The CRTC last week approved the change in ownership and effective control of ethnic radio station CJRJ-AM Vancouver (formerly operating as Spice Radio).
Through the transaction, Spice Radio owner Shushma Datt’s shares in I.T. Productions Ltd. (the station’s licence holder) are being acquired by numbered company 1101651 B.C. Ltd., giving Kulwant Singh Dhesi effective control of the station. CJRJ-AM has been operating as Radio Swift 1200 AM since last summer, serving the local South Asian communities in the Vancouver area.
Given the $2.77 million value of the transaction, as determined by the CRTC, the commission has ordered I.T. Productions Ltd. to pay tangible benefits totalling $166,148 to be paid in equal instalments over seven consecutive broadcast years and allocated to various funds, including the Canadian Starmaker Fund, Fonds RadioStar, FACTOR, Musicaction, the Community Radio Fund of Canada, and any eligible Canadian content development initiative at the discretion of the station purchaser.
The CRTC determined that approving this transaction is in the public interest, as it will help to ensure the radio station continues to provide local cultural programming to the community of Vancouver. The station owner is reminded by the CRTC that CJRJ-AM’s local programming must incorporate spoken word material of direct relevance to the communities served, including local news, weather, sports coverage, and the promotion of local events and activities. A reasonable amount of daily local news and information should be made available to those communities, the CRTC said.
In addition, CJRJ-AM is expected to devote at least five per cent of its musical selections each broadcast week to selections from Canadian emerging artists, and Indigenous musical selections should be included on the station’s playlist.
The CRTC also proposes to impose continuing conditions of service on CJRJ-AM, including that it should, in each broadcast week: direct programming to at least 11 cultural groups in at least 17 different languages; devote all of its programming to ethnic programs, and at least 95 per cent of its programming to third-language programs; ensure at least 73 per cent of the ethnic programs broadcast are in the Hindustani and Punjabi languages; and not devote any of the programming it broadcasts to programming in a Chinese language.
CJRJ-AM Vancouver’s licence will expire Aug. 31, 2027, as per its existing licence term.
