About CKRO 97.1 FM

CKRO 97.1 FM (Radio Péninsule)

Overview

CKRO-FM, on 97.1 MHz, is the French-language community radio station of New Brunswick's Acadian Peninsula. Broadcasting from Pokemouche under the name Radio Péninsule and the slogan "La radio au cœur de la péninsule" — the radio at the heart of the peninsula — the station is owned by Radio Péninsule inc. and has served the region's Acadian community since 18 July 1988. Its studios and offices stand at 142 Route 113 in Pokemouche.

CKRO holds a particular place in Canadian broadcasting history: it was the first francophone community radio station to go on air outside Quebec, a distinction recorded by the French Street directory and in published histories of francophone media in Canada. For the largely French-speaking Acadian Peninsula, in northeastern New Brunswick, the station is a local institution — community-owned, deliberately interactive, and built around local voices and local news. Its broadcasting licence was most recently renewed by the CRTC in 2023, for a term running to 31 August 2030, and the station is a member of the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada and of ARCANB, the association of Acadian community radio stations in New Brunswick. It remains in active production: in December 2025, CKRO co-produced a year-in-review podcast series with the newspaper L'Acadie Nouvelle.

History

CKRO's origins lie in a competitive CRTC proceeding. At a hearing in May 1987, three applicants sought to bring a new French-language FM service to northeastern New Brunswick. Radio Péninsule proposed a community station for Gloucester County and the French-speaking population of the Acadian Peninsula, and on 20 July 1987 the Commission approved the application (Decision CRTC 87-576), authorising a station at Inkerman on 97.1 MHz. Before sign-on, the plan was refined: Decision CRTC 88-451, issued 15 July 1988, increased the authorised effective radiated power from 28,800 watts to 39,000 watts, moved the transmitter from Six Roads to Pokemouche, and relocated the studios from Inkerman to Pokemouche. Three days later, on 18 July 1988, CKRO-FM officially began broadcasting.

The young station's schedule grew in steps: in July 1990 the CRTC approved night-time programming, allowing CKRO to broadcast through the midnight-to-6 a.m. hours. Its first decades were also marked by close regulatory attention. The licence was renewed for a short term in 1992, to 31 March 1994, so the Commission could assess compliance — including the advertising practices expected of a Type B community station, logger-tape requirements, and a denied request to lift the condition that barred the station from soliciting advertising in Caraquet. A second consecutive short renewal followed in 1994, to 31 March 1996, with the Commission noting the station's failure to honour its commitments and setting advertising limits of a maximum of six minutes per hour, averaging four minutes per hour and 504 minutes per week. In 1996 the licence was renewed to 31 August 2000, and the Caraquet solicitation prohibition was lifted.

Subsequent renewals brought CKRO under the CRTC's Community Radio Policy. In 2001 the station was renewed to 31 August 2007, broadcasting 126 hours per week, with commitments that 30 per cent of news time be local and 25 per cent regional, and Canadian music levels of 35 per cent for category 2 and 12 per cent for category 3 content. A programme analysis of the week of 9 to 15 January 2005 found only 3.8 per cent category 3 music against the 12 per cent condition, and the 2007 renewal was again short-term, to 31 August 2011. The station was renewed in 2011, to 31 August 2015, and on 18 July 2013 it celebrated its 25th anniversary, an occasion covered by ICI Radio-Canada. Its licence was most recently renewed in Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2023-77, issued 16 March 2023, which lists Radio Péninsule inc. and CKRO-FM Pokemouche among the renewed licences, with the new term running to 31 August 2030.

Programming and Content

Radio Péninsule's programming is produced for the Acadian Peninsula, in French: local and regional news, community information, music and talk. The station's licence history underlines the local emphasis, with commitments reserving 30 per cent of news time for local news and 25 per cent for regional news, alongside Canadian music quotas. The station is deliberately participatory. The French Street directory describes a radio that belongs to the community, whose people are part of the content, with studios accessible to the population — the mandate that Radio Péninsule inc. has held since 1988, giving the Peninsula a communication tool in its own image. ARCANB, the provincial association, describes the station's aim as demystifying the social, economic and cultural issues of the Peninsula for the people who live there.

Partnerships extend that mandate. The Université de Moncton, campus de Shippagan (UMCS), produces a monthly series of "capsules UMCS" for broadcast on CKRO — interviews of roughly ten minutes with Shippagan campus professors about their research. Topics in the current series include psychological health in the workplace, teaching and learning in virtual reality, consumer behaviour, and the Acadian French spoken in the Peninsula. Comedy has also featured in the schedule: the Acadian comedy capsules Les Niaiseries acadiennes aired on CKRO between November 2014 and January 2015.

The station's current production is visible in its newest venture: "Les Tops 5 de fin d'année," a podcast series presented jointly by L'Acadie Nouvelle and CKRO. Its year-end episodes, released on 22 and 24 December 2025, counted down the top five sporting moments, cultural moments and personalities of the year in Acadia, hosted by CKRO's Yvon Duguay and Juliane Benoit alongside L'Acadie Nouvelle journalists Robert Lagacé and Sylvie Mousseau.

Audience and Reach

CKRO is a Class B station. Current technical listings drawn from the REC Canadian station database give an effective radiated power of 37.8 kW average and 44.4 kW peak, with an antenna height above average terrain of 55.5 metres, at its Pokemouche transmitter site. On the ground, that signal covers the Pokemouche–Caraquet heartland of the Acadian Peninsula and the peninsula's French-speaking communities.

Reliable current audience measurement for a station of CKRO's size is not published. The audience figure most often attached to the station is a dated one: a community profile archived in 2007 reported a weekly audience of 40,000 listeners — substantial reach for a region of the Peninsula's size, but a historical figure rather than a present-day measurement. A published academic analysis of Acadian media in New Brunswick has likewise described CKRO as one of the province's very popular community stations, reflecting its standing in the region it serves.

Digital Presence

CKRO's website is ckro.ca, which carries the station's identity — "CKRO FM 97,1 — La radio au coeur de la péninsule" — and station references list online streaming among its distribution. Its audio also travels through podcast platforms: the "Les Tops 5 de fin d'année" series with L'Acadie Nouvelle is distributed on podcast services including Audible, with episodes released in December 2025. The station's programme partnerships, such as the UMCS capsules, are catalogued on the Université de Moncton's website, giving its broadcast content a second, searchable life online.

Ownership and Organisation

The licensee is Radio Péninsule inc., the community organisation that proposed the station at the 1987 CRTC hearing and has held its mandate since CKRO went on air in 1988. The station is locally rooted in the classic Canadian community radio mould: owned by the community it serves, with studios at 142 Route 113 in Pokemouche open to the population, and programming shaped by the Peninsula's social, economic and cultural life. Radio Péninsule inc. operates CKRO as a member of the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada, the national francophone community radio association, and of ARCANB, the Association des radios communautaires acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick, whose current station listings present CKRO as born of the Acadian population's desire for a station reflecting their identity.

Contact and Availability

CKRO broadcasts on 97.1 FM across the Pokemouche–Caraquet region of the Acadian Peninsula and streams through its website, ckro.ca. The station's studios and offices are at 142, route 113, Pokemouche, New Brunswick E8P 1K7. Directory listings for the station give its email as info@ckro.ca and its telephone number as 506-336-9706. Its programmes include the monthly UMCS capsules from the Université de Moncton's Shippagan campus, and its co-produced podcast series with L'Acadie Nouvelle is available on podcast platforms.