GATINEAU – The CRTC said today that it doesn’t think the Saskatoon market can support any more commercial radio stations and so it won’t be issuing a call for applications for new stations there.
“Based on its analysis of the comments received and its review of the financial performance of the market and its stations, the Commission remains concerned about the effects of licensing further commercial radio stations in the Saskatoon market at this time,” said a decision released Wednesday.
In May, an application was filed for a license to serve the largest city in the province and as is its policy, the Commission opened up a proceeding to study the market, but it immediately “expressed concern over that market’s ability to support an additional radio station, primarily due to the low aggregate profitability of radio stations operating in the market. It called for comments from anyone interested to gauge if a full call for additional applications to serve the city is warranted.
Some said the region’s economy is growing robustly, while others said it was already well-served and could support no additional radio stations.
The Commission agreed with the latter and added it won’t accept applications for new commercial radio stations to serve Saskatoon for two years.
