About My Radio 580 (CHAH)

My Radio 580 (CHAH)

Overview

My Radio 580 is the branding of CHAH, an ethnic commercial AM radio station broadcasting on 580 kHz in Edmonton, Alberta. The station airs a multilingual format aimed overwhelmingly at Edmonton's South Asian communities, with a core of Punjabi and Hindi programming surrounded by shows in more than a dozen other languages. It is owned by My Radio 580 Ltd. and broadcasts with 10,000 watts full-time as a Class B AM signal, carrying the station's own description of itself as "Alberta's largest ranged ethnic radio station."

CHAH is a creature of the modern ethnic-licensing era rather than a legacy station. It signed on in September 2020, restoring an AM frequency that had been silent in Edmonton since 2013, and it has since built a profile well beyond community radio's usual reach — most notably through a landmark agreement to broadcast Edmonton Elks Canadian Football League games in Punjabi, a first for the league.

History

The 580 kHz frequency has a long Edmonton pedigree. It was the original home of CKUA, which broadcast on 580 AM from 1927 until it left the frequency in 2013 as it consolidated on FM. The dial position then sat unused, and in December 2015 the CRTC, having found that the Edmonton market could support new stations, issued a call for applications to serve the city. Among the applicants heard in 2016 was 1811258 Alberta Ltd., whose proposal for an ethnic commercial AM station at 580 kHz was its primary plan; its application also included an alternative proposal to operate on the FM band at 106.5 MHz.

On 6 January 2017, in Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2017-3, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved an application by 1811258 Alberta Ltd. for a broadcasting licence to operate an ethnic commercial AM radio station in Edmonton. The approved undertaking was to operate at 580 kHz (Class B) with a daytime and nighttime transmitter power of 10,000 watts, and the applicant committed to directing ethnic programming to a minimum of nine cultural groups in at least 17 languages each broadcast week.

After on-air testing began in the summer of 2020, the station officially signed on as My Radio 580 on 28 September 2020. The licence was subsequently renewed in Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2023-194, dated 7 July 2023, which renewed the licence for the ethnic commercial AM station CHAH Edmonton, held by My Radio 580 Ltd., from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2030. The conditions of service attached to the renewal require the station to devote 100 percent of its programming each broadcast week to ethnic programming, at least 91 percent of it to third-language programming, and to serve at least nine distinct ethnic groups in at least 17 languages, with at least 12 percent of musical selections during ethnic programming periods devoted to Canadian selections.

Programming and Content

Punjabi and Hindi programming forms the backbone of the My Radio 580 schedule. A typical weekday begins before dawn with Nit Nem and Gurbani, followed by Live Gurbani with Gurpreet and a Punjabi/Hindi morning block, then a current-affairs sequence hosted by Gursharan Buttar — Punjab Diary, Hello Alberta Mera Desh and a political talk show — that anchors the station's local news and community coverage. Midday brings Raj Klair's Nighi Sawer and Parwaz, Raveena's Midday Hindi Show, and afternoon talk and music programming including Dil Khol ke Bol with Amandeep and Sangmitra and Sangmitra's drive-time Home Run, while the evening schedule includes Saanjh with Pawan, Punjabi Local Geet with Amandeep Singh and shows hosted by Neeti Dhillon, among them Antakshari and Sufiyana Kalam, before Hindi and Punjabi songs run through the night.

The multilingual mandate shows most clearly on weekends and in the schedule's margins, where the station fits in a Filipino program, a Spanish show, a Farsi program, an Urdu show hosted by Shahina Tanweer, a Ukrainian program, a Malayalam program with Stella Matthew, a Gujarati program, an Asian program with Cheryl Wang, and English-language sports talk with Greg Davis, whose Talking Trash and Next 48 programmes give the schedule an English-language current-affairs and sports component alongside the ethnic blocks. The station's published team includes Sangmitra Singh, Raveena Bodawala, Shahina Tanweer, Neeti Dhillon and Stella Mathews, and Gursharan Buttar — the station's morning current-affairs host — has been identified in the Elks partnership announcements as the station's general manager.

Sport has become a signature. On 29 July 2023, CHAH carried an Edmonton Elks home game against the BC Lions with Punjabi play-by-play from Harpreet Pandher and Taqdeer Thindal, both familiar from Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition; it was reported at the time as the first broadcast of a professional gridiron football game in Punjabi in North America, and the broadcast was also carried in British Columbia by Sher-E-Punjab Radio. In April 2024 the Elks and the station announced what they described as the CFL's first Punjabi broadcast rights agreement: a multi-year deal under which My Radio 580 would broadcast every Elks home game in Punjabi, beginning with the preseason game against Saskatchewan on 25 May 2024. The station's commercial ties to the local market are visible on its own website, which lists brands it has worked with including the Taste of Edmonton festival and the Edmonton RiverHawks baseball club alongside local law and home-building advertisers.

Audience and Reach

CHAH's 10,000-watt signal on 580 AM covers Edmonton and a broad stretch of central Alberta, and its streaming extends its reach across the province and beyond. The audience it was licensed to serve is large and growing: coverage of the station's Punjabi football broadcasts, citing the 2021 census, put Canada's Punjabi population at roughly one million people, with Alberta's community of about 126,385 the third largest among the provinces, behind Ontario and British Columbia. The station's conditions of licence — nine ethnic groups in at least 17 languages — formalize a reach that extends well past that core audience to Edmonton's Filipino, Spanish-speaking, Persian, Urdu-speaking, Ukrainian, Malayalam-speaking and other communities, each of which appears in its weekly schedule.

Digital Presence

The station's website, myradio580.com, carries a live stream with an on-air-now display, the full weekly schedule, presenter profiles and information about the station's app, and it links to the station's Instagram, Facebook and YouTube presences. The site also builds listener participation into the service, with a "make a request" feature attached to its programmes. Elks Punjabi broadcasts were also made available nationally through the station's online player, taking the 580 signal well beyond its over-the-air footprint.

Ownership and Organisation

CHAH is owned by My Radio 580 Ltd.; the original licence application approved by the CRTC in 2017 was filed by 1811258 Alberta Ltd., which listed an Edmonton address on 33 Avenue NW in the application record. The station operates under an ethnic commercial licence with the conditions of service set out in its 2023 renewal, which runs to 31 August 2030, including the Canadian content development contribution requirements the renewal attaches to the licence.

Contact and Availability

My Radio 580 broadcasts on 580 AM in Edmonton and streams live at myradio580.com, where the station publishes its schedule, its team and its app. The station publishes an on-air call-in line, 780-439-0000, on its website for listeners who want to take part in its programming.