Flick on the radio and 106.5 Mountain FM still plays over the airwaves, but the once locally-operated station no longer has physical ties to the Bow Valley. The last yank on the plug connecting Mountain FM to the valley came in the wake of cuts and layoffs across Rogers Sports & Media that snipped the station’s lone local position earlier this summer. While still promoting some Bow Valley content, the station’s morning show hosts crack the mic from Lethbridge while the longtime Canmore studio, once located above the Rose and Crown on Railway Ave., sits empty. Since first announcing the move to remote operations last October, the station’s parent company, Rogers Sports & Media, says Mountain FM has not seen “any on-air or programming changes” amid the company-wide cuts. The studio closed up shop soon after the announcement around November last year, according to Rose and Crown management. “[Mountain FM] is fully operational and on the air. We have breakfast with Kierstyn and Cole in the mornings and then announcers in the afternoons and evenings,” said a Rogers Sports & Media spokesperson. Canmore’s Rob Murray, the familiar voice of the station for more than 20 years until he retired last summer, says the industry has faced more challenges in recent years. “The entire radio industry has changed a lot in the 25 years I worked in it,” said Murray, now a Town of Canmore councillor. “Technology and automation really made it so that they didn’t have to have a live body in the studio 24 hours a day anymore,” noting broadcasting can be done from almost anywhere now. “The audience is way more fragmented than it was before. People aren’t necessarily discovering music on the radio like they were when I was a kid. They’re discovering it on their favourite streaming service.” Starting with a local staff of seven when Murray first got the gig and moved to town in 2001, the team eventually dwindled to two before he resigned. “It had gone from seven to two over the course of 20 years,” he said. At the helm of the morning show for most of his career, Murray says he still feels radio has a place in the community. “I really think what can make radio stand apart and why there’s still a place for radio in that landscape is just the ability to be really local,” he said. “That’s really what I tried to focus my show on, was … giving something to people that they wouldn’t hear on a podcast or just on their shuffle on their Spotify playlist.” Interviewing big names like Alec Baldwin, who often came to Banff for the Celebrity Sports Invitational, or former prime minister Justin Trudeau, It’s the local characters who sat at the mic across from him that left the biggest mark on Murray. “The most value that I got was bringing people on from the community,” he said, referencing his community co-host segment. “We’d have conversations about whatever they loved, whatever they were passionate about, whatever they wanted to talk about and it created some great local radio.” “There was that sense of community I was trying to foster, I think people really appreciated that.” Murray’s former co-host, Tanya Foubert, agrees. “When Mountain FM was at its greatest, it was the most connected to our community,” said Foubert, who ran the Mountain Insider segment with Murray from 2013 to 2021. “In resort destinations like ours, we have to be really focused on things that invest in our community, and I believe there’s a place for radio, but it has to be local. It has to be about what is happening here.” Murray says this likely isn’t the end of industry-wide changes. “I think we’re going to continue to hear more stories like this in other parts of Canada about radio changing, consolidating, selling off, and where that’s gonna go, I have no idea.” ‘A loss’ for local music community Ellen Braun has spent her fair share of days singing over the airwaves from inside the Mountain FM studio just a few blocks from her house. The Canmore indie-folk artist and member of the folk duo Trundled was one of many local artists who played live on-air or sat down for an interview at the studio over the years. “They promoted pretty much everything that I did locally as an artist,” Braun said, recalling the first time she was featured about 10 years ago. Whether cycling one of her new songs into the regular radio rotation or talking about her latest album with Murray or former host, Marcus Williams, Mountain FM teed up new opportunities for the musician. “That’s a big deal for all local artists,” Braun said. “Not only did my music actually get out onto airwaves, but that meant I had other opportunities. That meant that I had practice talking on the radio to people interviewing me.” Later featured on CKUA Radio and CBC Radio, the musician credits her time on Mountain FM over the years as the “training wheels” that got her comfortable promoting shows and talking about her music. Braun says artists also get a payout when their songs are played on the radio, which although small, is still impactful. “It does mean something when you get played like 15 times on Mountain FM and you’re recognized. You’re validated as a SOCAN recording artist,” she said. Braun says she’s not surprised to see the station operating remotely now, especially after Murray retired from his post. “I kind of knew that this was coming ... they’re probably always going to use things like that as an opportunity to downsize. That’s sort of what the world looks like right now, especially with those big corporations just making it as central as possible,” she said. “It’s sort of like the writing was on the wall.” Grateful for the opportunities she’s had through the station, Braun says the change could mean “a loss” for up-and-coming musicians looking to get their start. “I feel grief about it, not just for myself and how many opportunities I got, but for future artists and current local artists that are just starting out. It was such a beautiful way to get our music out into the community,” Braun said, noting it’s harder to find your footing in the music industry these days. “Twenty years ago, we all just made our CDs and put them into homemade cardboard packaging and sold them at shows.” “Now there’s just less and less sort of organic opportunities to get your music heard by people and I think it’s so important that people in our community know about the artists that live here and make music here.” With many new songwriters and artists coming onto the scene, Braun says she hopes the station continues to give Bow Valley artists airtime. “I hope that they maintain that local connection even if the station doesn’t physically exist here,” she said. “I think that people in the Bow Valley do want to hear what local musicians are playing.” The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
