ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2014-15

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Route reference: 2013-335

Ottawa, 21 January 2014

Prince Edward County Radio Corporation
Prince Edward County, Ontario

Application 2012-0826-5, received 6 July 2012
Public hearing in the National Capital Region
12 September 2013

English-language community FM radio station in Prince Edward County

1. The Commission approves the application by Prince Edward County Radio Corporation (Prince Edward) for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language community FM radio programming undertaking in Prince Edward County, Ontario. The terms and conditions of licence are set out in the appendix to this decision.

2. Prince Edward is a not-for-profit corporation controlled by its board of directors.

3. The station will operate at 99.3 MHz (channel 257A) with an average effective radiated power (ERP) of 1,688 watts (maximum ERP of 3,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 71 metres).^{Footnote 1}

4. The applicant committed to providing 120 hours of local station-produced programming each broadcast week, which will include 5 hours of French-language programming. It will also broadcast at least 2 hours of newscasts each broadcast week, of which 1 hour and 30 minutes will consist of pure news.

5. The spoken word programming offered by the station will consist of local and regional news, weather forecasts, sports coverage, community announcements, interviews, as well as specialty program segments such as Public Affairs (local politics and local issues), Comedy Hour (local and international comedians), County Drama (a focus on theatre) and Behind the Barn (a country western and farming show).

6. The station will offer musical programming drawn from a variety of genres and will include selections from the generally underserved categories of Jazz and Blues, Folk, and World beat and International (Reggae).

7. With respect to the promotion of local talent, the new station will broadcast a program entitled County Cuts on Saturdays (1 hour), Sundays (2 hours) and Wednesdays (1 hour). This program will feature music by local artists from a variety of genres. The new station will also reach out to musicians and artists in the Tyendinega Mohawk Territory to include their music in its programming.

8. In addition, the applicant indicated that volunteers would be involved in different facets of the station’s operations, including program development and production. It further stated that volunteers would acquire technical and broadcast skills from training by experienced staff members. Finally, as a member of the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA), the station indicated that it will develop a volunteers’ handbook that incorporates best practices from other NCRA members.

Intervention and reply

9. The Commission received a comment from the Province of Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (the Ministry) relating to the participation of the station in the National Public Alerting System (NPAS), to which the applicant replied.

10. The Ministry submitted that the Commission should impose a condition of licence on the applicant requiring it to participate in the NPAS within six months of the publication of its licensing decision.

11. The applicant replied that the costs incurred to support the broadcast of alerts received from the NPAS would be onerous to community radio stations and that the time suggested for its implementation was too short.

12. The public record for this proceeding can be found on the Commission’s website at www.crtc.gc.ca under “Public Proceedings.”

Programming by community radio stations

13. The Commission expects community radio stations to provide programming differing in style and substance from that provided by other elements of the broadcasting system, particularly commercial radio stations and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Such programming should consist of music, especially Canadian music, not generally heard on commercial stations (including special interest music, as well as styles of popular music seldom broadcast), in-depth spoken word programming and programming targeted to specific groups within the community.

14. In this regard, the Commission notes that the station will offer a range of music and spoken word programming not currently offered by existing radio stations. The Commission is therefore satisfied that the application complies with the provisions for community radio stations set out in Campus and community radio policy, Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-499, 22 July 2010.

Reminder

15. The Commission reminds Prince Edward that broadcasters play a vital role in the provision of emergency alerts to Canadians and that the Commission continues to expect all radio stations to voluntarily participate in the NPAS to alert Canadians of imminent or unfolding dangers.

Secretary General

*This decision is to be appended to the licence.