ON FRIDAY, ONE YEAR TO THE DAY after his last morning show on Quebec City’s top-rated CHOI-FM, controversial host Jean-Francois "Jeff" Fillion opened his microphone again, letting a few thousand listeners back into “le monde parallèle de Jeff”.
But this time, they weren’t listening to him on CHOI, the rebel station without a cause anymore and reduced to fighting legal battles to keep its licence, they were listening on RadioPirate.com, his own pay-radio web site. 
His inaugural show wasn’t vintage Jeff Fillion. With his loft-like studio, located in a new commercial strip mall in suburban Ste-Foy, packed with TV cameras, photographers, and reporters, and with his site’s servers balking at the surge of subscribers at sign-on time, he was admittedly on edge.
But he still found time in his first four-hour show to take pot-shots at his former boss at CHOI, Patrice Demers, and a few other easy targets. And he promises listeners will not be disappointed when they pay $5.99 a month to hear him and the 15 other available channels carrying music. So far, about 6,000 people have.
Fillion’s venture started a year ago when CHOI’s owner, Genex Communications, nudged him off the air.
It was a risky move. By last fall, the station was still the overall ratings leader but had lost 100,000 listeners.
But Fillion, whose popularity had propelled CHOI to the top, was also its biggest problem. When the CRTC ruled CHOI did not deserve to have its licence renewed, it focused on Fillion and the succession of complaints filed over his on-air comments.
In its lengthy decision, the CRTC cited numerous examples of “crude and offensive” remarks by the station’s hosts, primarily Fillion and to a lesser degree, André Arthur, who became the country’s only independent MP in the January federal election, handily winning the riding of Portneuf-Jacques Cartier.
These hosts, concluded the CRTC, had been “relentless in the use of the public airwaves to insult and ridicule people” and Genex had done nothing to reign them in.
Now, Fillion is his own boss, having invested at least $100,000 to equip his “pirate radio” with the technology he needs to broadcast to the world.
On Saturday, Fillion sat down with cartt.ca’s Quebec editor Glenn Wanamaker to talk about his new web-based parallel world.
Glenn Wanamaker: Why did you decide to do this?
Jeff Fillion: I’ve had this project for the last five years with Genex Communications, but I don’t know why, it didn’t interest the owner. So when I left CHOI, my first goal was to build this kind of operation. For the last six months, I’ve been working full-time, 100 hours a week to start it, and I am very proud.
I believe in new technologies. I remember when I was very young, in 1979-80, I was already in love with radio and AM was very big, and I was listening to an FM station and talking to radio owners who said FM would die, AM is strong, and so on.
Now AM is just surviving and FM now is like AM in 1979. The Internet and satellite radio will change everything. In 10 years from now, you’ll be able to listen to the best station in Los Angeles or Japan, the limits will be torn down. When you use a transmitter, you have to face limits. But with the Internet, it’s the world, and with wireless coming, it is the way to work.
It was very important for me to be first and be ahead of the wave, because I’m small, I’m not a big company. All those big companies will get into this business soon, so I had to go first and go quickly, while I’m still recognized by people.
GW: Is it changing the way you do radio?
JF: Yeah. I think you have to be aware that I am a marked guy and I have to be very careful with everything because I know there are 100 people among my subscribers who are there just to take notes and then call someone and say: hey, he’s talking about you, do you to get some money from Jeff Fillion? So I have to take care.
Even though CHOI was not my station, it was like mine. So it was not a funny game when you received documents from lawyers. It was not funny. So I am serious with this project and I have to take care, I have to be very safe.
GW: Is the content going to change?
JF: When I look at the subscribers so far, maybe 80-85 per cent are from CHOI’s area. And there are some from Montreal, from Alberta, Seattle, Singapore – mostly those people are from Quebec City and want to listen to me talking about their city. But maybe with time, I will talk more about Montreal or other areas. So it will change.
Right now, I have 16 stations, 15 with music and one is “radio parallèle”. I want to add more music and more talk radio. If someone has a project for talk radio and wants to be with us, or wants to do a channel on technologies, we can do that. And that could bring in 500 more people to the web site and that would be a way to talk among all those people interested in technology. We could have 500 channels in five years.
GW: But what’s the goal though – what kind of radio do you want?
JF: I think the reason I’m not in regular radio anymore…if someone called and asked [me to do it], I would say no. But it’s funny to see the success we had [at CHOI] and the money we brought in. I’ve heard their budget has gone from $10 million to $5 million. So in Quebec City, my value is $5 million.
But nobody called me. It’s not because I said something bad about somebody doing the weather [TV host Sophie Chiasson, who won a lawsuit against CHOI and Fillion last year and was awarded damages of $340,000, now under appeal]. I think the CRTC stopped me from doing radio because politicians don’t like me. They knew that I have certain power and they knew that people were listening to me and I can change the way people think. I’m not saying that people are stupid, but that there are many people thinking the way that I’m thinking. When they open the newspaper or watch TV or turn on the radio, they hear the same thing all the time, the same subjects talked about the same way. So they looked at themselves in the mirror and said: hey, this guy’s thinking like me. And it kept getting bigger and bigger and people said: yes, we are a group and there are a lot of us thinking like that.
But yes, I love to do radio. I think I’m a politician right now. People ask me: why don’t you go into politics? I am doing politics and I am a better politician with a microphone than sitting in Parliament in Ottawa. That’s the way to do politics for me. So yes, I want people to think, to realize we have a nice place here in Quebec City but that it can be better in many ways.
GW: You’re very conservative though, aren’t you?
JF: I don’t think I’m conservative. I believe in nothing. I don’t believe in Liberals, I don’t believe in Parti Québécois, I don’t believe in Tories. I don’t believe in politicians, the kind of politicians we have right now. You ask them questions and usually, they don’t answer, they just talk. You don’t know if it’s white or black, it’s always grey, always, always, always. I hate that. And they’re all like that.
GW: In five years from now, where do you see this project?
JF: When I talk with people in the Internet business, it’s fun to talk with them because those people are so bright and they have a vision. That’s the beauty of this industry. In the last five years, between 2000 and 2006, so much has changed – the speed of the Internet, the content, everything. And it will change five times faster in the next five years. So these kinds of radio stations will be, in five years, like regular radio. Satellite will have more of a problem because they charge a lot of money and the equipment is very expensive and you’ll find the same product on the Internet for $3 or $5 a month. But people won’t care of it’s Internet or satellite, as long as it’s wireless.
GW: The slogan last year in CHOI’s campaign against the CRTC was “Liberté”. Do you feel more free now?
JF: The last six months at CHOI, I was not very happy with the way we used “Liberté” because inside the station, it was anything but liberty. For me, it was not like that. I was like a prisoner in the corner, they were watching me very tightly. But here, yes, I feel liberty. But as I said earlier, because it’s my own business, you have to take care. You have to think twice before you name someone.
GW: Maybe it’s a question of attacking ideas and not the person…
JF: Yeah, but I’ve been listening to radio the last 20 years. Everyone was doing this, but they were doing it about American politicians or actors. They’re far away and you can say anything about people far away. But if I say something about people here, whoa, you can’t say that. But you said the same thing about Madonna. Ah, it’s not the same thing. It’s not the same thing? I’m confused.
But yes, I know what you’re saying. You’re right. Sometimes you have to take care.
GW: Do you have any regrets from time with CHOI?
JF: Yes, every time you lost it, you knew it right away. But it’s done. It happens maybe 10 minutes out of 6,000 hours, but it happens. So yes, I didn’t like it. I regret it. But that’s the way I do radio.
Often I compare myself to Claude Lemieux, who was playing hockey with the Montreal Canadiens and the New Jersey Devils. I’m not a Wayne Gretzky, I’m not that talented. But I’m like Claude Lemieux. I’m a good player. I will be a player who will help the team win. But the way I play, I go into the corner, I hit very hard, sometimes I’m going to take a penalty and that will put my team in trouble. But at the end of the season, we will win the Cup. That’s the way I play. If I don’t play this way, I can’t play on this team.
