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Public Notice
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Ottawa, 2 August 1988
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Public Notice CRTC 1988-124
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Introduction to Decisions CRTC 88-484 to 88-486 Concerning the CBC's British Columbia Radio Improvement Plan
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At Public Hearings in Victoria and Prince Rupert commencing 7 and 10 March 1988 respectively, the Commission considered applications by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to restructure its radio operations in British Columbia by establishing an English-language FM radio broadcasting transmitting undertaking at Victoria, by changing the program source of its radio undertakings offering the CBC's English-language AM service in the communities of Prince Rupert, Prince George and Kelowna, and by creating "storefront" bureaus in the province.
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The Concept of Storefronting
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The CBC first outlined its concept of storefronting in its 1983 "English Radio Development Project" document which recommended that, as a cost-efficient method of offering a measure of truly local service in larger communities served only by a rebroadcasting transmitter, "urban store-front bureaus be established to provide basic news, survival and service information to areas over 100,000 population beginning with the morning local/regional period".
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The CBC raised the matter of store-fronting again in "Let's Do It", its submission to the federal Government's Task Force on Broadcasting Policy:
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Domestically, CBC radio's journalistic coverage is by no means complete. There are at least 19 sizeable communities or regions of the country where there is no sustained presence. Cities such as London or Kingston, Trois-Rivières or Sherbrooke, or whole regions such as the interior of B.C., southern Alberta, Abitibi and Nova Scotia lack the facilities to speak to the rest of the country or hear their communities reflected in CBC programming. One way to improve this situation would be through the judicious deployment of stringers or very small store-front operations.
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At the October 1987 public hearing held to consider applications by the CBC for the renewal of its AM and FM radio network licences, the Corporation's Vice-President of English-language Radio Services, Mr. Michael McEwen, included the establishment of storefront bureaus in a list of "visionary" projects which would be implemented if the CBC were to receive incremental funding. At that hearing, he stated:
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Very near the top of that list is our longstanding desire to implement one of the major recommendations of the radio development project: namely, to open "storefront" bureaus in communities of 100,000 people or more, where we currently have a transmitter, but no local journalistic presence. The storefront strategy is designed to fill in what we have called the "geographic black holes" in our information network. It would give these disenfranchised parts of the country their own morning shows, their own newscasts and survival information. And perhaps even more important, these store-fronts would give their locations a "window" on the network, through the contribution they could make to regional and national programing.
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In response to several interventions to the Corporation's radio network licence renewal applications which expressed concern that the CBC might apply its storefronting concept to reduce the service provided by existing production facilities, Mr. Pierre Juneau, President of the CBC, stated that storefronting could only be considered as a positive step if it were to result in an expansion rather than a reduction of service:
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It has a negative meaning if we mean reducing some of the very valid services that we now have in order to replace them by a much less costly, but, in our view, not as good a model. But it also has a positive meaning, if we are talking about better feeding of the stations we have [from...] smaller areas.
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In Decision CRTC 88-181 dated 30 March 1988 renewing the Corporation's radio network licences for a three-year period, the Commission noted that, subsequent to the licence renewal hearing, the CBC had submitted applications to restructure its radio operations in British Columbia which proposed, among other things, the establishment of a new undertaking in Victoria, a change of program source at Kelowna and Prince George, and the transformation of the existing CBC station in Prince Rupert to a "storefront" operation. The Commission indicated that it would examine the implications of the storefronting concept in its consideration of these applications.
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The British Columbia Radio Improvement Plan
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At present, CBC's AM radio programming in British Columbia is produced only in Vancouver and Prince Rupert. As the regional production centre, CBU Vancouver produces two weekday morning shows (one for the Lower Mainland and another for the Interior of the province), a provincial noon time show and an afternoon show which is heard throughout most of the province. CBU Vancouver also produces and contributes to network programs. CFPR in Prince Rupert produces weekday morning and afternoon programs for listeners between Vanderhoof and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and contributes to regional and national programming.
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The sole source of the CBC's FM (Stereo) network service in British Columbia is CBU-FM Vancouver. Its signal is currently available to only 49% of the province's population. In Decision CRTC 88-181, the Commission stated that it expects the CBC over its next licence term to extend its English and French FM services to at least 75% of the Canadian population in each language and to at least 50% of the population in each province in each language.
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According to the Corporation, while CBC AM listeners in the Lower Mainland and in the northwest corner of British Columbia are currently well served through its production centres in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, listeners in the rest of the province are not:
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Approximately 850,000 British Columbians in the Okanagan and Southern Interior, the Kootenay, Cariboo and Peace River Districts, on Vancouver Island and up the South Coast, have no access to programming from and about their part of the province, and no opportunity for meaningful input to provincial and national programming. This disenfranchised listenership includes the provincial capital of Greater Victoria, with its population of over 300,000 as well as several cities with trading areas of 100,000 or more, plus a host of smaller, often isolated communities.
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The Corporation offered that the province-wide morning show, Daybreak, which originates in Vancouver, attempts to address this problem by providing listeners in the Interior "with a sense of the whole province as their community". However, the CBC stated:
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This is a virtually impossible task given the program's diverse audience, scattered over such a vast area, from Fort Nelson to Osoyoos, and up to 1,200 kilometres from the mother station" in Vancouver. As well, the lack of local reporters and programmers makes it impossible for the rest of the province to hear itself reflected on regional and national programs. And the absence of a targeted distribution system makes it impossible for individual parts of the province to be reached on a regular or emergency basis.
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According to the CBC, the purpose of its British Columbia Radio Improvement Plan (the B.C. Plan) is "to improve the level of public radio service offered to British Columbians, [to] distribute that service more equitably throughout the province" and "to greatly enhance the reflection of communities throughout B.C. in regional and national programming".
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The CBC's B.C. Plan is multi-faceted, involving the establishment of a rebroadcasting transmitter to introduce CBC FM service into Greater Victoria, the creation of AM "store-front" production bureaus in Kelowna and Prince George and contributing bureaus in Victoria, Kamloops and Prince Rupert, the elimination of program origination at CFPR Prince Rupert, a realignment of the CBC's provincial AM distribution system, and the cancellation of Daybreak, the existing Vancouver-based regional AM weekday morning show.
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The Victoria FM proposal, the origination of programming through storefront production bureaus in Kelowna and Prince George and the elimination of program origination at CFPR Prince Rupert are the subject of separate applications. The other elements of the B.C. Plan, however, including creation of the Victoria and Kamloops contributing bureaus and cancellation of the Daybreak program, are matters which do not require prior Commission approval.
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The B.C. Plan calls for the division of the British Columbia region into three "sub-regions": Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island; Southern B.C.; and Northern B.C. Each would contain a production centre or storefront production bureau and a contributing bureau. The Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island "sub-region" would include Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Howe Sound and the Sunshine Coast, as well as Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and some small communities up the South Coast, and would be served from the regional production centre in Vancouver, with input from the contributing bureau in Victoria.
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The Southern B.C. "sub-region" would include the Okanagan and southern Interior and cover the Kootenays, east to the Rockies. It would be served from the storefront production bureau in Kelowna, with input from the contributing bureau in Kamloops.
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The Northern B.C. "sub-region" would encompass the Cariboo and Peace River areas, as well as the northwest corner of the province, including the Queen Charlotte Islands. It would be served from the storefront production bureau in Prince George, with input from the contributing bureau in Prince Rupert.
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At the Victoria hearing, the CBC described its plan to establish store-front bureaus in British Columbia as a proposal unique to that province which "would (not) really be reasonable across the rest of the country".
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According to the Corporation, the B.C. Plan would be self-financing, integrated and regional. The projected cost is approximately three-quarters of a million dollars in capital investment and one-time startup costs, and about one million dollars in annual operating costs. According to the CBC:
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... all of the improvements will be made, indeed must be made, with no net increase in either capital or operating expenditures. The Plan will be fully funded through redirection of existing human, financial and technical resources within the (British Columbia) region.
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In describing the B.C. Plan as fully integrated, the CBC stated that each of the components would be contingent upon the rest and none of the proposed improvements could take place unless the entire B.C. Plan were to be implemented. As to the regional nature of the B.C. Plan, the CBC stated that, through its proposed new production and contributing bureaus, it would:
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... focus on stories which are important to the entire region, wherever they take place. This is true not only for our news and current affairs coverage, but also for our service and survival information. Weather and travel reports, for instance, will be regional.
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The individual aspects of the B.C. Plan as presented in the Corporation's applications and discussed at the hearings in Victoria and Prince Rupert are addressed in greater detail in the three attached Decisions.
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Fernand Bélisle Secretary General
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