Stampede City Sessions moves to new broadcaster
Stampede City Sessions will air Saturdays at 10 p.m. on KSPS Public Television. In Calgary, KSPS can be found on Channel 14 on Shaw Cable and Channel 140 on Telus Optik TV.
When Lorne and Candace Webber created the Stampede City Sessions back in 2012 they looked to Austin City Limits as a template.
The venerable public television music program began in the 1970s and has since become a première showcase for talent from around the world. Now, after more than five years of airing on Shaw TV, Stampede City Sessions will be moving to a new broadcaster. On Saturday, PBS affiliate KSPS Public Television will begin airing the Calgary-shot performance series in a plum spot before Austin City Limits.
“That was, for us, the ultimate platform, " says Candace Webber. “Having grown up with Austin City Limits, that was the show we emulated when we first started Stampede City Sessions. So it’s really cool for us that it’s going to be airing right before Austin City Limits on Saturday nights.”
The move comes after the announcement that Shaw would shut down its TV stations in Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton as of Aug. 17, leaving Stampede City Sessions without a home. Lorne Webber says Joe Wilcox, the programming manager at Shaw TV Calgary, was once a board member of KSPS and penned a “letter of introduction” on the Webber’s behalf. That opened the door to talks with the station.
Headquartered in Spokane, Washington, KSPS-TV broadcasts to eastern Washington, northern Idaho and Alberta among other places.
It also reaches 2.3 million households, which will give City Stampede Sessions a significant boost in viewership from the 300,000 cable subscribers that could tune in in Calgary.
The Stampede City Sessions is taped live at the Webber Academy of Performing Arts. New sessions will be filmed beginning in the fall. Until then, KSPS will dip into the archives. First up will be Edmonton’s roots-rockers Altemeda on Canada Day.
In the past, the Stampede City Sessions have included everyone from Rosanne Cash and Lisa Hannigan, to Mark Chesnutt and Theo Fleury.
While the move is a significant boost for the show, the Webbers say they are also excited that the featured bands will now be exposed to a much larger audience as well.
“At the core of it all, it’s all about the artists,” Candace says. “We are music lovers and we realize how hard they work and how much happiness they bring to people with their music.”