Currently Concordia Kicks Off

A new radio show on CJLO is hoping to hit home with Concordia students.

Currently Concordia, an hourly broadcast that will air every Friday at 11:00 a.m., aims to be the go-to show for all things Concordia.

“I was listening to a lot of CBC Radio, a lot of Jian Ghomeshi’s Q, and I thought it would be great to do a Concordia talk show; to get interviews with clubs and students and leaders and basically create a dialogue on campus,” said Joel Balsam, co-host of Currently Concordia with Melissa Mulligan.

“There are a lot of great clubs and great projects [at Concordia],” said Balsam. “People will listen because they want to have a sense of identity with Concordia.”

The show will discuss student politics, social media, and Stingers’ sports news. Every episode will also have a ‘feature chat’ with someone in the news; last week’s inaugural episode featured guest was Concordia Student Union VP External Chad Walcott, who spoke about the fight against tuition increases.

Students interested in getting involved with the show are encouraged to attend the Monday meetings at 3:00 p.m. Balsam says students can come by to pitch ideas, prepare a package for the show, do research or even come into the studio to speak on current issues.

The launch of Currently Concordia comes as CJLO is also stepping up their fee levy campaign for the November referendum. CJLO is seeking a nine cent per credit increase to their current fee levy, which would bring them up to 34 cents per credit.

“We just really want Concordia students to get their voices heard,” said Stephanie Saretsky, CJLO’s station manager. “With this fee levy we would be able to go into the process of getting [an FM] signal downtown so that CJLO can be heard everywhere around the downtown campus.”

“We’re basically just being very present on campus,” Saretsky said of CJLO’s campaign strategy.

“We’ve done a lot of live broadcasts over the past few months, and we’re just going to keep doing those. We’ve been broadcasting at the People’s Potato on Fridays, we did one from the library building, and we’re going to try and hit as many buildings as we can.

“[We want] students to see what CJLO does and that they have the opportunity to join the radio station and use our services.”

Saretsky noted that everything the station does is free for students, whether it is advertising for student groups or training sessions for students, thus making the fee levy all the more necessary.