Kelowna

Former Kelowna mayor Walter Gray is officially back into radio.

Gray and his business partners at Sun Country Cablevision have been granted an FM licence by the CRTC to establish a classic rock radio station in Kelowna.

"I'm absolutely delighted. We worked very, very hard for the past year putting this application together."

The CRTC also granted an FM licence to Vista Radio Ltd. which proposed a Classic Hits music format.

Gray says it's no surprise the CRTC only granted two licences out of 11 applications.

"It became quite clear during the CRTC applications in October that there would be two traditional FM commercial radio stations licensed."

He adds that his radio station will stand out from the rest because it will be locally owned.

"And locally managed. That will set us apart from the other radio companies in Kelowna. It doesn't make us any better, it just makes us different. It will have a local focus. It will be classic rock with a lot of spoken word features particularly catered to the community."

Gray says he hopes to launch his new radio station in about six months and that a name hasn't been determined yet.

Stay tuned.

Interview with Walter Gray (Kelly Hayes)

Link: Read the full CRTC decision. Link: Read the successful Classic Rock application by Sun Country Cable. (Multiple files .zip format) Link: Read the successful Classic Hits application by Vista. (Multiple files .zip format)