It’s easy enough to convince someone that having an award-winning radio station on campus is a pretty rad thing. Flyering for the CKUT referendum the other day, I spoke to a first-year student whose eyes lit up when I told him how the radio station was trying to raise their student fee by $1. Too excited, he cut me off—“are people trying to form a radio station on campus?” Telling him, “no friend, we have one already” felt really good, but it also enlightened me to the idea that many people on campus simply do not know what CKUT is.
The McGill Radio Association was formed in the 1920s, and Radio McGill took to the FM dial in 1987. 25 years later, CKUT has grown into a Montreal institution. Its astoundingly diverse programming brings people from every pocket of this city into the same room, to the same chair.
In those 25 years, CKUT’s $4 student fee has never been increased, while all of our upfront costs (radio transmitter, rent, utilities, royalties) have gone up with inflation. $4 in 1987 would be roughly $7 today. The station is kept alive by the work of over 300 volunteer programmers, as many general volunteers, interns—many of whom comes from across the world to work at CKUT—and only a handful of permanent staff.
But, again, its easy to convince someone that CKUT is significant. It is a different thing entirely to convince them they should support it. Why vote ‘YES’ to increase CKUT’s student fee by $1? There is a reason for everyone: because our fee has never been adjusted for inflation; so that the station can keep do amazing work, to maintain a vital link between McGill and the rest of Montreal, to continue having concerts on campus, to keep the option open for any student to become a volunteer and learn professional journalism, programming, and sound-editing skills. Even if you opt-out of your student fees, we would still ask that you vote ‘YES,’ so that people who want to support the station with an extra dollar, can.
For more information, go to ckut.wordpress.com. To vote, check your mail.mcgill inbox from Nov. 5 to Nov. 11 and follow the link.
Tim Beeler is a work/study student at Radio CKUT and is currently Co-Chair of the CKUT Yes Committee. He can be reached at [email protected]
