Concerns grow over potential closure of MUN's campus radio CHMR

Station Manager Rhea Rollman says this comes as a shock to many.

The board of directors for the student union at Memorial University is set to decide the fate of the campus’ 75 year old radio station, known as CHMR, during a meeting tomorrow. Station Manager Rhea Rollman says this comes as a shock to many. On March 18th, the board noticed a motion to shut down CHMR and would vote on it during the April 1st meeting. Rollman says they knew the student union was having budget troubles but this kneejerk reaction is incredibly short-sighted and out of the blue. She says MUNSU provides the lion’s share of funding through a grant but the station also has a media levy and other sources of funding. Since taking on the role of Manager, Rollman says after repeated requests to meet with MUNSU, this is all she has heard. Rollman says a lot of the numbers coming from the student’s union are misleading and confusing, phrased as if the station was $300,000 in debt. That is actually the debt of the whole student union. Rollman says many people and organizations have recently shown their support for the station and the need for it to continue. She believes it’s time for a referendum to gauge how students feel about this. 

Meanwhile, Kody Gardner has been helping CHMR with technical work and is also chair of the board of directors for Bay of Islands Radio Inc, aka Bayfm, which got its’ start at Grenfell Campus. He says it’s sad when any radio station closes with trends that are obviously changing, and listenership in community and campus radio is up.  Gardner hopes MUNSU can include students in this decision, since it’s their money and station. He says the consultation so far has been on a very limited number of people and hopes they listen to the community and their student community on their decision. Gardner says when the local radio station pulled out of Corner Brook, it paved the way for BAYFM and community radio to grow with a tremendous listener base. He says contrary to popular belief radio is not dead, growing for stations who do it right; local is what we are all about.