CFIS 93.1 FM, the city's non-profit community radio station, has applied to the CRTC to boost its broadcasting power from five watts to 600 watts.
Add it's counting on the soothing gospel voices of the Freedom Singers concert tonight at Westwood Community Church to bring that radio request closer to reality.
"The proceeds from the concert will help keep us running, really, and if and when we get around to the radio tower part is really dependent on the CRTC," said CFIS station manager Reg Feyer.
"The application is for a full licence which will give us more power. We have enough [money] to put up the tower and maybe get the transmitter, but the day-to-day operation is starting to drain our bank account. We should be able to make a reasonable profit off this."
Feyer said once the station has more broadcasting power it can sell more advertising to funnel more funds into its daily operations. The weak transmitter it currently operates limits the CFIS signal range to the bowl area of the city.
Feyer is the only paid employee among 40 volunteers at the station, which began broadcasting in June 2007.
The station raises money to fund itself through raffles and by bringing in entertainers like the Freedom Singers. CFIS president Bill Ollinger heard they were playing Quesnel on Thursday and booked them for Prince George tonight when he learned they had an open date before their Saturday concert in Williams Lake.
"They are from Romania and it's quite an amazing story how they got out of Romania," said Feyer. "They are getting to the point now where they're very much in demand."
The Freedom Singers' harrowing story of fleeing prosecution in their native Romania for their Christian beliefs landed them on the CBC TV show Dragon's Den in December 2011.
Brothers Simon and Steven Ivascu escaped to Italy with friend Wesley Pop to avoid mandatory military service after high school, a requirement of all men in Romania. Facing deportation from Italy, Simon Ivascu and his friend Pop paid a human smuggler to get them out of Italy, and they spent four days sweltering in the locked container with very little oxygen on a loading dock. They were loaded into the hull of a Montreal-bound freighter and eventually punched a hole through the container but remained locked in the hull of the ship for two weeks. They were discovered, near death, having used all their food and water, when a ship worker heard their knocks.
The Dragon's Den panel turned down their request to invest $100,000 for 30 per cent of the proceeds from the book, The Price of Freedom, but did introduce them to two major book publishers. However, they failed to reach a deal with either publisher when the trio refused requests to change their story to put less emphasis on their Christian faith. Their independently-published book has sold more than 20,000 copies.
The Freedom Singers are now based in Kelowna, and support themselves through book sales and by performing concerts across North America.
The concert starts tonight at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at Studio 2880, Books and Company and at Westwood church.
See other story on page 29.
