by Dan Lalande
There’s no money in small market radio.
That was the rationale behind the sale of a bevy of stations recently, when one of Canada’s broadcasting Fat Cats trimmed its assets. Hmmm … so how do they account for the long-term success of Lake 88.1, the Perth-based adult contemporary station proudly devoted to local news and public affairs programming covering the Perth, Smiths Falls and Carleton Place area? The station may have recently rebranded—it’s now Lanark and Leeds 88.1 myFM—but its devotion to community concerns, as well as its listening and advertising base, remains fixedly municipal.
Lake 88.1 began, fittingly, on a lake. Two veterans of the greater Ottawa radio scene, Brian Perkin and Norm Wright, shared the shoreline. Periodically, they’d pontoon to each other’s properties to talk business. With the realization that more of Ottawa’s Baby Boomers were retiring to Perth and that less and less of radio’s city-based news would apply to them, Brian and Norm gambled on filling the gap. They crunched numbers, lined up advertisers and finagled a frequency. Three years later, in 2007, they were on the air, broadcasting from a tiny heritage building in downtown Perth.
“We both put our mortgages up to make it work,” confesses the affable Brian, whose voice graced the station’s airwaves from Day One and can still be heard on weekends today. “I was also working as a high school teacher at the time. I’d teach until 3:30 in the afternoon, then rush to the station to do the 4 to 9 p.m. shift. We needed the money from my day job to pay our employees.”
In time, though, Brian and Norm’s folly caught fire. At its height, Lake 88.1 had a full-time staff of nine and a part-time staff of 10. Many, like Brian, were respected radio veterans who had worked in major markets. They, too, were attracted to the autonomy offered by life at an independent station. “The calibre of talent we were able to get for a station that size,” Brian marvels, “was incredible.” Plus, they loved the loyalty of a local listenership. Lake 88.1 was the voice of 11 different municipalities, conducting over 25 interviews a week. The station covered town council meetings, community events and local sports. Reflects Brian, “The feel of the station was like nothing you could get anywhere else.”
Before helping to shape Lake 88.1, Brian had worked for so many stations, the list looks like somebody spilled a bowl of alphabet soup: CHOO, CJOY, CKLA, CFRA, CFMO, CFGO, CKBY, CHEZ, CJET, Q101… In between, there were alternate careers as a restaurateur and, as mentioned, in pedagogy. Lake 88.1, then, if he and Norm could make a go of it, would be a long-time return to his first love.
Thanks to a lot of sweat equity, the station thrived. Brian and his ever-supportive wife Jennifer even took over the entire operation, buying Norm out in 2013. For the next seven years, it was smooth sailing. But a storm cloud was forming: COVID. “That made things extremely rough,” Brian explains. “We were an independent station. There was no network support that could cushion us against the sudden shrinkage in advertising. That’s when we began to consider transferring ownership.”
While Brian, post-pandemic, could have easily sold to a national interest, his priority was Perth. In 2021, he gave Lake 88.1 over to MBC (My Broadcasting Corporation), an eighteen-station aggregate reverently serving mid and small-town markets across Ontario.
It’s a procurement that may even be precedent setting. While Bell and Rogers continue to classify local radio as a losing proposition, the licenses they keep shedding are being actively pursued by independent interests and small-to-midsize composites.
Brian, proud guardian against corporate anonymity, is heartened by that. He’s seen the tangible legacy that Lake 88.1 had on the Perth area, the community to which now, in semi-retirement, he’s contributing in other ways. He not only heads the Chamber of Commerce but he’s also involved in an affordable housing initiative. And, of course, he’s still on the air. Recently, he was awarded an honorary broadcasting degree from the Perth campus of Algonquin College for his steadfast commitment to community-focused radio.
“You won’t end up with the kinds of flashy careers and union-based pensions of places like CBC,” Brian advises those looking to follow in his footsteps, “but if you work hard at it, you can provide a valuable service, be part of a growing community and do well in a small radio market.”
