On-Air Activism

Pirate Radio

The term ‘pirate radio’ refers to small-scale radio stations which broadcast within a limited area without having a license to do so.

The most well-known pirate stations operated in Europe (sometimes on a ship in international waters to avoid national authorities) but some emerged in Canada as well.

CFTL (96.7 FM and 6.045 MHz Shortwave) operated in the west end of Montreal from 1969 to 1971, evading attempts to shut it down by changing locations. It operated its own news cruiser, accepted advertising, and was popular with the 16-24 year old demographic. The studio location was never officially determined, but the station was shut down when federal broadcasting authorities managed to locate its transmitters in an elevator shaft in a high-rise building.

Rochdale, the counter-culture residence in downtown Toronto, had a pirate radio station in the late 1960s/early 1970s which called itself CRUD. The federal regulator, the CRTC, tried to shut the station down a number of times, but was foiled by the staff’s success at hiding where the transmitter was.

Several unlicensed Indigenous radio stations have existed in Canada. CKHQ-FM (Kanehsatake United Voices Radio: 101.7 FM) was formerly licensed, lost its license when it ceased broadcasting, but then resumed broadcasting as a pirate station without a license.

CKON-FM (97.3 MHz FM) broadcasts from Akwesasne, the Indigenous community which straddles the Canada-USA border, as well as the Quebec-Ontario border. It operates from a building which was deliberately constructed to straddle the border. It is able to present itself as a Canadian station to American authorities, and an American station to Canadian authorities.

Logo of the CKON-FM station.

Community TV

The Barefoot Channel describes how to use local community TV stations to get your message out.

From the mid 1960s on, cable television became an increasingly important part of Canadian broadcasting. By 1972, there were more than 100 cable systems offering a community channel with local programming to their subscribers. In the early years, whatever programming was broadcast on the community channel was provided by local groups and creators; only around 25% was produced by the station itself. The community-produced programming could vary greatly in quality, but it also made for a much greater variety of programming, which tended to be more reflective of the community. Activist groups often employed cable television as a means of communicating their messages to their community.