Broadcast area Vancouver Island Frequency 90.5 MHz (FM) Format public broadcasting | Branding CBC Radio One First air date 1998 | |
City Victoria, British Columbia | ||
CBCV-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts the programming of the CBC Radio One network in Victoria, British Columbia and throughout Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands. It also reaches out to parts of Washington (state) north of Everett, Washington, but is harder to listen to because of KSER in Snohomish County on 90.7 MHz.
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It was the most listened to radio station in the Victoria Market in the Spring 2013 BBM Ratings.
History
The station was licensed by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in 1997, and was launched in 1998. At the same time, the station was licensed to add a rebroadcaster at Metchosin, and took over 13 existing rebroadcasters of Vancouver's CBU.
Prior to the station's launch, Victoria was the only provincial capital in Canada without its own CBC Radio production centre.
As of January 25, 2013, the station shares its studio facilities with CHEK-DT.
Local programming
The station's local programs are On the Island, hosted by Gregor Craigie, in the mornings and All Points West, hosted by Robyn Burns, in the afternoons. Both programs broadcast exclusively on CBCV-FM and its rebroadcasters on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.
Transmitters
The only major city on Vancouver Island without its own CBC Radio transmitter is Nanaimo, which receives Vancouver's CBU signal directly, and consequently hears Vancouver's local programming. The CBC applied to the CRTC to add a rebroadcaster of CBCV at Nanaimo in 2007, contemporaneous with an application to convert the Vancouver station to FM. As few FM frequencies remain available in the Vancouver-Victoria market, however, the applications were denied. CBU was permitted to add a nested low-power rebroadcaster in the urban core of Vancouver, but was required to maintain the AM signal to serve outlying areas, including Nanaimo.
On October 20, 2015 the CRTC approved the CBC's application to operate a low-power FM rebroadcasting transmitter in Ucluelet, which will operate at 92.7 MHz with an effective radiated power of 50 watts (non-directional antenna with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 27 metres). The new transmitter will replace the current AM transmitter, CBXQ 540 kHz.
On March 9, 2016, the CBC received CRTC approval to change the technical parameters of CBRY-FM Alert Bay, British Columbia, a rebroadcasting transmitter of CBCV-FM, by changing the transmitter’s class from A1 to A, by increasing the effective radiated power from 77 to 360 watts and by increasing the effective height of antenna above average terrain from -50.5 to -41.5 metres.
On December 22, 2016, the CBC applied to convert CBUX Port Alice from the AM band (1170 kHz) to the FM band (92.3 MHz) with the proposed callsign CBCV-FM-2.