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Broadcaster

Greek station will hit airwaves in winter

7/18/2003

MONTREAL - The Montreal Greek community will have its own radio station - of predominantly Hellenic expression - next winter at 105.1 FM.

One of the stations approved on July 2 by the CRTC was Canadian Hellenic Cable Radio ("CHCR" Montreal) which will broadcast its programming primarily to Montreal's large Greek-speaking community as well to the Armenian, Serbian, Croatian, Russian and Filipino communities. It currently plans to take to the airwaves in January, 2024.

"We will add a little spice to the meat and potato diet provided in the local radio market by conventional French and English-language stations," says Marie Griffiths, the station's general manager and director of programming "The station will go on air this coming winter, and it's going to be hot."

While the overriding goal of the new station will be to celebrate multiculturalism and to serve the needs of the Greek and other minority-language communities in Montreal, it will also be open to the city's French and English-speaking population, too.

Simply put, in order to make Montreal's cosmopolitan flavour accessible to all, the station plans to incorporate French and English programming designed to bridge the cultural gaps that currently exist in Montreal's ethnic mosaic. This way it will serve six cultural communities in eight different languages.

It will be an "ethnic" radio station, broadcasting culturally innovative programming produced in Montreal, responsive to the radio listening needs of all Montrealers, whatever their languages of origin. "We hope to foster a sense of inclusion and belonging to those ethnic communities of our city," adds Griffiths.

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