In apparent contravention of CRTC regulations, AM 730 in Vancouver, which most recently has been doing traffic and weather, just stopped. The station said that for the next little while, they will be rebroadcasting the content of AM 980 (also owned by CORUS), and then go silent.
I wonder if the CRTC will do anything about this blatant violation of the rules. Stations are awarded licenses based partially on the content of their programming. They are not allowed to dramatically change this content without going through an approval process (which includes public consultation) from the CRTC.
Probably nothing, based on what happened previously in this market, when a sports station broadcasting primarily local content, TSN 1130, was allowed to instantaneously change formats to canned comedy content. I attempted to complain to the CRTC about this, was told to complain the Standards Commission, who then sent me back to the CRTC and I gave up.
Oh well. At least it frees up some more space in the AM band that could be used in the future, hopefully, by unlicensed services such as us.
But it appears that all the power is held by the big corporations in the broadcasting industry, with the CRTC kissing their rings, so to speak.
You never know maybe the station had to shut down as it was loosing too much money and no one was listening? But if all the stations are owned by the one company, Corus, maybe thought to wind down with the station rebroadcasting another for a bit and closing shop. Wonder why that is? If the station was going to go off the air why not just shut it off and not do an abrupt program change. Maybe if Corus was going to shut the station down anyways what would be the point of going through the hoops for the program change?
You know, if that station was to stay on the air and go through public hearings....how much of the public would care what an AM station is going to program? Or if they are there or not? In 2024? Just saying. Maybe the boomers would be interested if they were going to play what you and I do but other than that radio, especially the AM band, sad to say, is not that important to most.
Is it really true that a station owner can't program what they want? That it is decided by public opinion? Is it dictated as to what programming a commercial station can do? I thought the advertisers did that.
I just talk, what do I know.
Broadcast content standards based on 'what the listeners want' are, in my opinion, a flawed way of deciding what is heard on a station. To some degree listeners deserve to be 'informed and in some cases 'educated' by presentment of content that is 'new' or 'fresh' by the fact that the audience doesn't already 'know' it. This is how we discover 'new music' and learn 'new and better ways of doing things'. Asking listeners 'what they want to hear' is like asking a baby what it wants for dinner. You won't get a smart menu by leaving it to babies.
@mark You're aware, I'm sure, that radio stations in Canada require both an ISED license (technical standards) and a CRTC license (content). The sole reason for the existence of the CRTC is to regulate what is broadcast.
The CRTC license is by far the most difficult to obtain. The potential licensee must commit to broadcasting specific things for the market they're in, including Canadian content. The CRTC also looks at the financial backing of the station, to ensure that it has sufficient funding to survive.
When a radio station changes its format, they are, in essence, breaking their commitment to the CRTC and their license. They are not allowed to do so in a major way, unless the CRTC approves. And the CRTC approval hinges in part on a public consultation, where others can either approve of or object to the change.
The rationale for all this is that the radio spectrum is a limited resource, and, as Carl states, you can't rely on either the station, or potential listeners, to effectively determine what to broadcast.
@mark It's usually a financial reason. Maybe the land/real estate where the tower/towers are located is worth more than station. Happens to often here in the US. Recently a station on the AM band shut because the studio to transmitter link(STL) was provided by telephone company "music loop" equalized line. The Telco no serviced those types of lines and the station just shut down saying it wasn't economically feasible for them to use another type of STL. And sold the land.
@wefr Canada's radio & TV stations are highly centralized. While there are a few independent radio stations, most are owned by a few very large media conglomerates. They are not hurting financially, and, in fact, some just received payouts from the Federal government.
In addition to all that, the digital media tax introduced here in Canada is going mostly towards these companies.
No, it's really just that they want continuous growth and profits each year (otherwise, how can they pay their CEO's and other executives ludicrous bonuses of tens of millions of dollars?). They don't care about their employees and their customers at all. Because so few control so much, where can the customers go? And unfortunately, it's the same with a lot of the employees.
It's too bad that the FCC and ISED/CRTC won't allow real competition in the marketplace. I guess LPFM sort of serves that purpose in the U.S., but there are so many restrictions to those licenses.
Here in Canada, there really is none except for the odd university/college station. And that's only because they have build-in funding with student fees.
Reading this thread and Artisan's info on how the broadcasting thing works I can't imagine me ever wanting to do it. At least not in this day and age in Canada and maybe the USA also. I mean, commercial radio is a business, right?, well If I want to start a business why can't I offer the product that I want to do? Like any other business? Play/program what I want? Why should there be public hearings of all things along with the CRTC telling me, the one going through the impossible hoops of getting a license, the expense of the setting up the station, transmitter, buying the land for the transmitter, and $$$$$ for endless other things, what I can program? There's so much red tape and expense and almost impossible to get a license I can't understand anyone doing this. Artisan knows how hard it is just to get an RSS-123 permit to broadcast to a park and a shopping mall, a square km! Maybe less! You can't even get that.
So here's what you get....only the rich corporations own all the stations between 3 of them and the independent guy who wants to set up a small station doing what the others won't do, what he/she wants, like we do, is impossible. So no one will do it and that's why you loose the variety and competition that existed in the past.
Thank Bill Clinton for signing the new broadcasting act that Canada followed allowing the corporations to own all the stations killing the independent ma and pa stations. And the variety with it.
Used to be that starting a radio station was possible and each station was privately owned by an individual and that station could program/play what they wanted. A program director could make the choice to play whatever and a DJ played records on turntables and had freedom to choose what to play. A station had their own record library. The owner could decide the format and what gets played. In the early 70s in a town north of Toronto in cottage country there was a local station and on Saturday nights the on air person had the freedom to bring in his own records. That's how low power should be.
You want variety bring back the good old days. Allowing real competition means it going back to how it used to be.
The top ten on any given week on two hit parade stations even in the same city can be different songs as each station's program director had the freedom to play what they want. There was regional hits.
What is the good of me for example wanting to get a commercial station and if I had the $$$$millions to invest the government and the public get to decide what my programming must be.
No way. I like the freedom of unlicensed, well sort of unlicensed, as the certification is sort of your license, as the CRTC sees it, and we can program what we want, with some boundaries and not rebroadcasting something like a baseball game(copyright), just not covering the area you would like. What good would getting a station and covering a whole city or even a large town, when I can't decide what I want to program, when it's my business. That is, if I could get the license which is virtually impossible.
@mark The biggest issue in getting a CRTC license is proving that you will survive as a business. What that has to do with program content is beyond me, but they want you to provide a business plan, showing projected revenue and funding. Maybe to ensure that they don't go to all the trouble of giving you a license and then having you fold.
Back when I was looking at it, a while ago I admit, the 'entrance fee' was around $50K per month, likely a lot more now. Educational institutions had no issues, because they could add a fee to pay for the radio station in student fees, essentially a captive funding mechanism.
The program content thing isn't as rigid as it might be. They want to see what percentage of Canadian content you'll be playing. They want to see how your programming will benefit the community and/or provide a service that others aren't providing. They don't go down to the level of telling you what to play.
Now, that's to get the license. Once you have it, the rules seem to change, and you have to do something pretty drastic to lose it. One example I've given in the past is the changeover of a local-oriented sports channel on AM here in Vancouver (employing local talk hosts) to strictly canned and generic comedy content (which was repeated in multiple stations throughout Canada). Of course, all the hosts were let go. That didn't seem to phase the CRTC one bit. It did affect the station's listenership, however, and the station is now defunct.