City Ottawa, Ontario Slogan Ecoutons nous First air date September 2010 | Branding Unique FM Frequency 94.5 MHz (FM) | |
Broadcast area National Capital Region | ||
CJFO-FM (branded as Unique FM) is a radio station which broadcasts a francophone community radio format on the frequency 94.5 FM/MHz in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Owned by Radio de la communauté francophone d’Ottawa (RCFO), the station received CRTC approval on February 4, 2010.
The station officially launched at 6 a.m. on November 15, 2010 after a testing period that began in September 2010.
The Ottawa-Gatineau market is served by several francophone stations. However, until CJFO's sign-on, none of them specifically targeted Ottawa. The commercial francophone outlets are licensed to Gatineau and target listeners on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, while the Radio-Canada outlets focus on not only the National Capital Region, but Canada as a whole. CJFO is the first station in the market targeted specifically to the Franco-Ontarian audience in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. The station identifies itself as Unique FM and is the French radio broadcast partner for the Ottawa Senators.
CJFO's studios are located in Vanier, while its transmitter is located in Camp Fortune, Quebec.
History
On August 26, 2008, RCFO's first attempt to obtain a license was denied by the CRTC. The initial application would have had the station broadcast at 101.7 MHz, with an average effective radiated power of 718 watts.
On November 21, 2008, federal Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages James Moore issued a statement calling on the CRTC to review its prior approval of two new stations in the Ottawa area, Astral Media's CJOT-FM and Frank Torres' CIDG-FM. Moore asked the commission to assess whether the francophone population of the Ottawa-Gatineau area was sufficiently well-served by existing French radio services, and to consider licensing one or more of the French language applications — which included a Christian music station, a community radio station and a campus radio station for the Université du Québec en Outaouais — in addition to or instead of the approved stations.
In the resulting round of hearings, Torres proposed that a new francophone station could be licensed on 94.5 FM, although such a station would be second-adjacent to Astral's CIMF-FM. Industry Canada subsequently aired a testing signal on 94.5 in May 2009 to determine whether the signal could be used without impacting CIMF. The test found that the signal could be used without causing significant interference to CIMF, and Astral consequently gave its consent to the use of the frequency as long as the company retained authorization to launch CJOT.