VANCOUVER — A Vancouver radio station was knocked off the air for several hours Thursday after thieves raided its transmitter, stealing copper and other metal.
CFUN program director Stu Ferguson said the station went off the air around noon.
“Vandals had broken into our transmitter and it appears they were after copper wire,” he said. “They also stole some tools and stoles a generator and they cut through some lines.”
Ferguson said the talk-radio station's backup system didn't work because of the extent of the damage at the transmitter, which put the station off the air for more than four hours.
“We are only broadcasting on the Internet right now,” he said.
Ferguson said the problem is frustrating and he had no estimate of how much it will cost to repair the damage.
But Ferguson said CFUN will probably lose thousands of dollars in ad revenue as a result of being knocked off the air.
On the bright side, he said the high volume of calls the station received gives some idea of how many people were listening.
Ferguson said the break-in at the suburban Vancouver transmitter should be a warning to other stations to tighten security at their unstaffed facilities.
“I would think that everyone in the media now has got to be thinking about this,” he said. “We all have proper security on there but they just found a way to bust inside.”
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