Coming Home

Seven weeks ago Chris Palliser started as the co-host of the morning show at Virgin 107.3 FM. Palliser has hopped around several Canadian cities in his radio career, and has finally made it back to his hometown of Victoria. It hasn’t always been easy, but every step along the way has led Palliser to where he is today.

“Just like anything, you start small and work your way up,” says Palliser.

After graduating from Applied Communication at Camosun College he moved to Fort McMurray, this is a period of time he refers to as “Dark December”.

“I left Victoria, it was 12 degrees and raining at the end of November,” says Palliser. “I landed in Fort McMurray, it was minus 32 and dark at 2:30 in the afternoon and I thought what the hell did I just do?”

            From Fort McMurray, Palliser moved to Edmonton to work for Joe FM. At 25 years old he moved from Edmonton to Vancouver to work for The Beat 94.5. Palliser was excited to be working for a major Vancouver radio station, but struggled to find the sense of community that he so valued.

            “One of the big reasons I wanted to get back to Victoria was that feeling of community,” says Palliser. “Radio is different in Vancouver because it’s so overwhelming as to where you start, because there’s so many different communities, and it’s so big, and it’s so spread out.”

Palliser met his wife in Vancouver, and with two kids in the picture his perspective shifted. He started to seek a place where he and his wife could settle down and raise their children.

“You need that village,” says Palliser. “My family’s here. My wife went to UVic, so she’s got a lot of good friends here.”

 So when he got a chance to relocate to Victoria for a rebranding of Kool FM to Virgin Radio, he took it.

“The island has the vibe of - we’re from the island, we’re proud to be from here,” says Palliser.

Happy to be back on “island time”, Palliser appreciates the opportunity to have an impact on a community that is tighter knit than he felt it was in Vancouver.

“It’s hard to please everyone over there because there’s just so many people,” says Palliser in reference to the radio business in Vancouver. “Whereas over here, you have one common goal, one common message, and that’s community.”