJFO-FM began testing in September and officially signed on at 6:00 a.m. on November 15. Studios and offices were located at 245 McArthur Avenue.