Vancouver’s oldest multicultural radio station appears ready to go off the air next year. This comes after more than 50 years of serving listeners in a multitude of languages.
This month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved an application by Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) to revoke its broadcasting licence for its AM 1470 radio station CJVB, effective March 5, 2026. In the same decision, the CRTC granted Fairchild Radio’s request to amend its CHKG Fairchild 96.1 FM licence.
This will permit Fairchild Radio to broadcast ethnic programming directed at the Chinese community on its FM station for the first time from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Fairchild maintained that removing the longtime weekday ban will help offset the loss of Chinese-language programming on AM 1470.
“Fairchild argued that CJVB’s signal has experienced increased interference, and that both the stations have experienced decreased advertising and airtime brokerage sales,” the CRTC stated.
The CRTC ruling permits the company to transfer 33 hours of programming targeting Chinese-language listeners per week from CJVB to CHKG-FM. This will air on the FM station between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays.
“In its application requesting the removal of its condition of service, Fairchild stated that the operating costs for the two stations continue to increase and that the stations have sustained significant losses for several years,” the CRTC stated.
Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) is 50 percent percent owned by Fairchild Broadcasting and 50 percent owned by Fairchild Radio Group, according to a chart on the CRTC website. It notes that businessman Thomas Fung is the sole owner of Fairchild Broadcasting. This company owns 91.25 percent of Fairchild Radio Group.
Radio broadcasters reached diverse communities
In 1972, CJVB became the third multicultural radio station in Canada following the launch of CHIN in Toronto and CFMB in Montreal. Founded by Dutch immigrant Jan van Bruchem, CJVB broadcast Overseas Chinese Voice, a show hosted by rabble-rousing broadcaster Hanson Lau. Over the next 20 years, Overseas Chinese Voice programmed half of the station’s content.
Meanwhile, another famous B.C. broadcaster, Shushma Datt, hosted a program on CJVB in Hindi and Punjabi. She later went on to launch Radio Rim Jhim and Spice Radio.
In addition, CJVB broadcast programming in other languages under van Bruchem’s ownership.
In the early 1990s, van Bruchem sold CJVB to Fairchild Radio Group, which obtained an FM licence in 1995. Nowadays, CJVB offers programming in many languages on Sundays, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Ukrainian, Italian, and Polish.
Lau left CJVB in the 1990s to work with a new multicultural station, CHMB (AM 1320), founded by Mainstream Broadcasting Corp. Headed by businessman James Ho, CHMB is the only other privately owned broadcaster targeting Chinese-language speakers in Metro Vancouver.
CRTC still hasn’t ruled on Spice Radio application
“The Vancouver ethnic radio market currently has seven stations, including four primarily serving the South Asian population,” the CRTC stated in its decision. “The Commission notes that the Vancouver ethnic market as a whole, apart from the Fairchild stations, is performing relatively well.”
The comment came as the federal broadcast regulator still hasn’t issued a decision involving RJ1200/Spice Radio’s licence for a station on 1200 AM (CJRJ). In March, Datt notified the commission of her wish to transfer her Burnaby station’s broadcating licence to businessman Kulwant Dhesi. In July, Dhesi rebranded the station as Swift Radio and moved its operations to Surrey.
Premier David Eby attended the launch of Swift Radio. Yet more than nine months after Datt informed the CRTC that she wanted to transfer the licence, the federal broadcast regulator still hasn’t issued a ruling.
Fairchild pointed out in its application that “multiple national broadcasters have stopped broadcasting programming from economically non-viable AM radio stations in the Vancouver area.” They include: BNN Bloomberg Radio AM 1410 (CFTE), which was once CFUN; Funny 1040 (CKST), which was formerly TSN; and AM 980, which was formerly CKNW before it moved to AM 730.
Update
Following publication of this article, the CRTC approved Shushma Datt’s application to transfer her 1200 AM radio station licence to a company controlled by Kulwant Dhesi.
“Kulwant Singh Dhesi has committed to ensuring that the station’s programming continues to reflect the local cultural and ethnically relevant programming to South Asian communities in Vancouver,” the CRTC stated in its January 9, 2026 ruling. “This will allow CJRJ to continue serving as a platform for cultural expression and community engagement, thereby maintaining the diversity of voices in the market.”
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