But, Ajax/Pickering in Ontario lacks capacity to support a new station
GATINEAU — In two separate decisions released today, the CRTC has decided the community of Salt Spring Island (located about 85 km west of downtown Vancouver and 50 km north of Victoria) has the market capacity to sustain a new radio station, but the market of Ajax and Pickering (located east of Toronto) cannot support the addition of a station at this time.
Salt Spring Island (pop. 10,500) currently has no radio station of its own. The region is reached by various radio services serving Vancouver and Victoria. The only organization that has expressed interest in serving the Salt Spring Island market is Gulf Islands Community Radio Society (GICRS), which applied in 2019 to the CRTC for a broadcasting licence to operate a community radio station to serve the island.
After the Commission in November 2019 initiated a call for comments on market capacity and the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications to serve the community, the Commission received approximately 200 interventions in support of GICRS’ licence application from members of the public, small businesses and local organizations. Many of the interveners said they would support the new radio station with volunteer time and advertising money.
Noting the wide support from local residents, businesses and organizations, and given that no originating stations currently serve Salt Spring Island, the Commission says in its decision today the community’s market could sustain a community radio station. While acknowledging the proceeding on market capacity closed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commission says “the market can sustain a new station despite the negative effects of the pandemic, given that the proposed station is a volunteer-based community station with low operating costs that would not be completely reliant on advertising revenues and would face no competition from other stations serving the market.”
Furthermore, because GICRS is the only party who has expressed interest in operating a radio station to serve Salt Spring Island, the Commission has determined it isn’t necessary to publish a call for applications to serve the market. Instead, the Commission says it will publish GICRS’ licence application as part of the non-appearing phase of an upcoming public hearing. (As of Wednesday afternoon, the application had not been posted to the Commission’s website.)
In a second decision released today, the Commission has determined the market of Ajax and Pickering in Ontario does not have the capacity to support an additional radio station.
In January 2020, the Commission announced it had received an application from Durham Diversity Radio (DDR) for a broadcasting licence to operate a commercial ethnic FM radio station in the Ajax/Pickering region west of Toronto. The radio market in the Greater Toronto Area is currently served by 35 commercial stations (and many spillover ones), 10 of which are ethnic stations. Two radio stations are currently licensed to operate in Ajax/Pickering: CJKX-FM Ajax, an English-language commercial radio station operated by Durham Radio Inc. (DRI), and CJRK-FM Scarborough, an ethnic commercial radio station operated by East FM.
After issuing a call for comments on market capacity in Ajax/Pickering and the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications, the Commission received seven interventions, from DRI, East FM, Corus Entertainment, CHIN Radio, Torres Media, Asian Television Network International Limited (ATN), and Radio Humsafar. DRI, Torres Media, ATN and Radio Humsafar all expressed interest in filing an application to operate a new radio station in Ajax/Pickering.
In its analysis, the Commission determined the overall Toronto commercial radio market has seen total revenues decline slightly over the past five years, with the revenues of Toronto’s ethnic stations declining more significantly. “The Commission considers that weakness in the overall Toronto commercial radio market and particularly among ethnic stations puts into question the feasibility of a new station in Ajax/Pickering,” the Commission writes its decision.
In addition, East FM’s CJRK-FM Scarborough ethnic radio station already serves the market, and the Commission says in its decision “the addition of a new ethnic service would fragment the existing audience and likely have a material negative impact on CJRK-FM.”
Having determined the Ajax/Pickering radio market cannot support another station at this time, the Commission says it will return Durham Diversity Radio’s application for a broadcasting licence to serve the region, and it will not accept applications for new radio station licences to serve Ajax/Pickering for a period of two years.
