By Ahmad Hathout
YELLOWKNIFE – The CRTC’s decision to decline an application by Cabin Radio, an online station, to operate a commercial FM station in Yellowknife was “shocking” and “flies in the face” of supporting northern businesses, a member of legislative assembly of the Northwest Territories said during debate Thursday.
The regulator’s decision on Wednesday said the addition of another FM station would financially harm the incumbent and only commercial station in Yellowknife, Vista Radio’s CJCD-FM, which has experienced declining revenues in the five years before the pandemic and after in an environment with declining profitability. Two commissioners dissented in the decision.
“Cabin Radio has filled a void in Yellowknife’s media scene and played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information during the pandemic with their COVID Corner,” said Katrina Nokleby, the MLA from Yellowknife’s Great Slave who was a cabinet minister for the industry and infrastructure portfolios in the NWT government.
“It is mindboggling to me that someone in Ottawa thinks that a multimilliondollar southern entity, such as Vista Radio, should be protected from the competition of five local Yellowknifers, who vastly give back to our community in a variety of ways,” she added. “This flies in the face of everything we talk about when we speak of supporting northern businesses in this House, and the only explanation that makes sense to me is who is Vista Radio’s friend at the CRTC, as this reeks of cronyism to me.
“I will have questions for the Premier at the appropriate time.”
Since the pandemic, commercial radio revenues and profits have been in a decline nationally, with inflation on the rise.
Screenshot of MLA Katrina Nokleby
