By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – During day two of a hearing over whether or not to allow certain radio stations to keep their licences because of repeated non-compliance with their licence conditions, the CRTC heard from the owners of CPAM (1410 AM), a commercial ethnic AM station that has seen four licence terms with apparent non-compliance issues, as we reported this week.
As well, CPAM had to respond to questions about CJMS, a country music (1040 AM) station. There aren’t very many AM music stations left.
As with the other cases heard this week, the company is mainly operated by volunteers who focus on the on-air production and have difficulty grasping the technical importance of the reporting requirements imposed by the CRTC.
The efforts of CRTC counsel at the hearing is to try to get the licence holders to make commitments to convince the Commission not to punish them too severely. It is a difficult task to impress upon the licensees the seriousness of their offences, especially after they have been found in non-compliance so many times in the past and little has happened.
The tide could be changing.
An intervenor opposed to the renewal of those two stations, Michel Mathieu, is a broadcasting consultant who told the commissioners it is difficult for him to advise clients to take CRTC regulations seriously when they see stations get away with not complying with CRTC rules and regulations.
The hearing gave light to the fact that the licensee holds a temporary certificate from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the company has until August 1st, to demonstrate that they are conforming to ISED’s rules, too. The Ministry also said in the letter to the station that it was the last extension.
To which Michel Mathieu, who claims he is an expert in these matters, that they will fail and his advice to the CRTC was to “Tirez la plug!” (In Frenglish).
Technically, the CRTC might not even have to make the decision since it cannot, by statute, issue a licence to a station without an ISED certificate which allows them to use the airwaves.
However, as we had mentioned in our story on a previous non-compliance hearing in November 2019, there should be a better way to help licence holders.
