Jess F.M providing a voice for the community

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Jessie Parmer has had his hand in the Lethbridge arts community since moving to Lethbridge 14 years ago.


He has been a concert promoter bringing in acts like Snoop Dogg and a club owner, now he has stared  a new internet radio station Jessfm.ca to give a voice to Lethbridge’s diverse community.


“I’ve been a concert Jessie parmer is excited about Jess F.m. Photo by Richard Amerypromoter for almost 10 years so music has always been a passion,” said Parmer.


“And I want to give young people a platform for their music and opinions so people can understand the next generation. They are our future leaders,” Parmer continued.
 Jess f.m.’s programming includes an eclectic array of music including blues, metal and hip hop plus world music including Filipino music and later Nepalese music as well as several talk shows covering  politics, activism, transgender issues and gossip.


Since August, they have been broadcasting from downtown Lethbridge from an office located next door to Club Didi.


“The goal is to have multi-ethnic content and grow our programming as a whole,” Parmer continued.


“We Have Dillon Hargreaves, who is an activist for transgender issues, and Rachel Keiper who is a model. So we have  people who come from diverse backgrounds including publishing, modelling and activism. We have community members and students,” he said.

“We have people in Lethbridge from all walks of life, but we‘re all Canadian, so we want to keep the Canadian content. We’re all Canadian first and we have a lot of diversity,“ he continued.
 In addition to listening online at www.jessfm.ca, you can also download a free app from the Jess FM Facebook page.

 


“So you can listen to us all over the world,” he said, adding people are listening from all over the world as some of the hosts have call-in shows.


“The hip hop show has had calls from the United States and we have people from the Philippines calling in with requests.
 Though they just started, they had a peak listenership of 300,000, but then they had a massive computer crash which lead to a low of 129.


“People might have been listening, but we couldn’t tell how many were. So we have to build our listenership back up,” he said.
“Other media read the news and play music. I wanted to do something a little different,” he said.


“In the future I’d like to  go to the CRTC and get an FM channel. And later maybe start a small community TV station and see what happens,” he continued.
 You can listen to Jess F.M.. online at http://www.jessfm.ca/ and follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jessfm/?fref=ts to get the free app and to see some of the hosts and programmers.

 A version of this story appears in the November 30, 2016 edition of the Lethbridge Sun Times
 — By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat editor
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