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TRANSCRIPTION/
TRANSCRIPT
Discussion sur la Revue de la Radio de Campus/
Campus Radio Review Discussion
DISCUSSION TENUE À:
Université de Victoria
Victoria (Colombie-Britannique)
Le 12 juin 1998
DISCUSSION HELD AT:
University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
12 June 1998
Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Transcription / Transcript
Discussion sur la Revue de la Radio de Campus/ Campus Radio Review Discussion
DEVANT/BEFORE:
Joan Pennefather Conseillère/Commissioner
Morag York Analyste en politique/ Policy Analyst
Michelle Edge Agent régional principal/ Senior Regional Officer
TENUE À: HELD AT:
Université de Victoria University of Victoria
Victoria Victoria
(Colombie-Britannique) British Columbia
Le 12 juin 1998 12 June 1998
1
1 Victoria, British Columbia
2 --- Upon commencing on Friday, June 12, 1998
3 at 0930/L'audience débute le vendredi 12 juin 1998
4 à 0930
5 1 MS YORK: My name is Morag York, I'm
6 a policy analyst at the CRTC, for those who haven't
7 been in sessions with me so far.
8 2 And on my left here is Commissioner
9 Joan Pennefather. She's one of our newest
10 commissioners. She has an extensive background in film
11 and television. She worked for seventeen years at the
12 National Film Board. She worked with the NAC, she's
13 been a consultant with broadcasting and
14 telecommunications. She's one of our newest
15 commissioners. She's going to be -- well, she'll talk
16 herself in a couple of minutes.
17 3 And on my far left is Michelle Edge.
18 She's an officer at the Vancouver regional office.
19 She's here to help out.
20 4 I've invited Caroline Cote to sit up
21 here with us, you guys all know. She's just going to
22 be here so that she has access to a mic and she can put
23 comments in more easily any time.
24 5 Okay?
25 6 And on my extreme left, we have a
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1 reporter, Barbara, who's transcribing this session, and
2 I just want to explain that for everybody who may not
3 be familiar with this. The consultation here today is
4 part of the Commission's public process, so we're
5 transcribing it, and the transcription is going to be
6 on the public record.
7 7 So this is part of the public
8 process, and it's available for anybody who has any
9 interest to access it later, so don't be intimidated,
10 but this is part of our open public process. And
11 because we're transcribing it, we're going to ask
12 people, when they talk, to preferably come up to a
13 microphone, and when you say something, if you can give
14 your name and the station you're with at the beginning
15 when you start talking, then we can put it properly in
16 the record of the proceeding. I say record of the
17 proceeding, but it's very informal. I don't want
18 anybody to think that this makes it more formal.
19 8 You know, yesterday when you were
20 having your plenary session, I heard the facilitator,
21 she kept trying to say, "We don't want to have any
22 cross-debate here. We have to cut off the
23 cross-debate." I want cross-debate today. I'd like
24 people to talk back and forth and have some discussion,
25 so we'd like it to be informal. We just ask that you
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1 try to use the mic and you try to identify yourself at
2 the beginning for the purposes of the transcription.
3 9 Okay?
4 10 I'm just going to talk a little bit
5 about the context of the review. The Commission has
6 been sort of reviewing all of its policies lately.
7 There has been a recognition that the broadcasting
8 environment has changed, that times are changing,
9 communications are changing, and it's time for the
10 Commission to sort of stand back and have a look at the
11 policies and regulations it has, and make sure that
12 they're still relevant in the kind of emerging global
13 communications environment.
14 11 We started off in 1996 looking at our
15 cable regulations, and that came out with the broadcast
16 distribution regulations in 1997. In 1997 we announced
17 our agenda for the review of radio. This fall we're
18 going to have a review of television programming.
19 There's going to be a review of ethnic programming.
20 What else do we have here -- ethnic programming coming
21 up this year, and the CBC license renewal next year, to
22 talk about the CBC's role and mandate of the
23 broadcasting system, so we're really looking at all of
24 the elements of the broadcasting system, and this is
25 just one element within that.
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1 12 What we said in the agenda for radio
2 review -- for the review of radio policies, is that we
3 would look at all the different sectors of radio. We
4 started off with the commercial radio review, which is
5 already done. We had a hearing. We put out a decision
6 earlier this year. That commercial radio policy
7 doesn't apply to campus radio unless or until we choose
8 to apply it to you, so all of the things that we
9 announced in that commercial radio policy, there are
10 things that we should talk about but they're not
11 necessarily applying to you in exactly the same way,
12 and we have to talk about what parts of that are
13 relevant to the campus radio sector.
14 13 We've had a slight small review of
15 Native broadcasting, we've got a review of community
16 radio going on sort of parallel to this, and the CBC
17 will be reviewed in the mandate hearing next year, so
18 this is one element within the radio review in general.
19 14 And I just have a couple of
20 administrative announcements, which is that English
21 language community broadcasters, we're going to have a
22 separate session this afternoon to talk with you
23 separately, because you're technically a different
24 sector than the campus radio people, so we'll have a
25 different discussion with you -- with anybody who's
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1 interested in that this afternoon.
2 15 And also we've brought a few
3 documents with us. They're on the side table if
4 anybody wants them. We have the -- a copy of the radio
5 regulations and a copy of the "Promise of Performance."
6 That's the second part of your application, because
7 those things might come up in discussion so they might
8 help.
9 16 Another thing on the side table is
10 the "Glossary of Terms," and I just want to give a word
11 of warning about the glossary of terms, which is that
12 it's almost completely out of date, so please don't
13 rely on that. The reason I have it is because it has a
14 description of the musical categories and
15 subcategories, Category 2, 22, 23, Category 3, those
16 are still accurate, and I think they might be discussed
17 today, so I wanted to have something with that, so
18 please only use the Glossary of Terms for that and not
19 for anything else.
20 17 And I think that's all I have to say.
21 I'm going to let Joan say a few words and then we'll --
22 I'll come back and talk about how we're going to do
23 this discussion.
24 18 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thanks,
25 Morag. Good morning everybody. As Morag said, I'm a
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1 Commissioner. I'm a national Commissioner based in
2 Ottawa, and she described to you very well the numbers
3 of policy reviews the CRTC is undertaking over the
4 course of the next what seems long but is actually a
5 very short time period, and a very important part of
6 that process, which you probably already know, is that
7 this is a commission interested in hearing your views,
8 and we've embarked on different ways of doing that.
9 19 In the television programming review,
10 for example, in Canadian content regulations, we're
11 meeting with people across the country. I was just in
12 Calgary, and we'll be in Halifax next Saturday, and my
13 fellow Commissioners are also in different parts of the
14 country.
15 20 We're meeting people across the
16 country on telecom issues dealing with high cost
17 serving areas. We're engaging in town hall discussions
18 on these various areas of broadcasting in our country,
19 and it's in that context that I'm here today. I'm here
20 to listen. I'm not here to present a pre-disposition
21 on anything. I'm looking for your ideas, for your
22 thoughts, for imaginative approaches. Obviously the
23 context, as Morag has described, is our existing policy
24 and regulations, and a review thereof in the coming
25 months, and so this is a chance for you to fill us in
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1 on your concerns, your ideas and your thoughts.
2 21 We don't have a fixed agenda as such,
3 although from Morag's instruction in listening and
4 actually knowing your dossier very very well, there are
5 obviously some areas that have come up quite often, and
6 we could certainly focus on those if you wish, but the
7 floor is open to any ideas that you want to bring
8 forward -- any concerns, comments, et cetera. That's
9 the nature of the session.
10 22 And again, if you could identify
11 yourselves, not only for Barbara, but for me so I know
12 which parts of the country you're from. That would be
13 terrific. And we'll ask questions for clarification.
14 But as I said, I'm not here to pre-dispose the
15 decisions of the future, but to look at all the
16 alternatives. "Alternative," I think, being an
17 excellent word, I think, to describe this discussion.
18 23 So it's now time to get going. We
19 can open the floor to discussion, unless you have any
20 other --
21 24 MS YORK: One administrative thing I
22 forgot to mention is that the NCRA has been holding
23 regional meetings. I don't know how many of you have
24 been involved in those regional meetings over the last
25 year or so. Magnus -- I don't know if you realize, but
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1 Magnus did a summary of the issues that were raised at
2 those regional meetings, and he provided me with a copy
3 of that summary. I think I'll ask him to post it to
4 the list afterwards, because I don't know how many
5 people have seen it, but that --
6 25 MS COTE: It's been put on the list
7 already.
8 26 MS YORK: It has been already? And
9 that's part of the public process as well, and that's
10 what I'm using sort of as my basis for -- for trying to
11 understand what the issues are.
12 27 I have a list of what the issues have
13 come up, but I don't want you to feel that we have to
14 stick to that list. I'm going to read off the topics
15 and you guys can follow those or bring up anything else
16 that you want, whatever is best for you.
17 28 Is that okay? Okay.
18 29 So the topics that I've heard that
19 people have talked about are -- or that we've raised
20 are the role of campus/community stations. I'm talking
21 about the description in the policy where we've talked
22 about your role. I want to -- or I thought you might
23 want to have some discussion about what that means and
24 what it means in practice, and whether that's still a
25 good reflection of what your role is.
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1 30 Canadian content in music, that was
2 raised in the commercial radio review. The very very
3 low power or training license, that issue has been
4 raised in a number of the regional meetings, that
5 categories of these, subcategories of these -- the
6 question of the boards of directors and who's on them,
7 which I heard you talk about yesterday in the plenary
8 session, advertising levels, spoken word, block
9 programming, news program hits were key factors, all
10 those things that are in the programming, rules that
11 are in the promise of performance, the complaints
12 process, the application forms, sort of general
13 Commission assistance, you guys making ourselves
14 available and making our policies available and clear
15 to you, and employment equity, if that's a topic that
16 anyone has anything to say about, so those are some of
17 the issues that have been raised.
18 31 Caroline has just suggested that
19 before we throw open the discussion that maybe we go
20 around the room and people just talk -- just briefly
21 name the station they're from. Would that -- or give
22 their names and the station they're from. Would that
23 help? It would help Joan, I think. So is that all
24 right? We'll start over here and just sort of go
25 around and people can call out their name and where
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1 they're from.
2 32 Mopa Dean, CIUT FM Toronto.
3 33 I'm Andy Posthumus from C101.5 in
4 Mohawk College in Hamilton, and we're an instructional
5 station.
6 34 I'm Clint Lalonde, CKMO in Victoria
7 here, and we're also an instructional station.
8 35 I'm Alan from CFUV. (Off mic)
9 36 Sophia from (off mic) Radio.
10 37 John Leacock from CFRU in Guelph,
11 Ontario.
12 38 Carole Barbeau from CHUO.
13 39 Angela Christopher from CHUO.
14 40 Robert from CFRO in Vancouver.
15 41 Sonya from CFBU in St. Catherines.
16 42 Sean from CFU in St. Catherines.
17 43 Anthony from CJSF in Burnaby.
18 44 Trevor from CJSF in Burnaby.
19 45 Farah from CJSF in Burnaby.
20 46 Larry from CKDU in Halifax.
21 47 Evan from CKUT in Montreal.
22 48 Rob from what will soon be CKUW in
23 Winnipeg.
24 49 Keith from CKUV here in Victoria.
25 50 Trevor, CORS in Oakville.
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1 51 Maizun from CJSW in Calgary.
2 52 Kevin from CQBU in Brandon.
3 53 Brant from Radio Cariboo in Kamloops.
4 54 Chris from OTC Radio in Kelowna.
5 55 Donna Gulley, (off mic) CICR, Sault
6 St. Marie, Ontario.
7 56 Tristis from CHSR, Fredericton.
8 57 Heather from CJAM in Windsor.
9 58 Helena Katz from CKUT, Montreal.
10 59 Ted from CFUV Radio here in Victoria.
11 60 Chad from CJSW, Calgary.
12 61 Mike, CJSW, Calgary.
13 62 Carole Barbeau.
14 63 MS YORK: We've got two floor mics,
15 so we'd prefer if people come up to the mic and speak
16 into the mic, although if we're going to have
17 cross-debate, obviously there'll be some calling out
18 from the seats. If anybody wants to just come up and
19 start the discussion or tell us anything else they want
20 added to the agenda or anything, we're just going to
21 throw it open right now, and if we don't get any talk,
22 we'll try to focus a little bit more. Does anybody
23 have anything they want to say?
24 64 MR. HORLUCK: I guess to get the ball
25 rolling here a little bit --
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1 65 MS YORK: Your name?
2 66 MR. HORLUCK: Ted Horluck, CFUV
3 Radio.
4 67 MS YORK: Thanks, Ted.
5 68 MR. HORLUCK: I'm the lunchtime news
6 guy, and basically I have a fifteen-minute program five
7 days out of the week. One of my major questions is,
8 how in the heck am I supposed to do my job as a news
9 person? First off, there is no requirement for news in
10 our license; but the second, most importantly, is
11 funds. There's absolutely no access for me to any type
12 of funds. I can neither compete or even follow the
13 pack of reporters around town here, let alone get over
14 to Vancouver to cover some of the important events or
15 anywhere else in the country. An internet website
16 obviously costs money out of my own pocket. The
17 majority of news volunteers go through a heck of a lot
18 of expense in order to do their job.
19 69 My real question is, is not so much
20 why news isn't part of -- of what we do, but how in the
21 heck am I supposed to do a job like this if there are
22 no funds available to us? Do I -- do I, you know, what
23 part of my broadcast, my fifteen-minutes a day, what
24 part of my day do I devote to commercial advertising?
25 70 MS COTE: Can I respond?
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1 71 MS YORK: Sure.
2 72 MS COTE: That really sounds like an
3 internal station thing with resources, and it's a
4 problem that we all face at our stations is a lack of
5 resources and a lack of funds because of -- you know, a
6 lot of us are dependant on -- on the students, and
7 there's been, you know, smaller amounts of students at
8 our universities or colleges or in the institutions
9 where we are, so it is a problem, but it is very much
10 an internal problem, and news was lifted the last time
11 that we went through the review of policy, because we
12 didn't want to get tied down to any -- any commitments
13 of news because of a lack of resources but we are -- we
14 do always encourage the stations to do news, and I
15 think most of us do news, but we call all of it spoken
16 word now.
17 73 And in terms of commercial
18 advertising, that's -- that's incredibly internal,
19 so -- but we do have a maximum of four minutes per hour
20 of advertising, so if it's your fifteen minutes, then
21 you have, you could say, a maximum of one minute per
22 your fifteen minutes of advertising.
23 74 MR. HORLUCK: And what, about
24 thirty-five dollars for the ad is hardly enough.
25 Anyways, according to your sheets here, page number
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1 five of this document, what is called Chapter 948
2 Broadcast Act.
3 75 MS YORK: The radio regulations?
4 76 MR. HORLUCK: Yeah, page five, number
5 6. Political Broadcasts. And what you have here is:
6 "... equitable basis to all accredited political
7 parties." And if you recall from the debates, we have
8 a Reform Natural Law Party. Some of the other parties
9 weren't allowed to even participate in the CBC debates
10 because they obviously didn't represent enough people.
11 77 Here locally in Victoria, my -- in
12 terms of the news, my coverage of the political scene
13 is -- is very limited, simply because natural law
14 parties -- some of the fringe parties never get real
15 media coverage, so we are by default the only type of
16 political coverage that they will get, so if I was to
17 maybe carry a message from the Natural law Party, then
18 certainly the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives
19 and all the mainstream parties would also -- I would
20 have to be equitable in -- in my time for them, so
21 again, just -- that particular policy is -- is, you
22 know, kind of restrictive to a degree in terms of the
23 type of radio station we are. We are the mainstream --
24 78 MS YORK: So you're suggesting that
25 campus radio should be exempted from the regulation
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1 that requires them to -- to provide equitable time to
2 political broadcasts?
3 79 MR. HORLUCK: I -- in terms of
4 equitable, yeah. Maybe just scratch the word
5 "equitable" even, because, you know, it does create
6 quite a problem, like I say, and --
7 80 MS YORK: Has anybody else had an
8 experience with that?
9 81 MS BARBEAU: Can I ask a question?
10 82 MS YORK: Sure. Sorry? Could you
11 introduce yourself?
12 83 MS BARBEAU: Oh, I'm Carole Barbeau
13 from CHUO. Are you talking about the unpaid -- the
14 free time that political parties get on broadcasters,
15 or are you talking about coverage in your show of --
16 84 MR. HORLUCK: Well, like the Liberals
17 could afford to pay, but Natural Law Party couldn't
18 afford to pay.
19 85 MS BARBEAU: No, but there are
20 regulations for unpaid advertising for political
21 parties in times of campaigns and out of campaigns.
22 Are you talking about that, or are you talking about
23 the balancing programming that you have to have in your
24 program?
25 86 MR. HORLUCK: Well, yeah, during --
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1 during the campaigns is mainly what I'm talking about,
2 and it's unpaid. It's all unpaid on my show.
3 87 MS BARBEAU: Okay. So that's your
4 own coverage of -- like, just used for the people,
5 you're talking about?
6 88 MR. HORLUCK: That's correct, you
7 know, what party are you running, you know, who are
8 you, why should we vote for you, that kind of stuff.
9 So it is certainly --
10 89 MS BARBEAU: So that's not the unpaid
11 advertising from the parties that they are entitled to
12 in the law. That's not --
13 90 MS YORK: Right, I think you're
14 talking about the balance requirements, and -- and the
15 balance requirements say that, you know, there's a
16 clause in the Broadcasting Act that says that -- that
17 programming on -- on broadcasting services should be
18 balanced, and we've interpreted that to mean that it
19 should be balanced within a station, so each individual
20 station so should provide a balanced news service -- or
21 not news, but spoken word service, not necessarily
22 across the system as a whole. We've had this debate in
23 the past. I don't know how many people are familiar
24 with it, but some people have said, well, you know, if
25 commercial broadcasters or mainstream broadcasters
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1 present one point of view, our mandate is to provide a
2 non-mainstream point of view, so we should be able to
3 provide balance to the other services, but the
4 Commission has not taken that approach.
5 91 The Commission's approach is that
6 each station has an obligation to provide a range of
7 views and a balanced programming service. Does anybody
8 else have any comments on that issue?
9 92 MR. HORLUCK: I'd just like to cite
10 one example, which is the British Columbia government
11 spends one point five million dollars a year in
12 advertising new programs and -- and stuff like that,
13 and not one single penny has ever been offered to any
14 of us.
15 93 MS YORK: Okay, I'd like to --
16 94 MR. HORLUCK: Is there any reason
17 why -- that I should give them any time of the day,
18 especially during political issues?
19 95 MS YORK: Okay, I'd like to let
20 somebody else talk now.
21 96 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean from CIUT FM in
22 Toronto. Although I don't have -- actually have a
23 problem with the campus sector actually having to
24 attain a balance in its programming, the first station,
25 because I also feel that it also alleviates to a better
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1 level and standard of broadcasting on a whole.
2 97 What I'm concerned about, and when I
3 look at it, though, is that when you look at the
4 admission statement for campus/community radio, the
5 politically, socially disadvantaged groups wording of
6 it, although that is great, that the government, the
7 CRTC takes -- saying, look, there is a group of people
8 usually working or -- or from this sector of society
9 who don't have access to the mainstream of radio
10 broadcasting, yet you still require people from this
11 part of society to have a sort of non-polarized point
12 of view, but they're coming from a various polarized
13 society.
14 98 And let's face it, people on the
15 right, the affluent people who have access to media,
16 people who have access to education and money and funds
17 are not socially, politically and economically usually
18 disadvantaged, so my question is, or what I'm looking
19 at, is that I see a contradiction in automatically
20 polarizing a section of the -- or part of the -- a
21 sector of broadcasting where they're coming from
22 distinct positions, and yet then asking them to be
23 unbiased, particularly when they open up the
24 newspapers, when they turn onto commercial radio, when
25 they turn on the T.V. and they're getting a lot of
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1 different sort of views in the context that it's
2 actually not unbiased or it's coming from a particular
3 point of view because this person owns all these
4 newspapers or owns all these T.V.'s.
5 99 So I'm really wondering if the CRTC
6 is considering at looking at that re-vamping that,
7 because when you look at the commercial sector, it
8 doesn't say that, you know, this sector is set up for
9 the non-politically, socially and economically
10 disadvantaged, right? Anybody can go -- go out there,
11 but as we all know, not too many people who are coming
12 from sort of a less affluent point of view or a
13 different point of view are actually getting access to
14 the commercial radio stations, and that's where I see
15 that a lot of confusion is set up within the campus
16 sector, that while the commercial media maintains the
17 right, the campus/community media maintains the left or
18 left of centre, and that that's why people come with
19 the context that campus/community radio is to
20 "voice" -- voice, and as we know, the argument that
21 went down and was challenged, I think it was from out
22 here. I forget what station it was.
23 100 MS YORK: COOP.
24 101 MR. DEAN: COOP. And the CRTC
25 challenged it, and then made their point of view, so I
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1 understand it, but I'd like to know if -- if the CRTC
2 is going to look at that and -- and how they see
3 that -- or position on it, because a lot of people
4 really do find it hard that you're asking these people
5 who are in this form of media in a reactionary form to
6 what they see, what they hear, what they read, for the
7 government to their place of society, yet you're asking
8 them to do something that even the commercial sector in
9 a lot of times isn't doing, so if someone could provide
10 some comment or idea on that.
11 102 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Well, I
12 just want to make sure I understand the point, and I
13 think it's a really crucial one. Number one on the
14 list is definition of campus radio, which uses the word
15 "alternative programming." So to be clear, I want to
16 just be sure I understand your point very clearly. In
17 the sense that it's recognized that what one will hear
18 on campus radio or alternative points of view, correct,
19 are you feeling that that is restrictive by the
20 definition? That's point number one, because I don't
21 see that in and of itself the expression of a different
22 point of view is necessarily restricted.
23 103 The second part of that is, though,
24 the numbers of different points of view, all be they
25 alternative, also have access, so it's -- it's the
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1 question of balance and the balance of alternative
2 voices.
3 104 MR. DEAN: I just think that it's
4 really hard to sort of polarize an area of -- of
5 broadcasting in the country, but then ask them to be
6 unbiased. I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive for
7 balance or high standard, but particularly when a lot
8 of people -- and the fact is that a lot of people are
9 here for a social activist point of view or in reaction
10 to the mainstream, and yet they can see, you know, the
11 mass buying up of newspapers, the mass buying up of the
12 media, or radio stations, or even to move into the
13 commercial sector for multiple ownership, and -- and
14 seeing that, well, you know, they don't have to do
15 that, or they do it in particular because they can hide
16 behind the regulations because they're very well
17 trained, right, and so they can make it seem like it,
18 but in reality that is all coming from a particular
19 point of view.
20 105 So what I'm looking at is, how can
21 you polarize a section of broad -- a sector of
22 broadcasting or start it from a very polarized position
23 and then ask them to not maintain that throughout their
24 broadcasting. I think that's contradictory.
25 106 MS YORK: All right, I follow you. I
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1 just wanted to be sure I understood your point. I
2 won't argue the point at this stage, obviously, but are
3 you on the same topic, sort of, or -- okay, so we'll
4 come back to it.
5 107 Actually, just to maybe clarify the
6 discussion, maybe I -- is everybody familiar with
7 the -- with the definition of campus radio that's in
8 the policy right now, so we really know what we're
9 talking about here? Do you want me to read it to you?
10 Okay, I'll just read -- this is the definition of
11 campus/community radio that's included in the policy as
12 it stands right now. I'll just read it so you know.
13 108 "The primary role of these
14 stations is to provide
15 alternative programming such as
16 music, especially Canadian
17 music, not generally heard on
18 commercial stations. In-depth
19 spoken word programming, and
20 programming targeted to
21 specialized groups within the
22 community and programming
23 serving the needs of socially,
24 culturally, politically and
25 economically disadvantaged
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1 groups within the community."
2 109 I'll just leave it like that.
3 110 So that's the issue we're talking
4 about here. You have that mandate on the one hand, and
5 on the other hand you have mandate to be balanced
6 within your stations, so --
7 111 MR. LEACOCK: I'm John Leacock from
8 CFRU in Guelph. My question to the CRTC is with
9 regards to license renewals. We are due to be -- like,
10 for license renewal in 1999. What sort of steps does
11 the CRTC provide in terms of assistance, possibly legal
12 assistance, to assist community radio stations, since
13 community radio stations usually doesn't have a budget
14 to possibly have a lawyer to represent and to make sure
15 that -- and to make sure that we're, you know, going by
16 the letter of the requirements for the CRTC, like, what
17 sort of changes do you have planned -- in your plans to
18 assist that? Simply, because, like, in terms of
19 content, we had a couple of complaints with regards to
20 hip hop music where what is construed as being obscene
21 language used on -- within a particular time of the
22 day, you know, we just want to know what we could do
23 prior to a license renewal to assure that certain steps
24 were taken so that we don't end up like other community
25 radio station like CKDU in Halifax where sometimes it
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1 was -- might have been construed as a lack of
2 understanding on the part of the CRTC with regards to
3 alternative music types and music styles that, you
4 know --
5 112 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Yes, well,
6 first of all, being here and hearing you say that is
7 really important. Thank you for raising it. And
8 Morag, could you comment on what exists now in terms of
9 assistance?
10 113 MS YORK: It's sort of hard to know
11 where to start. A standard license renewal is not
12 usually considered particularly difficult. Usually a
13 station doesn't go to a hearing. The fact that CKDU
14 was called to a hearing in 1994, whenever it was, was
15 very rare. Generally speaking, if there's not a huge
16 issue, stations don't come to a hearing at a license
17 renewal. It's a pretty standard straightforward
18 process.
19 114 And one thing we have done recently
20 is we -- we changed the forms, so the renewal form, and
21 I -- they're not actually ready yet. I was trying to
22 get them ready for this meeting, but -- they've been
23 re-done but they're not quite out yet, but I just
24 wanted to show you that the new renewal form is like
25 two pages now. It's very very simple. If you're not
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1 changing anything from your last renewal, all you have
2 to do is basically say, "We want to renew on the same
3 terms and conditions as before," and you sign it and it
4 makes a public process, if anybody wants to raise
5 issues or -- or make interventions against you, they
6 can do that, but if you don't get interventions, if
7 there's no issues, it's a very straightforward process
8 for the renewal.
9 115 Now, in your case, I think you're
10 talking about where there has been some issues, where
11 there has been some complaints?
12 116 MR. LEACOCK: Yeah, just a couple.
13 It was pretty naive complaints to be honest.
14 117 MS YORK: Oh, here's the new form, it
15 looks like this -- the new form. That's how big it is.
16 118 MR. LEACOCK: So basically, do we
17 just have to send that in and --
18 119 MS YORK: Oh, actually, you have to
19 do that and the promise of performance, I forgot, but
20 it can be exactly the same as the last one you did if
21 you're not changing anything. If the complaints were
22 resolved satisfactorily, and I assume -- do you know if
23 they were, I mean, when we got complaints we asked you
24 to respond. You never heard again?
25 120 MR. LEACOCK: Yeah, we -- yeah, we
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1 never heard again. It was just -- it's kind of
2 intimidating from the standpoint of a community radio
3 station that you have a lawyer on the other side
4 responding to your --
5 121 MS YORK: Yeah.
6 122 MR. LEACOCK: You know, you don't
7 have legal training, and you're basically trying to
8 explain what your interpretation of your abidance to
9 your promise of performance.
10 123 MS YORK: Sure.
11 124 MR. LEACOCK: And then you have to
12 respond back to a completely legal document, you know,
13 there's no -- there's no access, there's no ombuds
14 person or anybody that you could go to to assist you
15 with that.
16 125 MS YORK: Well, you can certainly
17 contact anybody at the Commission, anybody on staff
18 anytime.
19 126 MR. LEACOCK: Okay.
20 127 MS YORK: You can call me if --
21 128 MR. LEACOCK: Okay, I'm -- I'm going
22 to get some business cards, that's cool.
23 129 MS YORK: Yeah, anytime, but I just
24 wanted to say that in terms of complaints, if they're
25 resolved -- if you haven't heard back from us, they're
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1 considered -- they're probably resolved satisfactorily.
2 If they weren't, we would have contacted you again.
3 130 Yeah, because I'm sort of
4 intimidated, and I'm thinking --
5 131 MS YORK: Yeah.
6 132 MR. LEACOCK: -- maybe I should take
7 some pro-active measures and send information in to
8 your --
9 133 MS YORK: Yeah.
10 134 MR. LEACOCK: -- saying this is the
11 steps that we have taken to --
12 135 MS YORK: Yes, but it doesn't hurt.
13 You can send in anything you want with the renewal, and
14 we like things like internal policies --
15 136 MR. LEACOCK: No, I want to send it
16 before the renewal because I don't want -- when the
17 renewal come, you end up like CKDU.
18 137 MS YORK: I think if you send it
19 before the renewal we won't really know what to do
20 with -- if you send it in with your renewal form, it's
21 probably a good idea. We do --
22 138 MR. LEACOCK: Okay, that's cool.
23 139 MS YORK: We do like to see that you
24 have internal policies, guidelines in place, it helps
25 us, but if the complaints were resolved, you know,
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1 they're on the public file. We would look through
2 them. If it didn't look like there was a big problem
3 or a big history, you know, it's not usually a big
4 deal.
5 140 MR. LEACOCK: Okay, thank you very
6 much.
7 141 MR. CLARK: Hi. My name is John
8 Clark from CJSF in Burnaby.
9 142 And speaking of the balanced
10 programming, well, I kind of have a bug up my ass about
11 the way that the system works.
12 143 The advertiser-oriented radio doesn't
13 provide balance programming, and we do. We provide a
14 balance to their programming, and we provide several
15 viewpoints on a lot of issues rather than one or two.
16 144 The way that I see it is that it's
17 ways that are to kick our ass into line, right, because
18 we're powerless, like Conrad Black -- and, well, it's
19 something that -- that I feel the need to, you know,
20 point out as being the way that I see it. I'm not
21 necessarily saying the CRTC, but the government in
22 general and the way the political system works.
23 145 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Sorry,
24 Morag, I want to understand. Could you explain a
25 little further what you mean?
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1 146 MR. CLARK: Well, actually, I sort of
2 have this view of CRTC maybe being realistic about
3 their own future and people like us would never
4 threaten your existence, but the people in the right
5 wing of the political spectrum in the Canadian
6 establishment might very well do that -- somebody like
7 Conrad Black, and it's -- it's a crime that the
8 government lets this happen, that in Vancouver, the
9 Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province, the Globe and
10 Mail are all owned by the same man who sets his
11 editorial policies very strictly, and other viewpoints
12 are completely shut out of the system.
13 147 So when you come to us and tell us
14 that we have to provide balanced programming, there's
15 going to be a lot of resistance to that, and you can
16 understand that, and -- and I see it as a -- as I was
17 saying about Conrad Black has a lot more power and
18 influence politically than we do, it's much easier to
19 say, okay, campus radio, you guys get into line. We
20 have a certain set of rules for you, and -- but -- and
21 we do for mainstream advertiser-oriented media, too,
22 but those aren't really applied. There's really not a
23 lot of pressure for those people to provide balanced
24 programming, whereas we sort of, you know, with the
25 Voice of Palestine thing, it's all a matter of who has
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1 the biggest lobby to get the political job done, right?
2 148 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Okay.
3 Okay, I am --
4 149 MR. CLARK: I don't know if -- I
5 don't know if I'm looking for a response from that or
6 that was just a comment, but --
7 150 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I'm taking
8 it as a comment, obviously, and --
9 151 MR. CLARK: Okay, that's fine.
10 152 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And that's
11 what this form is for, to express what you think.
12 Obviously my one response is that the CRTC is an
13 independent body, but this process, I think,
14 demonstrates that we're here to listen to different
15 points of view.
16 153 The other point you're raising is
17 balance within the system, and you're also underlining
18 what your interpretation of the role of campus radio,
19 if I understand you correctly, as per the description.
20 154 MR. CLARK: Well, I'd like to call
21 it --
22 155 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And
23 bringing back the point of alternative programming.
24 156 MR. CLARK: I like to call it
25 advertiser-oriented media and --
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1 157 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Versus --
2 158 MR. CLARK: -- listener-oriented or
3 consumer-oriented media.
4 159 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Got it.
5 Thanks for the comment.
6 160 MR. CLARK: Thank you very much.
7 161 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
8 162 MS MAJAURY: I guess I'll just
9 continue on with this.
10 163 MS YORK: Your name?
11 164 MS MAJAURY: My name is Heather
12 Majaury, and I'm with CJAM in Windsor.
13 165 The issue of balance is particularly
14 important, I believe, at our station, and I deal with
15 the spoken word department, and it has to do with
16 microcausim's reflecting macrocausm's, and it has to do
17 with the fact that when we only look at the microcosm,
18 we fail to see the big picture, and right now I'm
19 extremely limited with that big picture.
20 166 I have a large, very aggressive
21 country to my north, and -- Detroit is north of
22 Windsor, and it's very large, and we are the only city
23 on a border that has that size of a city beside us, and
24 we have, I believe, a responsibility to Canada as well
25 as our community to be representing our points of view,
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1 and the macrocosm is such that if I provide violence
2 within my own station, then I am incapable of providing
3 balance to in the larger picture. That doesn't mean
4 that you can't have good journalism, and I think that
5 the idea of balance is very based in a mythology of
6 non-biased broadcasting. It does not exist. There may
7 be ethics that many reporters individually try to
8 follow, but if we -- if we do look at commercial media,
9 there is no such thing as a bias. Editorials are
10 changed, people do internally sensor themselves, given
11 to the power structure that is in place, and so I think
12 that we have some -- we have policies right now that
13 are based on mytho's already, and we need to really
14 re-evaluate those mytho's.
15 167 I believe that there can be good
16 journalism that comes from a point of view, and it has
17 to do with context, and I'm concerned that only the
18 marginalized groups must always be contextualizing and
19 the dominant group does not. I don't believe that we
20 should not contextualize. I believe that there should
21 be regulations in place in the commercial sector that
22 states who they are. I think that the general reading
23 public -- this is just something about Conrad Black's
24 Southam News chain should know that Barbara Amy Ellis
25 is his wife, and they should know that there's
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1 editorial policies where a word can't be changed from
2 her copy. Then we can make a real decision. And
3 that's just an example. And we try to do that in our
4 station, and I don't see commercial stations doing
5 that, so it's not balanced within the regulations.
6 168 MS YORK: Thanks.
7 169 MS WARD: Tristis Ward from CHSR.
8 I'm not talking about balance, because I've got
9 something that's a real thing for me. It came out of
10 one of the conferences, in fact, it was the Atlantic
11 conference, and I guess the first thing that I want to
12 start off by saying is that was a big brainstorming
13 session, so we may not have had all the i's dotted and
14 the t's crossed. We were really trying to achieve
15 something there, so while I realize that some of this
16 doesn't actually apply to the CRTC, it's industry
17 Canada stuff, it is still important to us.
18 170 In Atlantic Canada, we have a lot of
19 small centres. We have a lot of availability on the
20 FM -- we have a lot of poor, dedicated radio people who
21 want to make radio happen and who are running into
22 brick walls, and what we'd like to see get started is
23 an allowance for a very very low power radio. It's
24 just -- well, we had to have a name, so we put that on
25 there -- very very low-powered radio license, which
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1 would be like a temporary license, a lot like a really
2 long event license, much -- not the same as very low
3 power, not the same as low-powered licenses that would
4 be a little bit cheaper so a little bit easier to
5 accomplish for these stations that are trying to get
6 their act together, that if they were able to get on
7 the FM dial at all, they would be able to draw to them
8 more volunteers, a little bit more support in the way
9 of -- of directors and funding and policy development,
10 and more support from -- if they're on campus, their
11 student unions, more support from their community if
12 they can prove themselves even for one year on the FM
13 band.
14 171 Now, again, I realize that industry
15 Canada is the one that we have to talk to about things
16 like the engineering study and stuff like that, and, of
17 course, we're willing to work on that end of it, but
18 we'd also like to -- I don't see any reason not to
19 discuss or open discussion about this, what the CRTC
20 can do to assist stations who are dedicated. They
21 definitely mean to do radio. They're not talking --
22 they're not fly-by-night. These are not people with a
23 whim and they're not -- they really want to do radio,
24 and they just need to have something a little bit more
25 within their range in the way of licenses.
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1 172 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Okay,
2 thank you for tabling that. I think it's actually come
3 up in other consultations as a proposal, but it's on
4 the public record now, and will be considered among
5 many different alternatives. Do you have any comment,
6 Morag?
7 173 MS YORK: Yeah, I have a couple of
8 questions I'd just like to ask about it.
9 174 Are you talking about a sort of
10 lighter regulatory regime for these stations, or are
11 you talking about an exemption so they wouldn't need a
12 license at all? What do you have in mind here?
13 175 MS WARD: I'm talking about a -- this
14 is really difficult once you take the engineering study
15 out of there to -- to put the rest of it altogether.
16 I'm talking about a temporary license, no more than a
17 year. That would still require the same amount of
18 commitment, still require a promise of performance and
19 some other things, not require a paid staff person,
20 maybe a -- well, I don't know if you allow for half
21 time now for low power, but not require you to have
22 paid staff, but you can do this all with volunteers on
23 a volunteer board.
24 176 MS YORK: Okay. I don't think there
25 is a requirement, actually, in our policy --
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1 177 MS WARD: Oh, really?
2 178 MS YORK: -- for paid staff, but paid
3 staff does come up. It is something we look at in the
4 new -- when we get an application for a new license,
5 but that's just based on the experience that -- I mean,
6 it does say in the Broadcasting Act that persons who
7 are licensed have to be responsible for everything they
8 broadcast. And experience just shows that if you want
9 to hold somebody responsible, it's usually a paid staff
10 is who you can hold responsible and, you know, but --
11 but it's not a hard and fast rule. It's based on our
12 experience that it's something we would look for.
13 179 I wanted to point out that in the
14 public notice that set out the existing policy in 1992
15 that's in place now, we did say that -- oh, here's what
16 we said:
17 180 "The campus radio policy will
18 generally apply to all campus
19 stations regardless of their
20 power on a case by case basis,
21 however, the Commission is
22 willing to exercise flexibility
23 when dealing with applications
24 for stations of low power, whose
25 signals would only serve the
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1 campus of the associated
2 university or college."
3 181 So it seems to me that in that
4 there's -- there's some room for flexibility for things
5 like all volunteer staff, for example. So I'm
6 wondering what -- what you would need to add to that?
7 182 MS WARD: Well, then, perhaps what we
8 really need, then, is a better explanation or a better
9 method of communication so that people don't think they
10 have to bend over backwards and climb mountains in
11 order to -- to get going. If they had the knowledge at
12 their disposal to put something together faster, then
13 they would -- and I mean faster as in cut-off, like the
14 five-year plan down to a -- down to a two-year plan
15 just trying to even make a start at broadcasting, then
16 maybe, you know, we -- we would have more community
17 radio stations starting up in these smaller centres.
18 183 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thanks a
19 lot, Tristis.
20 184 MS JAYOUSSI: My name is Maizun
21 Jayoussi. I'm from CJSW in Calgary.
22 185 I must say, it's nice to see a table
23 full of women at the front. Whenever I think of the
24 CRTC I think of a bunch of old guys in suits staring
25 down at me from a podium, so --
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1 186 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Well, I
2 just have to tell you, when we were in Banff doing a
3 television, we were four women as well. The chair, my
4 fellow Commissioner, Cindy Grauer and Susan Baldwin,
5 who is executive director of broadcasting, so --
6 187 MS JAYOUSSI: That's great. My
7 comment isn't about balance, but I did want to just
8 comment quickly on that.
9 188 I think that one of the problems with
10 the issue of balance relates to the Broadcast Act and
11 its vague reference to community standards, because I
12 think that's -- that's a very subjective type of thing.
13 Whose community are we talking about and whose
14 standards?
15 189 I think, for example, in the case of
16 CKDU and the complaints that they had around Gay Pride,
17 if you had gone to the gay and lesbian community, there
18 wouldn't have been a problem, I think, and as far as
19 I'm aware, there were no complaints received from that
20 community, and seeing as the programming or any gay and
21 lesbian program is broadcast to that community, then
22 there is a different set of standards as -- than there
23 would be with the, you know, right-wing Christian
24 fundamentalist community or -- but I do think that
25 there is still an assumption in our society that there
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1 is a standard -- an actual homogeneous standard which,
2 of course, there isn't; and certainly not in our sector
3 where we represent a diverse number of communities, so
4 I just wanted to mention that as part of that debate.
5 190 My question, though, actually goes
6 back to where we started with the agenda on defining
7 campus radio, so if I can take it back to -- to that
8 section where we begin with campus radio and the -- I
9 don't know if we can talk about mandate for campus
10 radio before we talk about ownership of campus radio.
11 It says that a campus station, and this is 92-38 for
12 anyone who's looking at that.
13 191 "A campus station is a station
14 owned or controlled by a not for
15 profit organization associated
16 with a post-secondary
17 educational institution. There
18 are two types of campus
19 stations." And then it goes on
20 to define campus/community
21 versus instructional stations.
22 192 I think one concerns as far as I can
23 tell that we've all come up with in our meetings, is
24 that we feel strongly that our station should be owned
25 by an independent not for profit organization. It
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1 should not be the students' union, for example, that we
2 feel that that is a great conflict of interest for a
3 students' union to own the media on campus. It would
4 be the equivalent of the students' union owning the
5 newspaper, which I think would be outrageous.
6 193 I think that the -- the definition
7 here is perhaps not clear enough, that a situation, for
8 example, in Winnipeg where I believe CJUM had their
9 license approved, and the license is owned by the
10 students' union and not by the station itself sets a
11 dangerous precedent, one that we're all concerned
12 about, and I think we would like to see the definition
13 clarified to make it very clear, that you have to be an
14 independent not for profit organization whose main
15 purpose is to obtain a broadcast license, or to
16 broadcast as a campus/community radio station.
17 194 MS YORK: Are you suggesting that
18 that would be added to the existing requirement that
19 says -- somewhere in the policy we say that the
20 majority of the board of directors should be formed by
21 people associated with the university? Are you saying
22 that that should be replaced by this other one, or just
23 this new one should be added to that?
24 195 MS JAYOUSSI: I think it should be
25 added. I think structural board of directors is a
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1 separate issue, and I think -- I think that the
2 definition of who the license -- who holds the license
3 is the issue.
4 196 MS YORK: So it's not contradictory
5 with that other requirement?
6 197 MS JAYOUSSI: No.
7 198 MS YORK: You could have a separate
8 organization that still is -- the majority is borne by
9 people --
10 199 MS JAYOUSSI: Absolutely, and within
11 our definition of campus/community, we recognize that
12 we have to have campus involvement and that that's
13 crucial to our survival, because our funding comes from
14 students for the most part, so I think in terms of
15 direction, that's not a problem at all, it's just that
16 we don't want the students' union to hold the license.
17 200 MS YORK: Okay, I think we understand
18 that.
19 201 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you
20 very much.
21 202 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean, CIUT FM,
22 Toronto.
23 203 I -- I'm looking -- what I'm about to
24 talk about briefly from two points of view, from the
25 point of view of being on the board of directors for
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1 the NCRA where I see it as a national sort of point of
2 view, and a point of view from -- as being part of the
3 staff and management of the station and -- and a campus
4 broadcaster within a city. I'm quite concerned,
5 particularly for the future in the next little while,
6 between the next five and ten years of actually -- sort
7 of what is really going to happen with campus radio,
8 and what I mean by that is not so much in terms of the
9 regulatory changes, although it is an important factor
10 we've got to look at, but even just merely its
11 existence.
12 204 With that, what I mean is that I know
13 directly the CRTC isn't involved in funding and stuff
14 like that, however, the CRTC is concerned whether the
15 stations aren't going to be able to sustain themselves,
16 and if there's funding available through them, whether
17 it's through student unions, through granting, through
18 fund raising, and I'm just wondering if -- if the CRTC
19 is cognizant of the fact that these are really serious
20 challenges that are facing campus and community radio.
21 205 When I look at the role and the
22 mandate for campus and community radio, it's very
23 large, it's very complex, particularly what I see
24 towards the -- the homogony of what's happening in the
25 commercial sector, and it's -- you know, to me it seems
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1 for them quite a lot easier to -- you know, we make our
2 Can con. We get as much advertising we can, whereas
3 with our sector we're asked to go quite in-depth in our
4 spoken program, quite in-depth in our explorations of
5 music, yet that requires research and training and
6 funding well beyond what a lot of commercial sector
7 people are. If they've got the funds, they don't have
8 to do it; and I'm not saying that, "Why do we have to
9 do it and they don't?"
10 206 What I'm saying is that I really see
11 that through instability within stations through
12 funding, that that becomes more and more difficult, and
13 what I'm looking at, even with the question of even
14 funding, where I'm saying that although it's not your
15 responsibility, and you will be concerned, though, if
16 it gets to the point where stations are closing down.
17 207 Where I see it coming from is, for an
18 example, about two years ago, all three stations in
19 Toronto came very close to getting shut down, whether
20 it was through referendums or as in the case where my
21 colleague before was talking about through problems
22 with the student union.
23 208 Very simply, one case could come up
24 in a legal matter, and because off either the ongoing
25 time that would take or a lack of funding or something
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1 could literally shut a station down, and I see it as a
2 very unprotected and vulnerable sector, and I really
3 think some sort of regulation or some sort of funding
4 from somewhere or something has to come from somewhere
5 if this sector is going to be able to sustain itself
6 and sustain itself as a sector for the future.
7 209 I really see it just as the granting
8 dries up, as student tuitions get cut, as student funds
9 get cut, as people don't have jobs, or particularly
10 when we're working with -- in the area of society that
11 we're working with where people don't have jobs, where
12 they can no longer afford on an ongoing measure to
13 sustain their community side of it. Where does the
14 money come from? Where does the support come from?
15 Where does the ability to sustain the station come
16 from? I just wanted to comment on that.
17 210 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
18 211 MR. POSTHUMUS: Hi. My name is Andy
19 Posthumus. I'm the station manager of CIOI Radio,
20 which is C1015, Mohawk College in Hamilton.
21 212 We were just recently licensed in the
22 last year and went on the air officially actually last
23 week, but I wanted to -- just a couple of things I
24 needed to address in the regulations that are quite
25 specific to instructional radio more so than campus/
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1 community.
2 213 There are some overtones. It's --
3 when I started out this process, and when instructional
4 stations got included in the regulations when they were
5 finally recognized by the Commission in the last
6 re-write. That was quite helpful, and actually, being
7 part of campus/community means that we do have to
8 challenge ourselves a little bit to program. Even
9 though our mandate is to train people for careers, it's
10 still nice to be able to have to, and I don't mind the
11 burden of -- or I wouldn't call it a burden, just the
12 challenge of creating and putting community on the air
13 and stuff like that. That's actually a good thing.
14 214 However, one little problem. When I
15 applied for the license, I asked for an exemption. I
16 have to train people for careers in broadcasters.
17 There's a couple of fairly specific things that we need
18 to be able to do.
19 215 One of them is train people to sell
20 advertising, and right now the commercial restriction
21 is four minutes per hour, one minute of unrestricted
22 advertising, and three minutes of restricted
23 advertising. I asked for an exemption from that for my
24 specific case. It was denied. But in talking with
25 other instructional station managers, it's a specific
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1 case to us. At this point we don't have a problem with
2 the maximum of four minutes, but we'd like to see it
3 all unrestricted advertising, just so we can, you know,
4 if we do reach that four minutes. Restricted
5 advertising messages isn't really relevant if you're
6 trying to teach someone how to write and produce and
7 sell an advertising message.
8 216 The subject of perhaps even
9 increasing that limit from four to five or six minutes
10 an hour, I'd like to see that happen if it's within
11 the -- you know, within -- if possible, but again, it's
12 specifically to an instructional license I'd like to
13 see all advertising allowed to be unrestricted.
14 217 Another thing that's a little bit
15 more vague is the subject of Canadian talent
16 development. I think Mopa was sort of hinting at it,
17 but I had in my license application a specific request
18 that the Commission not only recognize Canadian talent
19 development as the development of musical talent where
20 a number of the commercial radio stations are required
21 to contribute to various organizations factor in that
22 sort of thing for a development of the Canadian music
23 industry, but I also see the development of
24 broadcasters as Canadian talent development as well.
25 218 There are some people who are putting
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1 together programming that focus on a lot of the
2 collectic types of music that are being produced, and I
3 think their efforts in bringing that to the air is as
4 valid a talent development initiative as the music
5 itself being created.
6 219 And now there's also something that's
7 come up specifically at this conference that I hadn't
8 really thought about before. This business of someone
9 being on the air taking someone else's work and
10 actually creating a new musical work while they're on
11 the air itself. That to me is musical -- it's Canadian
12 talent, it's a radio broadcaster but doing something
13 creative on the air. So, to me, the -- to get it
14 formally recognized that broadcast training or
15 broadcasters on the air are Canadian talent -- spoken
16 word programming takes a great deal of time and effort
17 to produce. To do it well is extremely difficult, and
18 that's part of the broadcast spectrum. It's all part
19 of the -- the broadcast picture, and to me, that's
20 Canadian talent on the air.
21 220 A news talk radio station in a
22 commercial area, I mean, there are some who actually do
23 some very innovative programming, and to me, that's --
24 those people on the air are very talented. If you're
25 going to use the word "talent" -- I've used it in the
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1 context of the broadcaster as well as a musician whose
2 music is being played.
3 221 One quick thing. Please update the
4 glossary, because that thing is -- is -- we're not even
5 in there as an instructional station, so on the record,
6 please get that thing changed.
7 222 The ownership issue was an
8 interesting one, because for the instructional
9 stations, that solved itself. One government body
10 can't license another, so we had to actually set up an
11 arm's length corporation anyway, but our particular
12 situation, our -- the station that I -- I work for is
13 actually funded by the student union primarily.
14 223 It's a long story how that happened,
15 but it was recognized early on that the most practical
16 solution to operating the station was an arm's length
17 corporation whose specific purpose was to hold the
18 radio broadcast license. The composition of that board
19 of directors is, in my opinion, quite equitably divided
20 between the student representation and the -- the
21 college with community representation there as well.
22 And I think it makes a pretty good model, actually, but
23 that's -- that's an important issue no matter what,
24 whether it's campus/community or the instructional
25 stations, I think it works -- it's something -- it's
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1 very important to be considered.
2 224 Anyway, that's it for now. Thank
3 you.
4 225 MS YORK: Thank you very much.
5 226 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I did have
6 a question. Actually, when you were talking about the
7 broadcasters or certain of broadcasters and their
8 activities acting as Canadian talent themselves, did
9 you have any thoughts about how we would be able to
10 differentiate between what would be considered as
11 developing Canadian talent as opposed to say
12 run-of-the-mill?
13 227 MR. POSTHUMUS: I don't know what you
14 mean by run-of-the-mill.
15 228 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Well,
16 would you consider, I mean, to someone who is playing
17 records and not adding any extra commentary or
18 anything?
19 229 MR. POSTHUMUS: Well, see, I would
20 never expect that anyone on the air isn't adding any
21 extra commentary, like, again, a student who's -- who's
22 being trained -- this is a grey area. I haven't hashed
23 it out totally, but in my opinion, I mean, I would
24 never put a student on the air and just say the time,
25 weather, this, that and the other thing. I'll put them
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1 in front of the microphone and expect them to do
2 something that different to contribute to the overall
3 program, I mean, in campus/community radio, with many
4 of the focus programs, and I do a lot of focused
5 specialty programs as well.
6 230 Those on-air announcers have a lot to
7 contribute to the enjoyment of that particular program
8 for a listener. Someone who is a real fan of, you
9 know, hard rock heavy metal, knows lots about the
10 bands. Some of the bands he's playing -- probably
11 friends of his are in it, and they have things that
12 they can contribute that you're never going to know,
13 and it's going to give you a greater appreciation of
14 the music you're hearing. You can go down the whole
15 spectrum, all the different music types. The people
16 who are really enthusiastic about those music types are
17 those that are educating the listening audiences to not
18 just the music itself, but why they like it so much and
19 why the audience would probably appreciate it a great
20 deal more, and to me that's a significant contribution
21 to the -- to the promotion of Canadian music, to the
22 promotion of music, and the development of that talent.
23 231 MS YORK: So you're talking about
24 students training, not -- not commercial --
25 232 MR. POSTHUMUS: No. I think --
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1 233 MS YORK: You're not talking about
2 some commercial station that hires an on-air announcer
3 and then claims that is Canadian talent development?
4 That's not what you're talking about?
5 234 MR. POSTHUMUS: No, I'm talking about
6 student's training, but I think it applies to
7 campus/community as well.
8 235 MS YORK: Okay.
9 236 MR. POSTHUMUS: Like I said, there
10 are people in the campus/community area that are as
11 talented in their ability to do radio. It's not
12 totally clearly defined, but I think that that's an
13 area that needs to be recognized as talent development
14 for on-air broadcast.
15 237 MS YORK: Do you think that could
16 extend to some of the commercial broadcasters as well,
17 or would you see that strictly being limited to
18 campus/community stations?
19 238 MR. POSTHUMUS: Well, the commercial
20 broadcasters have an ability to interpret regulations
21 and make them work to their advantage. There's no
22 doubt about that. That's just good business, I
23 suppose.
24 239 To me, from a purely idealistic point
25 of view, I suppose, is someone who is training people
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1 for careers in broadcast. Quite frankly, there are --
2 even if it is funding for specific program initiatives,
3 which there aren't very -- it's not very clear within
4 any of the organizations -- government organizations
5 that there is funding available for development of
6 radio broadcasting programs. A factor is very vague in
7 whether they'll fund a radio broadcast, you know,
8 they'll fund the artist, but say, for instance, someone
9 wants to put together a program that highlights a bunch
10 of unique artists, they could make a requirement it
11 would be all Canadian, but then I don't think that they
12 even consider that a -- a request for funding to put
13 together specialty types of programming like that.
14 They just simply want to fund the artists and their
15 videos and that sort of thing. And then as -- there's
16 the topic of DJ's as an -- or turntables as an
17 instrument is going to come up. That's a whole --
18 that's where the -- the radio performer becomes the
19 artist themselves, so there's some room for that kind
20 of -- for the possibility of recognizing that as
21 Canadian talent as well.
22 240 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Okay,
23 great, thank you.
24 241 MS YORK: I think Caroline had
25 something she wanted to add.
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1 242 MS COTE: I just wanted to put on the
2 record that in the Montreal caucus that we had, and
3 also that with the Ontario meeting that was held this
4 week, that we seem to all agree, at least from
5 Montreal, I'm sure that we all agreed that we would --
6 that that area, those stations would like advertising
7 to simply be unrestricted for administrative purposes,
8 that we just do ads, we highlight things. We don't
9 often say they're the best and things like that, but
10 just for administrative purposes that we would like all
11 of our advertising to be unrestricted.
12 243 MS MAJAURY: Heather Majaury at CJAM
13 in Windsor. These are just comments basically and a
14 suggestion, I guess.
15 244 With regards to funding of campus
16 community radio and with regards to that talent
17 development that results.
18 245 There's a growing trend politically
19 in the entire country, and it's felt very keenly in
20 Ontario at this moment, is socializing of costs and
21 privatizing of profit, and that is being addressed in
22 the commercial sector through regulations, which is
23 allowing radio stations in areas to purchase more
24 stations, and that allows for privatizing of profits,
25 which is fine. I'm not necessarily in disagreement
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1 with that, but I have a concern in the campus/community
2 sector where we are providing service and we are
3 providing opportunity, and we are providing training,
4 and that the standard awards -- I believe on Tuesday
5 night the representative of that organization fully
6 admitted to all of us that we contribute to their
7 sector quite effectively by providing talent, and what
8 I find interesting is that they don't pay for any of
9 that. And it's very interesting that that's happening
10 in our universities.
11 246 We are linked to the university
12 funds, and money is being spent in massive amounts
13 in -- in transfer payments and such to certain programs
14 and not to others, and many of our marginalized people
15 that are involved in our radio stations are part of
16 those marginalized programs at the universities as
17 well, so it's across the board, and I would like to see
18 something -- and it will only come from regulation.
19 You will never see a commercial sector saying, you
20 know, "We're making too much money this year. I think
21 we will put some into training and development in that
22 campus/community sector." They're never going to say
23 that because they are driven by profit, and if they can
24 get something free, they're going to do it, and we
25 absorb the cost, so it's a direct relation. Our
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1 funding is actually dropping because of student
2 enrollment. We don't necessarily have diversified
3 funding possibilities. Advertising -- increased
4 advertising revenues, though helpful, are not a
5 solution, because they run contrary to our mandates.
6 And it's a really really serious sector, and I think
7 that responsibility on the part of -- of commercial
8 radio is extremely important to the development of our
9 sector.
10 247 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thanks.
11 248 MR. SAUNDERS: Chad Saunders, CJSW in
12 Calgary.
13 249 A few years ago, and not too long
14 ago, the big buzz word was digital radio, and there's a
15 lot of stations here that have trouble enough just
16 making sure their lightning towers don't get struck
17 down by lightning or records are stolen or whatever.
18 It's a two-part thing, I guess. I'm sure the NCRA and
19 other stations might not be part of our union of
20 solidarity, but I'm sure we'd like to be part of the
21 consultation process for that day, whenever it comes.
22 It's kind of been subdued somewhat, I know, with a lot
23 of changes and such like that, but I think we'd like to
24 be consulted, because in the Calgary situation, Shaw
25 Cable owns the only digital transmitter, and I'm sure
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1 they'd probably charge quite the fee for rental of a
2 certain channel of that, and bigger stations would
3 probably be able to have no problem meeting those
4 probably yearly rental agreements, but as far as the C
5 & C station it would be very difficult, and I'm sure
6 we'd like to be part of that process in deciding what
7 the fees are, who has access to the transmitter and
8 stuff like that.
9 250 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
10 251 MS YORK: Thank you. And as you
11 know, we have a two-part -- we've had a -- we've
12 introduced a two-part policy with digital radio. We've
13 had a transition period and eventually we'll have a
14 broader public process to consider the sort of
15 permanent regime for digital radio, and that will be a
16 public process, and you're obviously welcome to
17 participate, and I'll make a note to ask the NCRA if
18 they want to be involved in --
19 252 MS WARD: Really, this is just about
20 some of the things that have already been talked about
21 in the beginning, for example, to a commercial
22 station's -- to have our commercial sisters and
23 brothers -- towards our sector, because I think --
24 it's -- it's a very important thing for us to again --
25 student enrollment is down on -- on campus and
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1 community radio stations. We're feeling a lot of
2 crunch all the way across. Obviously community radio
3 stations have been very hurt, and community content on
4 these commercial radio broadcasters and that, every so
5 often if I'm scanning through, I might hear one of the
6 FM stations that are commercial say, you know, "We
7 believe in community content. Bring us your ideas."
8 That's lip service. Everybody knows it's lip service.
9 They're not really doing it.
10 253 I think that rather than have that
11 kind of lip service, it would be much better, and I
12 think would probably get a kick out of it, look, we
13 don't even have to put that advertisement on there, and
14 actually risk someone walking in the door with a real
15 community program. They would much prefer to have a
16 little cash outlay that could go toward a community
17 radio in our area.
18 254 I forget what the other thing was.
19 Oh, yeah, it had to do with -- my programmers would not
20 forgive me if I didn't at least bring it up. I thought
21 that Andy Posthumus was -- the discussion about talent
22 on the air and the fact that people are creating art
23 is -- is fundamentally true, particularly when people
24 are doing mixing and stuff like that, and I've come to
25 them and said, you know, "How's your Can Con for your
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1 show?" He said, "I'm Can Con." And, I mean, it's
2 true. These people are making art, and while I don't
3 think that every single radio program that -- I can't
4 say that every single radio program at CHSR that's on
5 the air would necessarily be art on the air. I'd say
6 that a heck of a lot of it is. A radio program is an
7 audio essay. It's a -- it is a piece of creativity
8 that really should get some recognition and, no, I
9 don't think commercial radio stations are doing that --
10 actually, they draw quite a line there. So, really,
11 that's all I had to say.
12 255 I think that -- speaking of funding,
13 that could -- that there -- there are ways to help out
14 radio stations and the ways to get funding that have --
15 that are alternative sources that we haven't even been
16 able to -- to nail down yet, I mean, this is just off
17 the top of my head, so there might be a big hole in it,
18 but things like Canada counsel grants for performances
19 and stuff like that, you know, if what we're doing is
20 creating art on the air and if we can, you know, nail
21 down a certain performance time for -- for an audio art
22 show, perhaps Canada counsel will look into kicking in
23 some money for that, I mean, I haven't even thought of
24 applying in that direction before, so --
25 256 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thanks.
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1 257 MR. CLARK: John Clark, CJSF Radio.
2 I've been involved in various different roles. I've
3 been a music director since 1990. I have some issues
4 with the CRTC and media.
5 258 I'm very concerned about the
6 disappearance of Canadian television public access.
7 I'm concerned about the concentration of media and the
8 political influence it brings to bear on popular
9 culture. I'm concerned with issues of advertising
10 revenue funding community media. I would like to see a
11 tax on advertising revenue to fund our sector, but what
12 I'm going to present now is my opinion on Canadian
13 content and campus/community radio. This opinion is
14 not necessarily a prevailing one with NCRA or even
15 within my station.
16 259 We now have the requirement of thirty
17 per cent Canadian content within the music Category 2.
18 Advertiser-oriented media may have their quotas
19 increased and they may whine and bitch about how
20 campus/community radio should do. This is my
21 understanding about -- the fundamental difference in
22 the ways we work. Advertiser- oriented radio get their
23 use of the limited public resource of radio -- without
24 giving very much back to the community.
25 260 With the exception of jobs and
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1 economic activity, they should indeed support the
2 Canadian music industry, but they don't support
3 Canadian culture. They present local copies of
4 successful American culture, something that is
5 culturally pointless at best, the worst type of
6 subversion at worst.
7 261 Unlike advertiser-oriented media, the
8 campus/community actually delivers in the area of
9 Canadian culture -- healthy, diverse grass-roots
10 Canadian culture.
11 262 And I'd like to talk about music.
12 Canadian music programming is another area that we
13 excel in, especially in comparison to
14 advertiser-oriented media. We don't have what you saw
15 in play lists with opportunities for Canadian artists.
16 We have ten thousand stock play lists -- material with
17 almost unlimited access to local artists. What I wish
18 the CRTC would do is say, okay, CAB, okay, Teddy --
19 okay, Ted Rogers, don't be giving us this whine about
20 campus/community radio or Can con -- they're unrelated
21 to your sector and the same rules do not apply. Thank
22 you.
23 263 MS YORK: Thank you.
24 264 MR. HORLUCK: Okay, Ted Horluck, CFUB
25 Radio again.
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1 265 Back to this regulations here.
2 266 Number 7(1) reads:
3 267 "The licensee of an ethnic
4 station shall devote not less
5 than 60 per cent of its
6 broadcast week to ethnic
7 programs."
8 268 Number (2):
9 269 "The licensee of a station other
10 than an ethnic station shall not
11 devote more than 15 per cent of
12 its broadcast week..."
13 270 In December, 15th through the 18th on
14 our station, we turned over our station to the First
15 Nations people to go ahead and broadcast basically as
16 they pleased. That was a three-day sort of focus. The
17 hope is next year maybe to expand that out to a week
18 and I'm kind of wondering how that would jive with
19 this, or whether we have to take advantage of special
20 event programming and that type of thing?
21 271 MS YORK: I would just comment that I
22 don't think aboriginal programming people --
23 272 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: It isn't.
24 273 MS YORK: Programming for aboriginal
25 people is considered ethnic programming in our policy.
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1 Ethnic programming is considered anything other than
2 English, French or --
3 274 MR. HORLUCK: Because part of their
4 broadcasts obviously was in aboriginal languages.
5 275 MS COTE: Can I --
6 276 MS YORK: Certainly.
7 277 MS COTE: It says in type A of the
8 definition of ethnic programs:
9 278 "A program the spoken word
10 content and not production
11 content of which are in a
12 language other than French,
13 English, or a language of the
14 aboriginal peoples of Canada."
15 279 MR. HORLUCK: And I guess the last
16 question that I'd like to address is, it's quite easy
17 for Ted Rogers and other similar types of individuals
18 to put up a national network. How does our station,
19 CFUB play in this game of the national network?
20 Certainly there wouldn't be any funds available to us.
21 We'd have to obviously raise our own funds, but again,
22 in terms of the national network, our owning more than
23 one license may be a 2 FM licenses, that kind of stuff.
24 Any possibility of restricting on that?
25 280 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Are you
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1 talking about an ethnic network?
2 281 MR. HORLUCK: That's correct. Well,
3 stations owned by us mainly.
4 282 MS YORK: I think that -- I'll let
5 Carole do this, but we're having a review of ethnic
6 programming coming up in the next year and, you know,
7 we can talk about that now, too, but I think there was
8 some discussion about maybe -- maybe having the NCRA
9 involved in the consultations on ethnic programming
10 policy, so we sort of talk about those issues more in
11 the context of the overall policy of ethnic
12 programming.
13 283 MR. HORLUCK: Yeah, I didn't mean
14 just specifically ethnic, I meant just like our station
15 itself -- university station. We're a college
16 community. How could we, you know, wind up becoming
17 part of a national network?
18 284 MS COTE: Again, I feel it's an
19 internal thing, and it hasn't been at all common
20 practice for us to look around to buy other stations
21 and we're trying to break even at the end of the year,
22 so I don't see that as even being feasible of -- you
23 know, I can't imagine any of our stations deciding to
24 buy another station or to be -- to share our facilities
25 and things like that when we're all very separate.
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1 285 MS YORK: I don't think it would meet
2 the ownership requirements and the board of ethnic
3 requirements if we did that.
4 286 We've been thinking about having a
5 break here now. Would you guys like to go ahead first
6 and then break or would you like to -- I know you've
7 been waiting for awhile.
8 287 MR. LEACOCK: John Leacock, CFRU
9 Guelph. My question is in regards to the Can Con
10 thirty per cent requirement.
11 288 I'm just wondering if any research or
12 consultations of alternatives to thirty per cent
13 because you're running the risk of community stations
14 just making their thirty per cent in terms of Canadian
15 content rather than trying to promote local talent,
16 which they're going to do either way.
17 289 I don't know if you understand what
18 I'm trying to say -- maybe establishing quotas on what
19 kind of music is played might be construed as possibly
20 being -- I don't know how to say it, but to be
21 construed as being "colonistic" in terms of creating
22 what is assumed to be a Canadian culture from the
23 standpoint of -- on this separation of ethnic
24 programming from what is considered -- I don't know
25 what is the mainstream Canadian culture from what is --
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1 I don't know what Canadian culture is, but I would love
2 to get a definition of what Canadian culture is.
3 290 So that's my concern, and I'm just
4 wondering if there is any consultations to youth, an
5 alternative for community radio stations in terms of
6 this thirty per cent quota. It could lead to tokenism.
7 It's happening a lot in a commercial radio, which I
8 don't really care about much, but for -- radio we have
9 a standard mandate to promote local talent, and we have
10 been doing that, I can pretty much say accidentally,
11 and we'll continue to do that regardless of Can con, so
12 I don't know.
13 291 I think we need to talk about that a
14 little bit.
15 292 MS YORK: I think this is what we --
16 293 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:
17 Absolutely.
18 294 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean from CIUT FM
19 again.
20 295 I'm continuing along the same sort
21 of -- preservation and protection of our sector as I
22 hear more people talk about and think about those
23 things.
24 296 There are a few things I just want to
25 quickly touch on. One of them I find a little bit odd
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1 and strange that -- from my understanding there are a
2 number of campus/community stations, I don't know,
3 twenty watts, thirty watts, fifty watts, and once you
4 get over fifty watts also you're protected. I find it
5 a little odd and contradictory that just because a
6 station has under fifty watts it has no protection, but
7 the license -- and I was hoping that something could be
8 put in place that once a campus/community station, its
9 license is protected. It only makes sense to me. I'm
10 sure there's probably a number of reasons why or not,
11 but I would like to see that.
12 297 MS YORK: I'd just like to respond
13 briefly, but the unprotected status is really an
14 industry Canada thing, it's not really us. Then when
15 they administer frequencies, they do say that low power
16 ones are unprotected, and it means that at least they
17 are guaranteed to be totally protected from
18 interference -- technical interference from other
19 stations. It's sort of a good thing and a bad thing
20 because it makes it easier for you to get a low power
21 service, this is less guaranteed, and I don't know of
22 any case where a low power station has ever been --
23 during a thing like that, I mean, you have slightly
24 less protection but -- doesn't really result as far as
25 I know in -- in very much in --
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1 298 MR. DEAN: I was somewhat cognizant
2 in the fact that it is an industry Canada thing, but
3 again it goes back -- impacting or potentially on the
4 funding, and again the station can't maintain itself.
5 You're at a risk of losing a license, NCRTC thing.
6 299 One example in reference to this,
7 that particularly when you get larger wattage stations,
8 and then they go through their sort of -- where they
9 are protected or unprotected, where they get totally no
10 protection sort of thing, each area that we go from our
11 initial market area is still potential funding, so if
12 that area is unprotected or if somebody put up a
13 transmitter and it interferes with our section, our --
14 our ability to transmit sort of our unprotected areas,
15 then we are potentially losing funding in those areas,
16 particularly when your station that is reaching out
17 into a larger area, or if you try to diversify your
18 funding, or if you're big enough that you're trying to
19 work with communities outside of your main essential
20 area. So that is something I would like to see put in
21 place, if that is possible, and hopefully it is.
22 300 The other sort of thing I just want
23 to briefly touch on, and again, I'm sure this isn't --
24 anyways, again, I know this isn't exactly a related
25 CRTC thing, and -- but it is in due part with our
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1 sector, and as we look at more and new alternatives --
2 alternative forms of broadcasting, internet and
3 terrestrial broadcasting, satellite stuff, whatever, I
4 would like to see some sort of protection in reference
5 to that, you know, there's either flat fees, whether
6 it's through setting them up or royalties collected, or
7 for that -- no fees, because again, we're -- you know,
8 we are a limited funded, limited resource sector, and
9 we're trying to do a lot more than everyone else with a
10 lot less than everyone else, and so I think the less we
11 have to pay out, the more we can do better broadcasting
12 and training.
13 301 That's it. Thanks.
14 302 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
15 303 MS COTE: We started this discussion
16 in talking about balancing programming, and I just
17 wanted everything to be clear with all of us and all of
18 the CRTC people of -- with balancing program.
19 304 I've always been under the
20 impression, and a lot of our stations, I believe, have
21 been under the impression that if you can defend what
22 you're doing, if you're following your mandate, then
23 you are doing balancing programming, meaning that when
24 people are talking about -- that we're representing,
25 like using the parties that -- that some of our
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1 stations do put on the air, the Green Party, the -- you
2 know, the parties that are not on the air on commercial
3 stations, and yet we do not necessarily give a voice to
4 the -- the big -- you don't get to the PC's, whatever
5 the -- Conservatives and the Liberals, and that's
6 because that in our mandate, that we do give a voice --
7 the voice to the voiceless, our internal mandates,
8 NCRA's mandate, and in the definition, and I -- I have
9 a concern that if that isn't balancing programming,
10 that we're not -- you know, I'm not being very clear,
11 but that -- that is giving a voice to the voiceless.
12 They do not have a voice on commercial radio. We are
13 the alternative. It is stated. And so I would just
14 want to get that clarified. Can we still defend that,
15 like, if somebody says, "Oh, if the Liberals say you
16 didn't give us a voice." Can we still say, well, in
17 our mandate we are the alternative and you have a large
18 voice on TV and on the commercial stations, and these
19 parties do not?
20 305 MS YORK: We really will break. As
21 far as I know, the balance -- you know, our balance
22 policy, as far as I know that's still in effect. I
23 don't know if we've started to look at that again in
24 light of the mandate that was put out in 1992, I don't
25 know, because as far as I know, the balancing
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1 programming policy is still in effect. It still says
2 that each individual station is supposed to be
3 balanced.
4 306 MS COTE: Okay. So that --
5 307 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just really
6 briefly. I think really what we're saying here is that
7 the Broadcast Act is being fulfilled and maybe the
8 policy is not really as good as it could be.
9 308 MS COTE: Yeah.
10 309 MS YORK: Well, maybe we need to look
11 again at that policy. I'm not -- I'm not suggesting we
12 should, but I'm just wondering where Caroline has got
13 the idea that it's already been changed or something.
14 You might know something I don't know.
15 310 MS COTE: I felt, and from what I've
16 been told, is that if you can defend what you're doing,
17 if you could back it up, it's -- that's good, and I
18 feel that with our mandate, we are justified to give
19 that voice to voices that are not on commercial radio,
20 and that even the political parties would fall within
21 that, so I see that we are very much backed up and we
22 explain and we are following our mandate, and that it
23 isn't a program -- a balancing programming issue, it's
24 that we are alternative radio. This is what we're here
25 to do.
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1 311 MS YORK: I think the definition
2 of -- campus radio was modified since the balancing
3 programming policy was out, so we had the balance
4 programming policy, then we modified the definition of
5 campus radio, so maybe we've sort of taken another look
6 at how those two work together, and I'm not exactly
7 sure of the --
8 312 MS COTE: So it would be good for us
9 to look at that and get those nuances out of there.
10 313 MS YORK: Yeah, for sure.
11 314 MS COTE: Okay.
12 315 MS YORK: So we'll break for fifteen
13 minutes. We'll take ten minutes.
14 --- Recessed at 1110/Suspension à 1110
15 --- Resumed at 1120/Reprise à 1120
16 316 MS YORK: In terms of the issue of
17 what is sort of going on the record here and how you
18 guys -- we recognize that you have some proposals but
19 you haven't established amongst yourselves. You
20 haven't come up with a unified NCRA position on, and I
21 understand that at the Plenary you will be discussing
22 some issues and you -- on Saturday, and you may have a
23 more unified position after that.
24 317 I want to make it really clear that
25 what we're hearing now -- this is not your official
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1 position, this is just some discussion. We're not
2 going to take this away and say, "What we've heard
3 today is an official position." We understand there's
4 different points of view here.
5 318 We'd like you -- if you announce
6 specific proposals, we'd like you to throw them out
7 here just so we can hear it, so we can understand it so
8 other people that might have different points of view
9 can make their comments too, but we understand that
10 what we hear today is not a final NCRA proposal or the
11 final position of any individual stations. You've all
12 got to line up and we put out the public notice to
13 provide your official position. Does that --
14 319 MS COTE: Yes, I think that would be
15 great. Would that be okay with everyone?
16 320 And I would have a request, that at a
17 regional meeting in Montreal -- at the Montreal
18 regional meeting, and I heard this from other CRTC
19 people, that there were things that they expected would
20 be brought up, and I was hoping that maybe you could
21 bring to us those things that you're expecting to be
22 brought up, just like with Lucille in Montreal, she
23 said, "Oh, we expect that campus/community radio will
24 ask to have six minutes of advertising." And we were,
25 like, going -- and I wasn't expecting us to be agreeing
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1 on going up and advertising, so I mean, I would like to
2 hear what the CRTC is expecting to be brought up.
3 321 MS YORK: Okay. I'd like to say that
4 the specific thing like advertising -- I've been on the
5 list served. I've been listening to the discussions
6 that have been going on. I've talked to Richard Frith,
7 who's been -- NCRA conferences, you know, I've had the
8 NCRA report, so I've heard the issues that come up time
9 and time again, and I know that sometimes there's
10 debate about advertising. I know that recently there's
11 been discussion about the very low power training
12 licenses. I know there have been discussions about the
13 boards of directors, you know. I don't know exactly
14 what position you're going to come with, I don't know
15 what you're going to say, I'm just aware that these are
16 issues that have been discussed, and in order to brief
17 ourselves and provide some background to ourselves, you
18 know, I've tried to look at what you've been saying in
19 the past and provide some information to Joan for her
20 background and to Michelle, but that's not -- it's not
21 a specific thing. I'm not looking at specific
22 proposals, I'm just sort of trying to provide some
23 areas that have come up in the past and that we can
24 expect some discussion, just so that we can have some
25 background so that we're sure that we're all aware what
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1 the current policy is, what people might have to say
2 about it.
3 322 Okay?
4 323 Does that answer your question?
5 324 The areas that I listed at the
6 beginning, did you want more specific areas that I'm
7 aware of, that we talked -- because I looked at them at
8 the beginning when I talked about, you know, very low
9 power training licenses, categories of music, boards of
10 directors, hits and reviews, advertising, spoken word,
11 complaints process, the application form, providing
12 assistance to the campus/community sector. Those are
13 the areas that I'm aware that there's been some
14 discussion about, but that's not a comprehensive list,
15 it's not an agenda. You can talk about anything you
16 want. It's only for our own information to try to make
17 sure that we're informed about these areas, but we can
18 discuss the policies with you.
19 325 It's not a -- it's not something
20 that's -- is that what you want to hear Carole?
21 326 MS COTE: So I feel that you're
22 saying that no one should have said to me, "We expect
23 you guys to be talking about -- or we are expect
24 anything.
25 327 MS YORK: No, absolutely not. I
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1 don't know where that came from
2 328 MS COTE: Okay.
3 329 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I'd like
4 to make it very clear, too, that I am a Commissioner,
5 and as such, I came with no expectations, and I'm open
6 to all discussion. There are no preconceived decisions
7 or notices here, so -- we play different roles in this
8 process, both of which come together to have what we
9 hope is an open forum today, so no -- no preconceived
10 agenda at all.
11 330 There are some areas that I've heard
12 this morning which certainly seem to be coming up from
13 a number of people here. I don't know much about the
14 process, so I'm not predisposing to your agenda, so I
15 just wanted to be very clear on the public record that
16 this is a very open discussion, but it is very
17 important for us to hear on the public record
18 everything that you want to be sure that the CRTC
19 considers as we go forward with this process. Okay?
20 It's a very important occasion for me on behalf of my
21 fellow Commissioners, including the Commission as a
22 whole, to meet with you today and to hear what you have
23 to say.
24 331 With that, too, though, there are
25 some areas that we want to be sure we've covered the
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1 bases, and I'm going to ask also that Morag have a
2 little time to make sure she's got some points --
3 questions that maybe you could help us with, and at the
4 end, I'd like to wrap and make sure that everybody's
5 had a chance to say what they want to say before I go.
6 I have until around -- what time did we have till
7 today?
8 332 MS YORK: I think we've got the room
9 booked till one, but I don't think you can -- okay,
10 I'll leave it --
11 333 MS COTE: We eat lunch at twelve,
12 actually so --
13 334 MS YORK: What --
14 335 MS COTE: We eat lunch at twelve.
15 It's supposed to be --
16 336 MS YORK: We'll go to twelve, which
17 as you can see, kind of -- we should get serious now
18 about keeping things on time, so let's go.
19 337 MME BARBEAU: Carole Barbeau et je
20 suis de CHUO à Ottawa. Je vais commencer par une
21 présentation en français et après ça, je vais parler
22 anglais pour les (inaudible)...
23 338 On en a beaucoup parlé, cette
24 année, à CHUO. Après ça, on en a parlé à la conférence
25 de Montréal. Puis, on en a reparlé cette semaine
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1 également (inaudible)...
2 339 Donc, on parlait là-dessus... on
3 trouvait que les catégories étaient mal adaptées à
4 notre situation et qu'ils nous aident pas (inaudible).
5 C'était des choses qui avaient été faites pour
6 (inaudible) radio commerciale. Donc, nous en pensait
7 (inaudible). Donc, c'est juste pour vous dire c'est
8 une des questions qu'on avait, qu'on aurait travaillé,
9 puis on a discuté cette semaine.
10 340 So the first thing is a music
11 category. I wanted to tell the CRTC that we will -- we
12 were discussing that this year, and that we were
13 thinking that this -- the categories are not adapted to
14 our situation, and the types of music that we play are
15 not -- are not represented in these categories, and
16 that the breakdown of the categories and percentages
17 that are in -- our licenses is not very -- it's not
18 manageable. It's -- it has no logic compared to what
19 our programming is, and that one of the things that
20 license is supposed to do or the promise of performance
21 is supposed to do is help you achieve your goal, and if
22 our goal is to the alternative, and that -- we can't
23 manage these categories and we can't understand them
24 and can calculate them. If it's too hard, and nobody
25 calculates their percentages and nobody is at the
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1 levels they're supposed to be at, that there is no use
2 for those categories, so we will be discussing that
3 further, I guess, this week or in the months ahead.
4 341 MS YORK: Are you talking about --
5 specifically about the subcategories within Category 2
6 and 3, or are you speaking also of the distinction
7 between Category 2 and Category 3?
8 342 MS BARBEAU: Both.
9 343 MS YORK: Both.
10 344 MS BARBEAU: L'autre chose que je
11 vais mentionner c'est à propos du facteur (inaudible).
12 On en a discuté ça au (inaudible) régional cette
13 semaine, et il y a des gens qui voulaient qu'on élimine
14 tous les (inaudible)... Donc, les gens qui voulaient
15 éliminer tous les (inaudible) de sur les ondes
16 (inaudible)... un consensus de dire que c'était
17 nécessaire parce que ça nous aidait à faire les
18 préparations spéciales, et puis, ça (inaudible)
19 francophone, où c'était assez difficile d'arriver à ça.
20 Et puis, il y avait aussi la notion de...
21 345 So that -- the hit factor we wanted
22 to keep and -- oh, yeah, the thing was, we -- the
23 consensus that we wanted it at ten per cent and no
24 exceptions, because you told us earlier this week that
25 we could have exemptions from certain regulations, but
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1 that we would want to keep close at ten per cent. That
2 was the Ontario caucus, and that it was important that
3 we keep a hit factor because -- to do special
4 programming and for the French content percentages,
5 so --
6 346 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Merci.
7 347 MR. SCHMIDT: I'm Rob Schmidt from
8 CKUW at the University of Winnipeg.
9 348 First, I'd like to thank everyone for
10 just making this opportunity possible. This is really
11 refreshing.
12 349 I'd sort of like to add to what
13 Carole was saying with respect to music categories.
14 One of the largest problems that -- that programmers
15 face is that more and more of the programs that we
16 wanted doing, don't fit into any specific category. It
17 means creating logs very difficult. It -- it makes
18 achieving content quotas very difficult -- not
19 impossible, but very difficult, and I think that
20 although there isn't a consensus between all the
21 stations with respect to these sort of issues, it is
22 something that really has to be addressed, especially
23 with new forms of music being -- having come into
24 popularity since these definitions were introduced.
25 350 I think that it may make a lot of
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1 sense to create a different glossary of terms that
2 relate to campus community stations because of the way
3 we program our entire broadcast week. It may make a
4 lot of sense to streamline the regulations and the
5 requirements a great deal. It would give us more
6 flexibility in programming new types of music and in
7 helping to -- to create awareness for new types of
8 music and things like that.
9 351 I'd also like to address what Carole
10 said, the hit factor; and again, although there isn't a
11 consensus abut this, this does cause a great deal of
12 problem. It makes -- it can make -- just the fact that
13 we even think about hits, makes people think that we
14 are in some way similar to commercial radio, and I
15 think that any new definition of what campus radio is
16 and any revision of glossary of terms should make it
17 very clear how we are a distinct and entirely different
18 medium with a different focus, and different goals.
19 Thank you.
20 352 MS YORK: Thank you.
21 353 MS COTE: If I could just read the
22 definition what applies to us right now, that the level
23 of hit broadcast each week should not exceed fifteen
24 per cent. That's what it says right now, and what
25 Kevin was mentioning was a -- should not exceed ten per
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1 cent without any exceptions, and that with
2 instructional stations they're allowed thirty per cent
3 right now.
4 354 MS YORK: So that's what Carole was
5 proposing, was a change --
6 355 MS COTE: Yeah.
7 356 MS YORK: -- of production.
8 357 MS COTE: That it would be a ten per
9 cent maximum, coming from the Ontario caucus.
10 358 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Okay, just
11 a quick question on that, though, if I may. Carole
12 referred to -- correct, me if I'm wrong, ten per cent
13 relating to the specificity of the marché francophone.
14 Est-ce que j'ai bien entendu?
15 359 MME BARBEAU: Oui.
16 360 CONSEILLÈRE PENNEFATHER: Très bien.
17 361 MME BARBEAU: Mais c'était pour tout
18 le monde aussi là. C'était pas juste pour...
19 362 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:
20 (Inaudible)... pour tout le monde. Elle a ajouté --
21 she added that point that the Francophone market is the
22 first I hear it this morning of the differences, if
23 any, Anglophone, Francophone market, so I just wanted
24 to note that I did note that there are different
25 things, but I take your point, ten per cent is the
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1 recommendation for everyone.
2 363 Thanks.
3 364 MS MAJAURY: Heather Majaury, CJAM,
4 Windsor.
5 365 This is a little off topic from this.
6 We are all, including the CRTC, in a culture that finds
7 itself as its priority being communication, and I would
8 like to see some effort put in to creating documents
9 that are very friendly and speak to the spirit of
10 communication rather than completely legalese. Thank
11 you.
12 366 MS YORK: Thank you very much.
13 367 MS COTE: I just wanted to -- just to
14 mention that the Atlantic meeting had come up with a
15 suggestion of having a pamphlet saying, "So you've been
16 called to a hearing," you know, and I think that's --
17 that's really important to mention at this -- right
18 now.
19 368 MS PENNFATHER: Thank you for saying
20 that. I've noticed that. It shouldn't be -- John used
21 the word "intimidating," and even these sessions, a
22 couple of people came to me in Banff and said even
23 that's intimidating, so we're hoping to change a bit of
24 the intimidation factor, but I agree with you, there's
25 some rules, things that have to be done for hearings
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1 and we're happy to look at all ideas you have to make
2 it more efficient.
3 369 MR. LALONDE: My name is Clint
4 Lalonde. I'm with CKMO FM in Victoria. We're a campus
5 instructional station, and if I could just speak to the
6 hit not, hit ratio for a moment.
7 370 The -- we would like to see the --
8 the distinction still made between perhaps campus
9 community and instructional stations. The
10 instruction -- the focus of the instructional stations
11 is to train broadcasters. Most of them go on to
12 careers in commercial radio, and we like to try to keep
13 the regulations as close to commercial radio as
14 possible.
15 371 I understand the hits and not hit
16 ratio and the commercial radio has been dropped. We're
17 not recommending that it be dropped, but to reduce it
18 to ten per cent for campus instructional stations might
19 hamper our ability to train broadcasters who go on to
20 working in the commercial industry, so we'd like to see
21 a distinction be maintained between campus
22 instructional and campus/community stations.
23 372 Thank you.
24 373 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
25 374 MR. CHUNG: Hi. My name is Anthony
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1 from CJSF.
2 375 Not really anything new, but I just
3 wanted to stress how important a lot of us feel that
4 mixing and everything be looked at and accepted as
5 Canadian content, because it -- I don't know how many
6 people I've tried here, but if you tried mixing and
7 everything, it is an acquired skill, and what I want to
8 see when you guys do go into consultation with this, I
9 want -- I want complete involvement with all the
10 community/campus radio stations so that they can have
11 input into it, because if you don't do it, you can't
12 understand it, and those that do it will be able to
13 provide input into what's going on with it.
14 376 That's all I've got to say.
15 377 MS YORK: Thank you.
16 378 MS COTE: And again, I would like to
17 add that the NCTA with all of its stations is working
18 right now on getting consensus on a document which says
19 that when you're the producer and the artist, when you
20 are mixing, and with explaining and how much time and
21 how much mixing manipulation and the radio art, all of
22 that, that it is accepted as Canadian content.
23 379 MR. CLARK: John Clark, CJSF. I have
24 a question.
25 380 Why is -- I think it's Subcategory
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1 34, music, subcategory 34, non-traditional religious
2 music. Why is that in Category 3 and not in Category
3 2?
4 381 MS YORK: Good question.
5 382 MR. CLARK: Category 2.
6 383 MS YORK: You're talking about the
7 popular gospel music and how anything with a religious
8 theme now has to go into a traditional and special
9 interest music? You know, you could argue that
10 specifically religious music is a special interest, and
11 I think that was the logic at the beginning, but I do
12 agree that a lot of it -- pop music is much more like
13 Category 2 than 3.
14 384 MS COTE: At our station we don't put
15 gospel in the same place as we put Christian rock. We
16 don't actually put Christian rock in the library
17 period, but I mean, it would be -- for us -- sorry.
18 Sorry, that was a personal thing, because we don't --
19 we don't have any Christian rock programming at our
20 station, and there's actually in Ottawa a Christian
21 rock station, so that's a totally different thing for
22 us, but that we do have gospel and we put that in
23 traditional; whereas anything that is rock gets put in
24 rock, whether it would be any kind of rock.
25 385 MR. CLARK: Well, you know, that's
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1 cool, but I'm speaking to the regulations.
2 386 MS YORK: Yeah, it's an interesting
3 question. This isn't -- specifically look at the
4 different categories, but I'm -- I'm starting to think
5 that one of the things that come out of this might be a
6 separate -- I don't know, I'm just thinking off the top
7 of my head, but I think the questions about categories
8 are fairly detailed, and I'm wondering if we can really
9 include that as part of this campus radio review, or
10 whether that might need a separate working group or a
11 separate kind of process. I have no idea. I'm just
12 sort of thinking that there are a lot of other issues
13 about the categorization of music that maybe are not
14 related for campus radio review.
15 387 MR. CLARK: For sure, and I won't --
16 campus radio, maybe the whole categories of music don't
17 relate to us as they relate to commercial radio at all,
18 so --
19 388 MS YORK: I understand that.
20 389 MR. CLARK: -- constructed and built
21 from scratch.
22 390 MS YORK: Well, you know, I'm just
23 not exactly sure how much of that we can do during this
24 campus review. I don't know if the NCRA will be in a
25 position to come up with a specific proposal about what
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1 category, you know, we should use for campus radio, if
2 they're in a position to come back with a completely
3 new plan or whether that's too big a job and --
4 391 MR. CLARK: I'm willing to wait a
5 little longer.
6 392 MS COTE: I have a question,
7 actually, for the CRTC having to do with this. Would
8 it be accepted if we were so minimalist as to say that
9 we are playing music, and that ten per cent of that can
10 be hits and then maybe squeeze in are what we consider
11 Canadian content, like, would it be so simple as to say
12 that we follow our mandate in the music that we play,
13 and that's music, and --
14 393 MS YORK: Well, I -- I can't tell you
15 what would be acceptable. I can tell you what would be
16 an acceptable topic to put out for discussion.
17 394 One argument that I've heard sort of
18 in response to that is that in some cases, campus radio
19 needs a sort of regulation they can point to or policy
20 they can point to if they're getting perhaps pressure
21 from the students' association or whatever for saying,
22 "Why don't you just play more hits? Why don't you play
23 more music that people want to hear? Maybe you'd get
24 more advertising. You wouldn't be coming back for
25 money or whatever," and I -- I've sort of understood
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1 that having some specific requirements in the policy
2 was helpful to campus stations in order to protect them
3 from that kind of pressure, so it's kind of a balance
4 between how much you want to simplify the regulations
5 and policy that you're operating under, and how much
6 protection you need. And really, that's up to you guys
7 to discuss and to decide and to let us know when
8 you're --
9 395 MS COTE: So it is possible for us to
10 offer -- to suggest something that is incredibly
11 simple?
12 396 MS YORK: It's certainly possible.
13 397 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean from CIUT FM in
14 Toronto.
15 398 The same answer again, looking at the
16 sort of preservation of our sector. In our ongoing
17 involvement in what I see as congested radio dial in
18 Toronto, campus and community radio, there is having to
19 work more and more and hopefully -- I was hoping to see
20 willingly with the CBC, however, as we all know, the
21 CBC, I think in my opinion, that their programming and
22 their mandate is really skewed from the multi-cultural
23 clinical, social, artistic face of Canada, and I -- I'm
24 pretty sure they're aware of it, however, within that,
25 they -- I'm getting the sense that they are looking, as
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1 the campus/community radios do, and saying, "Gee, that
2 works particularly at a local level." And I've been
3 given the impression from people at CBC that they are
4 going more and more that way. To quote someone that --
5 he told me that we can expect to see them at more and
6 more community level events.
7 399 My concern around that is that if it
8 gets to the point where we end up at a run to run
9 battle against the CBC when we get into duplication of
10 service, my concerns is due to monies and lawyers and
11 governor-in-council, and them being the national
12 broadcaster for Canada, that campus/community radio
13 would lose.
14 400 Now, I know we're under an ongoing
15 mandate to sort of reinvent and become fresh and stuff
16 like that, however, there's also the point that it's
17 very easy for them to copy us where stuff works, and
18 again working with the limited resources, it is very
19 difficult to constantly reinvest, particularly when it
20 gets to the level that they're working in the same sort
21 of areas at the same time, doing the same things, so I
22 have some concerns about that.
23 401 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
24 402 MS YORK: I just would add -- I think
25 I've said this before, but just so that you know the
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1 next step in this process would be a cross-sectoral
2 meeting where we will be meeting -- having a space for
3 members of the NCRA to meet with members from the CBC
4 and from community radio, from commercial radio, and so
5 it will be a chance to talk about the various
6 complimentary kind of rules that people can play, and
7 there's also a CBC renewal hearing coming up next year.
8 It's an opportunity for us to talk to CBC about their
9 mandate and their broader kind of relationship with
10 other sectors of broadcasting; and again, that's an
11 open public process, and if the NCRA or individual
12 stations have comments to make to the CBC at that time
13 would be a good time for --
14 403 MS YORK: Okay, I would like to ask
15 some questions. First of all, a couple of people have
16 suggested that unrestricted advertising should be
17 increased. Some people have sort of put that on the
18 table. Is there anybody who wants to give an opposite
19 side of that? Is there anybody who would like to argue
20 against --
21 404 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'd like to
22 say that all the advertising be removed from
23 campus/community radio -- all advertising.
24 405 MS WARD: Tristis from CHSR in
25 Fredericton.
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1 406 Our student union is forever trying
2 to push more and more ads on us and -- and drive us in
3 that direction. I, too, worry about that. I like
4 having the -- okay sorry. John doesn't do it. Okay.
5 I like having the -- the restrictions because it's a
6 little bit of protection against having to run some of
7 the ads that we find to be truly abhorrent. We don't
8 have -- our board is pretty much controlled by the
9 student union, and financial decisions, like, for
10 example, the kind of contracts to enter into with whom
11 are being made by student union representatives, not by
12 people who actually are concerned with campus and
13 community radio.
14 407 I like the protection that we have
15 that keeps us from -- from going down that slippery
16 slope, although I do understand that it also has to do
17 with finances, and I -- I sympathize with my fellow
18 radio stations in -- in our sector. I -- I still like
19 the restrictions.
20 408 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
21 409 MR. LEACOCK: I'm John Leacock from
22 CFRU in Guelph. I'm the advertising and music
23 co-ordinator at CFRU.
24 410 And my approach to community radio
25 about the stations advertising is that the CRTC has
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1 given us four minutes that we could use as an
2 opportunity to have local businesses, especially with
3 Canada changing now with a lot of home-based
4 businesses, what we do at CFRU is try to make
5 advertising a form of accessibility to people that
6 would not usually get mainstream advertising. It's
7 also an important part of radio creative to have
8 programmers have an opportunity to express an art form
9 of creating ads for the local barber shop or the local
10 home-based esthetics business or whatever, and I think
11 that is really important that we should maintain
12 advertising contrary to John's views on advertising.
13 411 I think sometimes the non-profit
14 organizations like radio and people tend to feel that
15 non-profit means that you have to be poor. I think we
16 could use -- a community radio station should use
17 advertising as an opportunity to bring in income to
18 help them get updated with equipment, rather than being
19 fifteen years behind the CBC in terms of equipment and
20 not -- without being capitalistic or being greedy, but
21 as an opportunity to bring in funds that is much
22 needed.
23 412 That's my --
24 413 MS YORK: Thanks.
25 414 MS COTE: And I'd like to add that
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1 most of us are in debt, and that it isn't a profit,
2 it's money that we're reinvesting in ourselves to keep
3 afloat.
4 415 MS YORK: Okay. Maybe we can turn
5 the conversation now a little bit to Canadian content,
6 which is an issue that came up in the commercial radio
7 reviews. As most of you know that for commercial radio
8 stations we proposed -- we're requiring commercial
9 stations to increase our Canadian content in Category
10 2, popular music, to 35 per cent.
11 416 We've also -- I'll just sort of run
12 through what we said with them. We said 35 per cent
13 for Category 2. We said that for those stations that
14 do Category 3, we -- we think that there's room for an
15 improvement there -- for an increase there, but we
16 would discuss it with individual stations when they
17 come up for renewal, and we recognized at that time
18 that there's not very many commercial stations who do a
19 lot of Category 3 programming. We recognized that the
20 campus radio sector, the community sector, the public
21 sector are the ones who tend to do a lot of Category 3
22 music, so -- and right now there's a requirement for
23 ten per cent Canadian content. We've said that we
24 thought that could go up. You know, I'm curious to
25 know how you feel that would work in the campus radio
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1 sector.
2 417 And a third requirement that we
3 introduced for the commercial sector is that we put a
4 distribution requirement. We said that you have to
5 make 35 per cent Canadian content over the broadcast
6 which -- which is six to midnight from Monday -- or
7 seven days a week, and we also said you have to reach
8 35 per cent from six o'clock in the morning to six p.m.
9 at night, between Monday and Friday.
10 418 So your five days, six a.m. to six
11 p.m. averaged together has to also reach 35 per cent.
12 I'm wondering if that kind of a requirement that
13 requires that certain level of Canadian content during
14 the day is relevant to the campus radio sector or if
15 it's not, then what your views are on that.
16 419 So if anybody wants to talk about any
17 of those three issues, the level of Category 3 in
18 popular music, the level of Category 3 in traditional
19 music, and the level of -- or the distribution
20 requirement, I just wonder if there's something we
21 can --
22 420 MS COTE: Thanks, Morag, for bringing
23 that up.
24 421 But I'd just like to say that in the
25 session on the broadcast week, there was a consensus
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1 amongst the stations that were represented there that
2 we don't need special percentages for special times of
3 the day because at our drive to work and drive from
4 work home, shows are not the shows or the times where
5 we have peak listenership, that we all have different
6 peak listenership in different shows that are the most
7 listened to, and that that's really for -- that we saw
8 that regulation as a strictly for commercial
9 regulation, and that it was easier for the stations
10 present at this session to simply regulate -- for
11 administrative purposes, to just think in -- of
12 percentages of just within the broadcast week of six
13 a.m. to midnight.
14 422 MR. SCHMIDT: Rob Schmidt, CKUW.
15 423 Except for instructional stations,
16 which I imagine Andy's going to address, I think that
17 any changes to regulations with respect to quotas of
18 all kinds should differentiate use more from commercial
19 radio rather than bringing us closer in line, and I'm
20 not suggesting that we become different by having 50
21 per cent Canadian content or more like that. I think
22 the fact that campus radio exists to represent a
23 diversity means that we need to be given the
24 flexibility to have that diversity, and so I think that
25 those sort of issues need to be considered. Because
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1 one of the problems that a lot of people have is that
2 because our regulations are even thought of in the same
3 way that commercial stations are regulated, people
4 think that we in some way are like commercial radio
5 stations, and that is obviously not true. Not everyone
6 sees our definition in the -- in the campus radio
7 policy, but everyone knows our hit percentage, everyone
8 knows our Canadian content percentage, and I think that
9 in some ways some of those terms don't even really
10 apply to what we do, and -- and I just think those sort
11 of things should be considered.
12 424 Thanks.
13 425 MR. POSTHUMUS: Andy Posthumus from
14 C1015, Mohawk College.
15 426 This is actually an area that -- that
16 all of a sudden, because we're still part of -- because
17 instructional radio is still part of the
18 campus/community sector, the non-profit radio sector,
19 this is an area that's -- where the line starts to blur
20 a little bit.
21 427 In a way, it's a distinction I like,
22 actually. This is where we're going to be a little bit
23 unlike commercial radio. We're still required to play
24 Category 3 music, and that's a good thing for us.
25 There may be some station managers at instructional
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1 stations who might disagree with me, and I'm hoping
2 they'll express their opinion, but in a way, the -- the
3 use of Category 3 music in our -- for our purposes is
4 actually to make a programmer do some work and develop
5 a really good program that's not what they would
6 normally hear on commercial radio, because it's a
7 challenge to that particular programmer, and it's a
8 challenge that I like giving them, and -- and for my
9 own personal sake, some of them have risen to that
10 challenge and produced some exceptional programming as
11 a result of it.
12 428 So if we're still required to play
13 the Category 3 music, and if we're still -- if the
14 instructional stations are still part of the
15 subcategory of community radio, we do require community
16 access, and there are special interest musics that come
17 from the community. Some students who come to the
18 college aren't necessarily versed, but I -- I am
19 required, and I do welcome participation from the
20 community, so I'll still get those types of unique
21 programmers that have something to offer that a student
22 from the college won't have, so whatever -- however
23 this flushes out as far as hit and non-hit and -- or in
24 the case of Can con requirements in a certain part of
25 the day, this is one point where I -- I divert away
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1 from the commercial radio regulations and say that
2 we're more like community radio, and whatever applies
3 to the community radio, as long as we play this, are
4 still required to play the special interest music in
5 our -- the policy in this case as it applies to
6 instructional should reflect what is -- applies to
7 campus/community radio.
8 429 MS YORK: Thanks.
9 430 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean, CIUT FM,
10 Toronto.
11 431 As we were having various discussions
12 within our caucuses and -- and collectively here, we --
13 we did -- achieve some consensus in terms of what we
14 were looking at, what would be acceptable levels of Can
15 con, and I'm not going to speak on behalf of everyone
16 at this point, because, you know, we've reached
17 something that I would think differently, although some
18 people would agree with me, and I know there's divided
19 opinions among us.
20 432 I would actually like to see Can con
21 go up, however, that's easy for me to say, coming from
22 a station that has resources to be able to facilitate
23 that. What I mean by that -- again, going back to look
24 at actually how this sector operates is that the bigger
25 the stations are, the more wattage they have, the more
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1 ability they are to generate potential, the more they
2 can get their outreach and listings and charts and
3 stuff, obviously the more attracted they are to people
4 who receive these charts or bands in other places, and
5 when you're an independent band and you're looking at
6 who's reporting to what and -- and where, you're going
7 to obviously, thinking as an artist, how can I
8 diversity and get my maximum effect for distributing my
9 music, my produce, my art?
10 433 Within that, I see that it would be a
11 direct challenge to smaller stations, even as it
12 presently is with a 30 per cent Can con to reach that
13 goal, and -- and I really am, I feel, of the opinion
14 that our sector really does have a feeling to help
15 develop Canadian talent, and really wants to, and just
16 even on the basic fact that we see the commercial
17 sector treating it with a pettiness and a sort of
18 letter of the law versus spirit of the law and the idea
19 of it, that we feel we have a commitment and would like
20 to continue that. However, again, it's a question of
21 resources. The bigger stations can do it much easier
22 than the small stations. And we all know that even
23 when it comes away from even local talent development
24 but more established labels or bigger labels, it may
25 have a roster that may be appropriate for campus and
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1 community radio.
2 434 There is a -- a different way that
3 smaller labels are treated. Bigger labels are treated,
4 of course, in a more preferential way because like
5 them, they're working at it in a business aspect, where
6 we're working in a different sort of fence, so I find
7 that, again, smaller stations are going to be
8 challenged to the fact that when people are giving out
9 distribution, you know, they're going to have their A
10 list or B list or C list, so I find that there's a very
11 large challenge for smaller stations, low wattage
12 stations, cable FM stations to meet these requirements
13 and goals.
14 435 In reference to Category 3, I'm very
15 very much for Category 3. I -- I think I've --
16 everyone knows my diatribe on this. If it was up to
17 me, Category 3 would be 80 per cent; however, in
18 reference to that, we -- we also know that as music
19 gets more sort of defined and closer to look at, and
20 that's definitely -- the 20th Century classical --
21 acoustic, and we're looking at that, where it becomes
22 sort of smaller appealing groups, whatever you want to
23 look at, smaller groups who work within these musics.
24 436 When we again relate back to either
25 advertising potential or fund-raising potential, the
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1 ability to do that gets less, and that's not in all
2 cases of music, but in the majority of the Category 3
3 music, that if we increase it again, we're looking at
4 another challenge, funding the ability, funding the
5 ability to attract -- advertise. Now maybe increasing
6 it may work for us because as we see the commercial
7 sector go more homogeneous, people want to diversify
8 more. I don't know, I'm not a statistician, but what I
9 see particularly in the fund-raising that goes along is
10 that Category 2 shows that it's easier for them to
11 fund-raising, it's easier for them to get advertising,
12 and not all, but a lot of Category 3 shows it's the
13 reverse.
14 437 So I think again, you would find that
15 perhaps a lot of people in our sector would be
16 interested in increasing Category 3, but at the same
17 time, there is the hand-to-hand challenge with that.
18 438 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
19 439 MS WARD: Tristis from CHSR.
20 440 And -- well, I have to get this in
21 because John's about to speak about Can con's.
22 441 I actually, I -- I -- you know, I
23 think that -- that Can con is one of our few
24 protections against American invasion, and -- and
25 I'm -- I'm definitely concerned with people thinking
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1 that to reduce it, even in our sector, even with the
2 amount of work that we already do, because for -- for
3 places in smaller centres like us, or places also with
4 a lot of pressure from our student unions, it is
5 difficult enough to provide alternative programming and
6 to provide a voice and -- and an outlet for new
7 Canadian talent. If we didn't have that 30 per cent
8 Canadian content, our programming decisions would be a
9 lot harder to -- to maintain, just the integrity of
10 them, because there's always a challenge from the
11 student union for that every year.
12 442 But what I'm up here to speak about
13 is actually about the time of day things, simply
14 because I'm constantly fighting ghettoization of our
15 programming.
16 443 We have -- our schedule gets filled
17 basically when the person can do the show, and we -- we
18 tend to do a lot of shuffling around. Now, we have --
19 I do know that our specialty programming and our
20 cultural programming comes in usually in the evening
21 and weekends and stuff like that already, so this
22 Monday to Friday, six to six thing is not -- is not as
23 big a deal right now, it seems, but I wouldn't want it
24 to become an issue in the future for -- for -- to limit
25 programmers who want to do a specialty music, but they
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1 can't possibly maintain a Canadian content ratio
2 that -- that you -- particularly -- and I know we're
3 not discussing necessarily category changes, but
4 particularly since a lot of things get into pop, rock
5 and dance that we wouldn't necessarily put into pop,
6 rock and dance, and -- and so the Can con requirements
7 for that particular category can -- can really tie us
8 in knots.
9 444 So I -- I'm going to speak against
10 having some kind of a -- five day tie into this sort of
11 thing just because I want to have that flexibility for
12 our programmers.
13 445 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
14 446 MR. CLARK: John Clark, CJSF.
15 447 I'm not going to go into how Canadian
16 culture is really just a vestige of British colonialism
17 and the reason to not be American historically, stems
18 to a large part from a desire to keep the colonists
19 British, but I think the concerns of instructional
20 that Andy and Clint represented can be dismissed.
21 448 If the mechanism of instruction is to
22 have advertiser-oriented radio employees do what they
23 are told, who cares what their percentages are
24 regarding new, recent past Category 2, 3, hits,
25 non-hits, et cetera. They just tell the monkey what to
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1 do and they do it.
2 449 I'd like the numbers for
3 instructional to be the same as campus/community radio
4 in this way. Some culture and diversity can be
5 introduced to the people who are going to spend their
6 lives squelching it.
7 450 Thanks.
8 451 MME BARBEAU: Carole Barbeau de CHUO.
9 Donc, tout d'abord, je voudrais dire que je suis
10 d'accord avec Tristis au niveau de la flexibilité qu'on
11 devrait pouvoir garder au niveau de la programmation
12 entre 6 h et 7 h, vue la nature de notre programmation
13 et comment on la... nos bénévoles et tout ça.
14 452 L'autre chose que je voulais
15 mentionner c'est le 30 pour cent. Je voudrais dire que
16 je ne suis pas d'accord avec une proposition qui ferait
17 monter à 35 pour cent le contenu canadien, notamment au
18 niveau... bon premièrement, parce que on est toujours à
19 la recherche de nouvelle musique, et vu qu'on sait pas
20 d'où elle peut venir... d'où vont venir les différents
21 types de musique, les nouveaux styles, les choses
22 nouvelles. Vu qu'on sait pas d'où elles vont venir, on
23 peut être appelé à avoir des pourcentages de musique
24 canadienne plus... de musique étrangère plus élevé
25 plutôt.
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1 453 Il y a aussi... du côté du marché
2 francophone, ça peut être beaucoup plus difficile
3 d'avoir accès à ces nouvelles musiques-là, comme le
4 hip-hop, le punk, les différents types de nouvelles
5 musiques. Ça peut être difficile d'en trouver beaucoup
6 au niveau canadien. Donc, ce serait important de
7 garder ça, même si on est... on peut être... comme, je
8 suis très d'accord avec un 30 pour cent qui est très
9 important de garder, mais il ne faudrait pas trop
10 l'élever parce que ça pourrait être très difficile de
11 trouver de la musique francophone dans ces catégories-
12 là.
13 454 So I'm going to repeat in English.
14 For the first thing I said was that I was agreeing with
15 Tristis on the flexibility thing that we need to keep
16 because we are volunteer-based, and that we don't know
17 exactly -- we don't make our programming the way that
18 commercial radio does, so -- and the second thing was
19 about the 30 per cent -- or 35 per cent Can con that I
20 would not be for, because we don't know where the new
21 music types will come from, and we're always looking
22 for that. So we need to keep that flexibility to be
23 able to do our job on that field of music diversity.
24 455 And the other thing was that 35 per
25 cent would be probably hard to attain for -- on the
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1 French side of things with the new music types like hip
2 hop and punk, so a 30 per cent is possible, and we try
3 hard to attain it, but 35 per cent might be something
4 really hard to attain.
5 456 MS COTE: I'd like to just make a
6 friendly amendment to -- from punk to maybe
7 electronic-based, being that --
8 457 MS YORK: I'd just --
9 458 MS COTE: -- existed for a really
10 long time -- well, as compared to --
11 459 MS YORK: I'd like to just sort of
12 follow up on that point. Somebody had sort of talked
13 earlier about -- I think it was John, about the process
14 of putting labels on certain kinds of music, and does
15 that create, I don't know, certain stereotypes or
16 something like that.
17 460 The main reason we have the
18 distinction between Category 2, Category 3 and periods
19 of ethnic programming is because we're trying to
20 recognize that certain kinds of music or certain kinds
21 of programming periods, it's difficult to reach the
22 same level of Can con. So that's really the only
23 reason we have those distinctions -- or one of the main
24 reasons we have those distinctions.
25 461 We recognize the traditional and
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1 special interest music. It's harder to find Can con in
2 that, and if you're doing it at an ethnic programming
3 period, it may be more difficult to find Canadian
4 content with that kind of genre.
5 462 What I would like to ask is if
6 anybody has put any thought into whether those kind
7 of -- the definitions, and I think that I've been
8 hearing something sort of along these lines. What
9 we're trying to do is to recognize the difficulty in
10 finding Canadian content. Now, I'm hearing that things
11 like certain genres like electronica, hip hop and
12 things like that, it's hard to find Canadian content,
13 but they're not captured by the Category 3 or by, you
14 know, the periods of ethnic programming, by the areas
15 where we have recognized that it's difficult to find
16 Can con, so I'm wondering if you guys have put any
17 thought into changes to those definitions that would
18 be -- that would capture those kind of difficulties
19 better? Has anybody thought about that?
20 463 MS JAYOUSSI: Maizun Jayoussi, CJSW
21 in Calgary.
22 464 We have thought about this, and I
23 think we have to go back to why Category 3 exists,
24 which is -- basically it's a category that guarantees
25 non-rock, non-popular music based programming, and as
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1 it stands right now, the categories that are
2 highlighted are -- are mainly jazz and folk, and
3 Category 3 doesn't include hip hop, electronica, things
4 that we wouldn't consider in -- in -- sometimes I -- I
5 don't really see that as being suitable in Category 2
6 because those genres of music aren't covered by
7 commercial radio, and I think that the biggest one that
8 we've been talking about has been the issue of
9 turntabling, because that in itself is also very much
10 like having a band in your studio. You have, you know,
11 an artist coming with a turntable, so we've been
12 talking, and I think Caroline Cote has an excellent
13 definition of that as well. Who was that drafted by?
14 465 MS COTE: It was drafted in
15 conjunction with Joanne Miriam from CKDU.
16 466 MS JAYOUSSI: Right, and -- and I
17 think a lot of us have -- have thought about this as
18 well as being something suitable to Category 3, and I
19 think that the -- the problem is, we don't want to make
20 things more complicated for us either, so in some ways
21 I think maybe Category 3 could be expanded to -- to
22 saying that Category 3 includes these types of musics,
23 the ones that we currently find, maybe add a few more
24 definitions such as turntabling. I think especially
25 also experimental types of compositions that aren't
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1 covered in either category, and that we know will never
2 be placed on commercial radio; whereas with hip hop and
3 electronica, I think there's a bit of a fuzzy area
4 there where we're not sure where that's headed, but I
5 think that maybe something needs to be included in
6 Category 3 that allows for music that is not covered by
7 Category 2, because we do have these grey areas, so as
8 long as Category 2 is very clear -- and again, for us
9 Category 2 has some -- some strange definitions that
10 don't really apply to us -- music mainly for dancing,
11 I'm not quite sure what that means.
12 467 So I think if we can clean up
13 Category 2 a little bit to make it clear that Category
14 2 is almost the easy category, the pop rock category,
15 and Category 3 is the stuff that commercial radio isn't
16 going to touch very often, and -- and that's maybe how
17 it should be defined. So having a list of music that
18 could be considered Category 3 but not necessarily
19 restricted to those categories; that Category 3 have a
20 sort of a greater definition of other, that is, you
21 know, relating to not included in Category 2. The same
22 way that spoken word says anything not covered by all
23 these other categories is spoken word.
24 468 MS YORK: Thank you.
25 469 MS JAYOUSSI: Does that make sense?
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1 470 MS YORK: Yeah, I follow you.
2 471 MR. DEAN: Mopa Dean, CIUT, Toronto.
3 472 I'm really curious actually when
4 referring to music categories with the CRTC based,
5 whether they use some sort of basis of how they came
6 about these categories, because I think where a lot of
7 the confusion and sort of ambiguity comes from it.
8 473 In a lot of cases when I talk to
9 people at the CRTC, I -- I get the sense that a lot of
10 times the ideas of the regulation of categories are
11 purposely left vague, and -- and they like -- they like
12 us to make self-determination, what we are and aren't
13 going to do and how we're going to do things and
14 categoric -- and categorize stuff in sort of a larger
15 sense but even in the context of music.
16 474 However, the problem that we run into
17 constantly time and time again when we're talking about
18 categories of music is that it also involves an
19 industry in sales, and so people will come in with
20 different perceptions but no mark to base it by. I'll
21 have someone come in and say, "Well, I'm doing a punk
22 rock show," and in my opinion it's definitely not punk
23 rock, or they'll come in and say, "Well, I'm doing a
24 Goth industrial show, and it's nothing that -- then
25 when you refer to the categories, you know, it -- it's
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1 vague about it, but then they're going on the basis
2 that because they were tuned to mass media or their
3 version of street-wise pop culture, to them in their
4 idea of what they've assimilated, what this is, is punk
5 rock. Someone at Sony or whatever said, "Well, this is
6 punk rock," so it's punk rock. How can you challenge
7 that?
8 475 So this is something that I'd really
9 like to diffuse because, again, in our relationship
10 with the commercial sector, which we have to
11 unfortunately exist with, it constantly becomes a
12 barrier and a problem. Someone will say, "Well, this
13 is -- world," you know, and they just love to throw
14 these categories in the air, but from my understanding
15 with even my limited knowledge what I would consider in
16 music or someone who's even an "ethnicmusicologist",
17 there's nothing that remotely -- sort of anything
18 related to a world of traditional, you know, of music
19 or dance indigenous to people from a geographic area.
20 476 So I'm just wondering if there's a --
21 an idea or preferably even an explanation that someone
22 can give out how the CRTC comes up with their
23 categories, and maybe that would also help us to maybe
24 give you more feedback in determination of what is or
25 isn't acceptable what -- under the present terms as
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1 Category 2 versus Category 3 versus special interest
2 versus one minute over three minutes, or what is or
3 isn't music versus noise and/or cacophony.
4 477 MS YORK: Are you actually expecting
5 an answer right now, because -- you know, I don't know
6 how the categories were developed. They were developed
7 quite awhile ago before I was there. I wasn't part of
8 the process and I just personally don't -- don't know.
9 I could go back and ask and try to get more of the
10 history.
11 478 I think that Category 3 was intended
12 to reflect the areas -- I think it was intended to
13 reflect the areas that mainstream stations don't play,
14 and where it's more difficult to find Canadian content.
15 I think that was the rationale for making the
16 distinction between 2 and 3, and -- and it was based
17 very much on the situation at that time. And as
18 everybody here has noticed -- noted, music evolves, it
19 changes. What was relevant at that time is not
20 necessarily what's relevant anymore, and that's why we
21 need to review these things, you know, so I do take
22 everybody's point that the categories and the
23 definitions that are used in the definitions are not
24 necessarily relevant now, and -- and the question is
25 what we should do about that.
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1 479 MR. CLARK: John Clark, CJSF.
2 480 I appreciate having a voice here, and
3 I appreciate how the NCRA tolerates dissent and diverse
4 opinions, and as evidence of lack of consensus, I think
5 that the 2, 3 is pretty good, and -- and --
6 481 MS YORK: I'm amazed.
7 482 MR. CLARK: Now, the turntabling
8 issue being completely separate and myself seeing the
9 experimental thing pretty much covered in 3 already.
10 2, 3 seems to work pretty well if you're going -- if
11 you're going to do that, that's probably the best way
12 to have it done.
13 483 MS YORK: Thank you.
14 484 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thanks.
15 485 MR. CHUNG: Anthony from CJSF.
16 486 As far as hip hop and electronica
17 interim base goes, I don't think we necessarily need a
18 different category for that, but I think there should
19 be some sort of recognition that, yes, Can con is hard
20 at this moment to fulfill, which, I mean, who knows,
21 maybe five years, ten years, maybe two years it'll be
22 extremely easy, but as it stands, it's very difficult.
23 And as far as turntablism goes, I don't want to see
24 that categorized at all at this point -- maybe not even
25 until five years later, even six or seven or eight
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1 years later, because as it stands, in order to do a
2 show you've got to be extremely creative, you have to
3 have a lot of stamina, and I don't think people could
4 do a show every week being different, doing it for an
5 hour or everything, and there's not enough of that
6 material out there, so I don't want it to be
7 categorized at all until a couple of years down the
8 line.
9 487 MS COTE: But how about having it
10 recognized as Canadian content?
11 488 MR. CHUNG: Oh, yes, recognized as
12 Canadian content.
13 489 MS COTE: But not like a subcategory?
14 490 MR. CHUNG: Yeah, not -- not -- not
15 placed into any specific category where it's got to be,
16 you know, 35 per cent or 30 or 10 per cent.
17 491 MS YORK: Okay, thanks.
18 492 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.
19 493 MS WARD: Tristis again from CJSR,
20 Fredericton.
21 494 I want to start off by saying I'm
22 really lucky that my music director is not currently in
23 the room, but what I have to say is this. It's -- it's
24 just a brainstorming thing, and I don't mean to --
25 to -- I think that the -- the ideas expressed about --
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1 about changing the categories, you know, we should --
2 we definitely need to look into those, but I was
3 thinking this.
4 495 You see, for the Goth show -- what I
5 say to the Goth show as a -- as a program director when
6 they say they can't find enough Canadian content to
7 meet the requirements that I expected them, is try
8 harder. What I say to you is, it's really hard to find
9 Canadian Goth, so -- so what -- just as an idea, what
10 I'd like to -- for the CRTC to be open to is rather
11 than trying to categorize all the music, because I
12 think we already know, there's already a lot of -- of
13 dissent as to what goes into what category. We already
14 know that emerging music is going to be changing these
15 categories, and they will be out of date as soon as you
16 print a new glossary of terms. I would like to see the
17 CRTC be open to explanation.
18 496 We're in the communication business.
19 If -- if a show can't -- can't make 30 per cent
20 Canadian without playing the same songs over and over
21 again, if a show can't make that and -- and still be a
22 quality program in the particular genre that they are
23 playing in, can they just explain that and just let it
24 be acceptable? The CRTC doesn't have to go by just
25 numbers and figures and -- and balanced lines, I mean,
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1 it can simply be, you know, okay, we didn't meet -- we
2 didn't meet 30 per cent in this window that you looked
3 at because we had these shows and these performers
4 performed this way with this material, because that is
5 what they have to work with, and we are fully capable
6 of explaining ourselves and -- and why we couldn't make
7 the Canadian content there, and if you are capable of
8 accepting that, I think that we could all live with
9 each other.
10 497 MS YORK: Thanks.
11 498 MS COTE: As an addition to what
12 Tristis just said, I'd like to just point out that, you
13 know, that's -- we have French percentages, and imagine
14 my sitting down and saying, "Well, you've got to look
15 harder to find French language Canadian Goth, okay?
16 And -- it's crazy.
17 499 MS YORK: Go ahead.
18 500 MR. WRIGHT: Evan Wright, CKUT in
19 Montreal.
20 501 Maybe it's a bit drastic, but I --
21 I'm wondering what these categories are doing in
22 campus/community radio, I mean, we -- we're a distinct
23 community. We know who we are and it -- I don't really
24 understand what -- why the categories are there, kind
25 of like in an outside body, kind of dictating the kind
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1 of things we do, because it needs to be in this block,
2 this block. These are the categories of music that
3 exist for you. I guess I'm wondering why they're even
4 there, why we -- why we can't design programming based
5 on programming instead of based on categories, and
6 why -- I mean, for me I -- I see it more as just an
7 administrative thing, just something else to keep you
8 from really doing radio and running a station.
9 502 MS YORK: Well, I would like to say
10 that I don't think the CRTC is trying to tell you to
11 base your programming on the categories at all. I
12 don't think that's what we're trying to do.
13 503 MS COTE: And that we are here to
14 decide how and what we want, how we wanted it phrased,
15 do we want it there at all, you know, I think -- this
16 is the place where we can say, "Let's scrap it." We
17 can come to the CRTC with that as long as we back it
18 up, and then --
19 504 MR. WRIGHT: I guess I'm wondering
20 why they are there to begin with.
21 505 MS YORK: I would say that they're
22 there. I think I've said this a couple of times, but
23 I'll just say again, I think they're there to ensure
24 that we recognize areas where it's harder to reach
25 Canadian content, (a); and (b), to try to put some kind
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1 of quantitative description of what distinguishes a
2 campus station from a mainstream alternative station,
3 and that's not entirely something that we -- we imposed
4 on the campus radio sector. We understood that the
5 campus sector also liked to have those mechanisms built
6 in, because it provided some protection to them in
7 dealing with their association or their boards of
8 directors, but again, all of these things are up for
9 discussion now. If -- if the same reasons are not
10 applied or you don't think they apply, or you think
11 that they could be achieved in some better way, this is
12 the time to say it.
13 506 MR. KIERNANDER: Trevor from CORS in
14 Oakville.
15 507 Just a quick question. With the DJ
16 as the artist with like, hip hop, electronica, how
17 would Canadian content be class -- like, be counted for
18 that? Because when you have a normal show and they
19 play, say three Can con tracks, it's easy to keep track
20 of, you know, but when the DJ's playing who knows how
21 many songs in the entire, like time allotted, how
22 would --
23 508 MS COTE: Well, we'll be duking it
24 out with the -- with the proposal on Saturday, but that
25 what the proposal is as is, is that when you are doing
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1 manipulation within one minute, that you're changing,
2 altering the piece within one minute, then it is your
3 piece. Once that that piece ends, once that you go to
4 a commercial, you say what songs you played or that you
5 had gotten lazy and you've played something for more
6 than a minute, then that's ended, it's changed. So --
7 and we can -- we can more discuss this on Saturday.
8 509 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: If we are
9 going to still work with the ideas of categories, I --
10 I think there probably still will be until there's some
11 sort of standard that you can look and base stuff by.
12 510 I'm just wondering if there would be
13 a consideration in working with the idea of creating a
14 new category that's neither a spoken word or a music
15 that's sort of in the reference of experimental radio.
16 A lot of times, as we understand, campus and community
17 radio pushes the envelope in terms of the type of
18 broadcasting that we do, and a lot of it can be -- and
19 there are a lot of people that do unconventional radio.
20 Because of that, whether they're manipulating the
21 technology in some way, shape or form or doing
22 something unconventional, they usually have to turn to
23 things as audio art or pirate radio or something, and I
24 would like to see something along those lines, I mean,
25 if it's -- it's not music, but it's sound, but there's
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1 no real dialogue in the sense of how it's being
2 manipulated or looked at, but you're putting it over
3 the air and you're presenting it or you're using the
4 technology or something in a way that is different --
5 distinctly different than what is being looked at or
6 understood now and maybe creating some other category
7 under that --
8 511 MS YORK: I think we're probably
9 pretty close to out of time and things seemed to have
10 wound down.
11 512 I'd just like to sort of -- one last
12 chance. Anybody else have anything to add?
13 513 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I've actually
14 got kind of one more thing to add, although it's not
15 related to the categories thing, and I was wondering
16 about -- actually, I like this mic better. I was
17 wondering about the idea of actually getting more
18 campus stations available through cable FM. I
19 understand that there is no requirement if a station is
20 not broadcasting to be cable -- to be carried on cable,
21 but -- but there's a lot of people at stations doing a
22 lot of different things. They don't have the same
23 access through wattage or being licensed, and if there
24 would be a possibility of seeing more of these --
25 514 MS COTE: May we have some quiet in
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1 the room, please?
2 515 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.
3 Thank you. If -- if there would be a way to
4 incorporate or insist or get more stations onto that
5 medium via that way.
6 516 MS COTE: And there is a new cable
7 policy -- I don't know if you guys want to go into that
8 or if you guys have it with you.
9 517 MS YORK: I don't know what you mean.
10 Caroline, if you'd like to just go ahead. I don't know
11 exactly what you mean.
12 518 MS COTE: Well, I don't -- I'm not
13 a -- I'm not a cable only station. It's just that at
14 our Montreal meeting, because Montreal has quite a bit
15 of cable stations, Lucio had come with the new cable
16 radio policy. That had been in the works ever since
17 I've been in radio, but that now it's done. She was
18 there to present it, so -- but she didn't present it
19 because they weren't there, so I don't know if that
20 would be something that we can get from the CRTC and
21 distribute to the cable stations that there is a new
22 policy dealing with them.
23 519 MS YORK: I'm sorry, I'm really not
24 up on it so I can't tell you right now, but I could get
25 back to you later if you want to know more about that.
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1 520 MR. DEGRAFF: Hello, I'm Chris
2 Degraff representing OEC Radio in Kelowna.
3 521 Just concerning the -- the content
4 issue and the categories. Considering that campus
5 college radio is sort of the -- the vehicle for new up
6 and coming genres basically is filtered through there
7 before anywhere else. I think perhaps -- granted that
8 we have the resources available to us to do this, that
9 the onus should be on say the NCRC and -- and whatnot
10 to do -- have the majority of input on the formation of
11 new categories and, like, say on a yearly or
12 bi-annually basis or whatnot. And in the same vein, we
13 must need the resources to do that, of course. We
14 don't always have time to do that or the money to -- to
15 investigate that, and publish it, and everybody -- you
16 know, everybody has to get together and meet somewhere
17 and discuss this and hash it out.
18 522 What John was saying about say a
19 royalty tax on advertising on commercial radio, I think
20 that's a very excellent idea, and it's -- we are
21 their -- their -- how would you say it, we're the farm
22 and they harvest the talent from there basically, and I
23 think they should put a little bit more effort into
24 tending that farm.
25 523 Thanks.
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1 524 MR. LEACOCK: John Leacock, CFRU,
2 Guelph.
3 525 Just a short question. When could we
4 get a copy of this discourse, like, for our own reviews
5 and to take back to our stations?
6 526 MS YORK: This transcript?
7 527 MR. LEACOCK: Yeah, of what's took
8 place today.
9 528 MS YORK: I'll ask Barbara how long
10 it takes usually to develop the transcript.
11 529 MR. LEACOCK: No, like, how do you go
12 about contacting to get a copy? I don't want it
13 tomorrow or --
14 530 MS YORK: Okay, if you want to know
15 how it works. It'll be on the public file which will
16 be available in all the regional offices -- of course,
17 there's no regional office in Toronto now. I think you
18 probably -- I don't know if we put them on the
19 internet. I'm going to maybe have to get back to you
20 about that. I don't know if we put transcripts on the
21 internet. It would probably be good in this case to do
22 so, because I think a lot of stations have access to
23 the web, so I'll look into that. It goes on the public
24 file. I think you could probably write to us and ask
25 us for a copy.
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1 531 MR. LEACOCK: Does it cost money?
2 532 MS YORK: I don't know, I'm sorry.
3 533 MS COTE: Usually anything over fifty
4 copies, you're charged.
5 534 MR. LEACOCK: Yeah, just a short
6 comment.
7 535 MS COTE: Fifty pages.
8 536 MR. LEACOCK: A short comment on the
9 levy of commercial stations. Sometimes I -- like, it
10 comes back to my whole point about advertising. I
11 think that if community stations really want to get
12 themselves out of debt, they could find equitable ways
13 to raise funds, rather than having to levy commercial
14 stations. I don't see myself as being a farm to
15 commercial radio. I see myself as being a distinct
16 entity from commercial radio that gives voices to
17 people that does not have an opportunity to be
18 mainstream, right? I don't want to be seen as being
19 somebody that just in community radio because I want to
20 be in commercial, you know.
21 537 MS YORK: I understand. This will be
22 the last comment.
23 538 MS MAJAURY: Heather Majaury from
24 CJAM.
25 539 I just want to say that I think a tax
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1 system, I'm in support of that, because then it can be
2 a third party issuance, and commercial radio would not
3 have any say in exactly how that money is spent, that
4 it's regulated; and whereas, if we rely on commercial
5 means to also gain funds, then we create the same
6 animal.
7 540 MS COTE: There's just one last thing
8 that I wanted to get on the record, which is in the
9 spirit of what Rob from CKUW was saying to keep us and
10 get us more distinct and separate from commercial
11 radio, that you might not have noticed this, but on the
12 second page, the -- the second side of your front page
13 that everyone has on their license, the last paragraph,
14 says, "Condition for commercial FM stations overviewing
15 markets other than single station markets," and it goes
16 on to talk about that it's a condition of license that
17 the licensee refrain from soliciting or accepting local
18 advertising for broadcasting any broadcast week when
19 less than one-third of the programming aired is local."
20 In the definition of local programming shall be --
21 anyways, it talks about how commercials stations have
22 to have a third of local programming to have
23 advertising, that I would like this to be taken off of
24 our acceptance of license, because it has nothing to do
25 with us, that nothing has to do with commercial radio,
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1 and only commercial radio shouldn't be on there, and
2 that it should -- it could just bring confusion to our
3 own managers, board of directors, et cetera of why it's
4 there and our acceptance of our license.
5 541 MS YORK: Thanks, Caroline. I think
6 that that'll be it. I don't know if you want to add
7 some closing words.
8 542 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Yes, sure.
9 Thank you very much for coming. I really appreciate
10 you taking the time of -- during your conference to
11 bringing your views forward to myself and to the
12 Commission as a whole. It's been fascinating, and I've
13 learned a great deal this morning.
14 543 There are a number of areas that kept
15 coming up from balance through to categories of music,
16 which I think will remain forever a difficult choice,
17 to the process ahead of us in access to materials,
18 information, and support in terms of moving forward
19 with your licenses and so on. We certainly hope that
20 this is -- this session this morning was as helpful to
21 you as it has been for us, and that it reflects the way
22 the Commission wants to approach what are a number of
23 really really important changes and decisions coming up
24 over the next couple of years.
25 544 So we're going to be very busy -- I
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1 know you're going to be very busy over the next little
2 while, and we look forward to hearing from you again,
3 either individually or through the association as we
4 approach changes to policy.
5 545 Thanks a lot.
6 546 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have a
7 question about if we are making submissions from our
8 stations individually. Should we direct those to you
9 or to Morag?
10 547 MS YORK: It's best if you wait till
11 we put out the call for comments, which will be a
12 public notice. It will probably come out in the fall,
13 and it will raise specific areas where we want input,
14 although you're not restricted to those areas. Anybody
15 can comment on anything, but stations can put in
16 comments individually -- call for comments -- can put
17 one in for the association.
18 548 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And there
19 is always information of where to send it and a
20 deadline in the notice. Sorry, Tristis?
21 549 MS WARD: Do you buy ad space in the
22 newspapers for those public notices?
23 550 MS YORK: Yes, we're supposed to in
24 local -- in -- in --
25 551 MS WARD: Would you like to buy some
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1 radio ads?
2 --- Laughter/Rires
3 552 MS YORK: I just wanted to say that
4 one thing Caroline raised was the issue of a mailing
5 list that would go out with relevant radio notices to
6 all interested radio stations, and I think we can work
7 on that, even apart from the -- from the review we
8 could maybe start working with that fairly quickly. So
9 if you want to talk to Caroline about whether you want
10 to be on a mailing list for all relevant notices,
11 please go ahead, because I think we can go ahead with
12 that fairly quickly. Mopa?
13 553 MR. DEAN: I'm just concerned about
14 stations that are going to have license renewals
15 happening in between the termination stations where you
16 take the calls and start being on the regulations, a
17 station gets its license renewal, and then after its
18 license renewal which is based on the old system, these
19 new rules come up, and how is that really --
20 554 MS YORK: I'd like to say that one
21 thing we can do, and we sometimes do, is administrative
22 renewals. If there's a reason that -- for whatever
23 reason we don't want to consider all the issues about a
24 renewal right now, we can do an administrative renewal,
25 so you just renew it for a year, and then, you know, we
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1 have the real renewal process after a year, so if
2 there's some concern about how the new policy might
3 affect stations in the meantime, I'll try to suggest
4 that we consider administrative renewals for campus
5 stations until this policy -- until this review is
6 over.
7 555 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Just one
8 last thing. Morag mentioned at the beginning of today
9 that there are a number of other public consultations
10 going on on television programming in this country on
11 Canadian content regulations for television programming
12 which, of course, affects film production. You're a
13 thoughtful group. You've spent a lot of time worrying
14 about and promoting Canadian content in music, spoken
15 word, and obviously you're part and parcel of cultural
16 environment in this country. I do hope that we will
17 hear from you in those processes as well.
18 556 Thanks.
19 --- Whereupon the hearing concluded at 1230/
20 L'audience se termine à 1230
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