OTTAWA – The CRTC has received 22 applications for the coveted 88.1 FM slot in Toronto which vary from a $12 million CanCon promise from Newcap, to an all-business news station from Channel Zero, to a student-supported bid by Ryerson University to reclaim the frequency it lost last year when The school’s CKLN Radio was stripped of its licence.
CKLN Radio Inc had been broadcasting its community-based campus radio station at Ryerson University for 27 years until its licence was revoked in January, 2011 after it repeatedly failed to comply with federal broadcasting regulations over a number of years. But now the University is getting a final shot to pitch the regulator for a community radio station it believes can best serve the needs of students and the community.
The opportunity to bid for 88.1 (coveted not because it’s the best slot on the dial, but because it’s just about the last possibility for a new Hogtown FM radio station) comes after Dufferin Communications (owned by independent radio broadcaster Evanov Radio Group) the owner of CIRR-FM 103.9 (Proud FM), applied to the CRTC to move Proud FM to the 88.1 MHz frequency, and to increase its transmitter power last September. As is its policy, the CRTC invited other interested parties to bid for the frequency as well.
The Commission will now hold a hearing May 7, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., at the Allstream Centre, 105 Princes’ Boulevard, Toronto, Ontario, to consider the 22 applications as well as other non-competitive radio applications.
At its peak in the mid-1990s, CKLN attracted nearly 150,000 weekly listeners, but fewer than 7,000 signed an online petition to keep it on the air after the CRTC decision last year. The station lost many listeners during a seven-month 2009 lockout of CKLN operators by the Ryerson University building manager due to management infighting which repeatedly brought police to the campus station.
Over that period and prior the station repeatedly failed to meet Commission requirements with regards to the station’s governance structure, day-to-day management and operations, and programming. Ryerson University has long maintained that CKLN was not the official radio station of the university, but rather an independent organization funded in part through a dedicated fee levied on students through the Ryerson Students’ Union.
RSU is now applying to the CRTC to operate Radio Ryerson, an English-language FM community-based campus radio station that is a “completely new and different undertaking from CKLN-FM,” reads its submission. The application follows a student referendum where 86% voted in favour of a new $10.35 student levy fee to support the new station.
Ryerson has also frozen $250,000 in levy money from the 2011-2012 tuition that would have gone to CKLN and will apply the funds to the new station if it receives regulatory approval. The proposed board structure for the new station will be a nine person board consisting of three student representatives, three faculty representatives, and three community members. “It’s hard to tell [what are chances are.] But I have confidence that, if we put together a good case for a student-led RTA-supported [Radio and Television Arts program] type of arrangement, with a strong board, we will be successful,” Ryerson student president Sheldon Levy told the campus paper The Eyeopener last October.
He also vowed that if the application was successful that “Never again will it be taken from the University by another group, and make the University students pay for it while they don’t have control of it.” In its application Ryerson commits to “showcase and develop Canadian talent, both musical and spoken word, and of its Category 2 selections, a minimum of 45% will be Canadian.” It expects to attract only $72,000 annually in advertising revenues.
Ryerson maintains that when it comes to campus radio stations the GTA, compared to Canada as a whole, is underserved with just one campus or community radio per 925,985 potential listeners, compared to a national average of one station per 206,236 Canadians.
Ryerson however faces some intense competition in its bid to reclaim the frequency, among the 21 competing applications are those from the Evanov Radio Group, Channel Zero Inc., Newcap Inc. and the CBC. (None of Canada’s other major private broadcasters, such as Astral Media, Corus Entertainment, Bell Media or Rogers, submitted an application as each of those companies already own their allowed allotment of stations in the market.)
Independent radio broadcaster Evanov Radio Group, is seeking to relocate its Z103.5 station (Proud-FM) to the 88.1 MHz frequency. The station “programs to Toronto’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) population,” and claims to be the first of its kind in the world. It maintains in its application that it can’t meet the requirements of its current licence for Proud-FM because its current operating frequency is plagued by signal interference and poor reception.
Evanov says the granting of the 88.1 MHz frequency would be a “creative way to address the problem” and added that “There would be limited impact on the incumbents operating in the market, as we would simply be providing a more effective service to our current listeners and advertisers.”
Ryerson also faces competition from another independent Canadian broadcaster, Channel Zero Inc. which owns two specialty channels, Movieola—The Short Film Channel and Silver Screen Classics, and two over-the-air channels, CHCH in Hamilton and Métro14 in Montréal.
It’s proposing to launch an all-talk business news and information station called Biz88 FM with the tagline “bringing business home.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people who work in Toronto endure the longest commute in North America… and yet radio currently doesn’t provide the critical business information they need in order to arrive at their destination informed and prepared for the day,” it states in its application. The station plans to develop a complementary web site and smartphone app that provide real time business and stock market information.
However, nstead of contributing to Canadian Content Development (CCD) it has offered to commit more than $1.22 million over the 7-year licence term to fund a variety of broadcast journalism courses and scholarships with an emphasis on business journalism.
If Newcap gets its way, the company will use the 88.1 dial position to launch a “unique Modern Adult” music format that it says will appeal to a broad cross section of listeners from 18 to 44 years of age while offering 40% CanCon. Newcap is also promising serious funding towards CCD with a promise to inject a total of $12 million ($1.71 million annually) over the seven-year licence term. It maintains that the new station will be the “perfect vehicle for Toronto’s and Canada’s emerging artists.”
It claims that “organic growth” alone in Toronto will raise radio ad revenues by $7 million a year and that the addition of a new commercial radio station will further increase the market’s overall advertising budget.
In its application, the CBC has requested that the CRTC amend its licence for the French-language AM radio station CJBC Toronto by adding a nested FM transmitter in Toronto to broadcast the programming of CJBC. The CBC says the nested FM transmitter would be implemented within the AM contour of the CBC’s La Première Chaîne to address the severe AM signal reception problems in downtown Toronto. The addition of the 88.1 frequency would also allow it to “properly serve the French-speaking population in official language minority communities” it states in its submission.
Also making a bid is Midland, Ontario-based Larche Communications Inc. (LCI) that has proposed using the vacated frequency to air “Metro 88.1,” a rock-based Adult Album Alternative music format targeting the “underserved listeners” between the ages of 25 to 34. Larche says the station would commit to a minimum of 40% CanCon, and is proposing CCD contributions totaling a minimum of $5,065,000 over the course of a 7-year license term.
– John Bugailiskis
