Community radio station CHIP 101.9 held its annual general meeting at Fort-Coulonge’s Club l’âge d’or on Thursday evening, presenting finances and highlights from the 2024-25 year.
Board president David Gillespie said 2024-25 was a year for “restructuring” after seeing the departure of several employees, including interim director general Geneviève Gagnon, reporter Félix Cadieux, host Marie Gionet, and after the 2024-25 financial year ended, reporter Caleb Nickerson.
CHIP ended the 2024 financial year with a $124,137 deficit, but was able to reduce the deficit to $55,394 in 2025. Gillespie said this was achieved in part thanks to former CHIP director general François Carrier, who the station hired back as a consultant in 2025 after he left for French news organization Le Droit in 2024.
In this financial year, the station’s administration expenses were reduced due in part to the departure of the mentioned staff. In 2023-24, admin costs sat at $213,460, while in the past year that number dropped to $156,885. The station also saw less revenue from advertising, dropping from $136,830 to $109,639, but Carrier said he believed that drop to be standard across the industry.
Carrier said his priorities when returning to assist the station were to bring it out of the deficit and reposition the station toward the future, rethinking everything from its staff to the kind of content it produces.
“Local news in English declined [between September 2024 and June 2025], listenership dropped, and technical issues presented significant challenges,” Carrier wrote in the station’s annual report, adding that his goal was to bring the station back to what it used to be.
“We have to rethink what led to the success of CHIP, which was the model of community radio in Quebec for 10 years,” Carrier said.
Carrier said his priorities for 2025-26 will be levelling out the budget, as well as starting partnerships with other Outaouais media. He explained that CHIP is in negotiations to enter into a partnership with Gatineau-based publication Le Droit, which would give the station the ability to share French-language content produced by Le Droit while also using its newsroom to train future CHIP journalists.
Gillespie said this partnership should help to fill the gap in French-language content in the absence of a reporter on-site at the radio station.
“It’s not easy to get qualified people, and that’s why we’re working together, to share them,” he said.
Gillespie added that the station expects to hire an English journalist soon, a position that has been empty since the departure of Caleb Nickerson in August, who is currently employed by THE EQUITY.
Gillespie said since Nickerson’s departure, there has been a focus on increasing content production on the station’s website. He said the board made a decision to return to more community-event style content, which he said had been lacking previously.
“That’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t change,” he said.
Gillespie said another priority will be hiring a director general, a position that is currently empty. He said the process of hiring should begin this summer.
“Once we have our staff [ . . . ] then we’re going to hire based on what they’re going to do,” he said. “
Carrier said highlights of the past year included organizing debate for the federal election in April. He said the viewership of the event was significant, and that the event was what kickstarted the organization’s partnership with Le Droit.
In 2024, CHIP began hosting Chase the Ace draws as a fundraiser for the station and other community groups. After the event brought in $195,212 over the financial year, on Jan. 9 the station announced its decision on Facebook to end the Chase the Ace program.
“A significant reduction in our personnel, combined with rigorous administrative requirements from the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux du Québec (RACJQ), prevent us for the moment from being able to ensure the continuation of the lottery under adequate conditions,” the statement explained.
Gillespie did not rule out the possibility of bringing the game back in the future, but said for the moment hosting it required too much work for the station’s staff to handle.
“We decided to put it on pause because it really does take a lot of labour,” he said.
Gillespie said the $22,000 from the final draw would be given back to community organizations, as CHIP had done on several other occasions. He said the station will continue doing its regular bingo, which is its biggest source of income (which brought in $383,210 vs. $244,525 spent), and has started a new partnership with the Knights of Columbus in Fort-Coulonge for another bingo offering.
Carrier took a moment at the end of the meeting to recognize afternoon drive show host Nathalie Vasiloff, who is celebrating 35 years with the station this year, Nathalie Denault who is celebrating 20 years, and former host Marie Gionet, who reached 10 years with the station before leaving in April 2025.
Board members for 2025-26 are Maryse Vallières-Murray, Annie Lacharité, Gilles Dionne, Diane Grenier, Patrys Brown, Sylvain Fortin and president David Gillespie.
