Caleb Nickerson
FORT COULONGE
Sept. 21, 2017
Dozens of loyal listeners came out to Fort Coulonge Thursday afternoon as staff at CHIP 101.9 FM hosted a barbecue on the front steps of the station.
Hotdogs, drinks and cake were served for free to the guests. After passing off grilling duties to a colleague, station manager François Carrier explained that the annual event coincides with the launch of CHIP’s fall programming.

Bingo will continue on Monday nights plus the first Tuesday of every month and as usual the station will be airing all of the Montreal Canadiens’ games this season.
Carrier highlighted two new shows starting up this year, entitled “Ces gens d’ici” which airs Mondays at 9 a.m. and “Pontiac Mag” which airs Wednesdays at the same time.
The former is hosted by Carrier and will feature hour-long interviews with various people from across the Pontiac.
“The goal of this kind of show, it’s really to have something positive,” he said. “We find it’s too negative in [the Pontiac]. In the next year I hope to have an English version of this kind of show.”
The latter offers shorter interviews, each featuring local residents posing questions about the region. Carrier said that he is looking to expand CHIP’s English-language presence, as he feels the local Anglo community doesn’t have many options for news sources that cover provincial issues such as healthcare and school board regulations.
“We want to have a partnership to serve more of the English community,” he said. “We think the English community doesn’t really have information from the Quebec side, mostly from the Ontario side. It’s one of my preoccupations.”