ARCHIVED -  Transcript / Transcription - Montréal, Quebec - 2003-02-04

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

FOR THE CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND

TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES DU

CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION

ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES

SUBJECT / SUJET

Various broadcasting applications further to calls for applications for a broadcasting licence to carry on a radio programming undertaking to serve Montreal, Quebec, Public Notice CRTC 2002-2; Chicoutimi, Quebec, Public Notice CRTC 2002-3; Sherbrooke, Quebec, Public Notice CRTC 2002-4 and Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Public Notice CRTC 2002-5 /

Plusieurs demandes en radiodiffusion suite aux appels de demandes de licence de radiodiffusion visant l'exploitation d'une entreprise de programmation de radio pour desservir Montréal (Québec), Avis public CRTC 2002-2; Chicoutimi (Québec), Avis public CRTC 2002-3; Sherbrooke (Québec), Avis public CRTC 2002-4 et Trois-Rivières (Québec), Avis public CRTC 2002-5

HELD AT: TENUE À:

Palais des Congrès Palais des Congrès

de Montréal de Montréal

Room 524 Salle 524

201 Viger Avenue West 201, avenue Viger Ouest

Montréal, Quebec Montréal (Québec)

February 4, 2003 Le 4 février 2003

Volume 2

Transcripts

In order to meet the requirements of the Official Languages

Act, transcripts of proceedings before the Commission will be

bilingual as to their covers, the listing of the CRTC members

and staff attending the public hearings, and the Table of

Contents.

However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded

verbatim transcript and, as such, is taped and transcribed in

either of the official languages, depending on the language

spoken by the participant at the public hearing.

Transcription

Afin de rencontrer les exigences de la Loi sur les langues

officielles, les procès-verbaux pour le Conseil seront

bilingues en ce qui a trait à la page couverture, la liste des

membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience

publique ainsi que la table des matières.

Toutefois, la publication susmentionnée est un compte rendu

textuel des délibérations et, en tant que tel, est enregistrée

et transcrite dans l'une ou l'autre des deux langues

officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le

participant à l'audience publique.

Canadian Radio-television and

Telecommunications Commission

Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des

télécommunications canadiennes

Transcript / Transcription

BEFORE / DEVANT:

Charles Dalfen Chairperson / Président

Andrée Wylie Vice-Chair of Broadcasting / Vice-présidente CRTC

Andrée Noël Regional Commissioner for

Quebec / Conseillère régionale

Joan Pennefather National Commissioner / Conseillère nationale

Jean-Marc Demers National Commissioner/

Conseiller national

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:

Gérant d'audience

Pierre LeBel Hearing Secretary / Secrétaire d'audience

Karen Moore Senior Legal Counsel /

conseillère juridique

principale

Sylvie Jones Legal Counsel /

conseillère juridique

HELD AT: TENUE À:

Palais des Congrès Palais des Congrès

de Montréal de Montréal

Room 524 Salle 524

201 Viger Avenue West 201, avenue Viger Ouest

Montréal, Quebec Montréal (Québec)

February 4, 2003 Le 4 février 2003

Volume 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES

PAGE / PARA NO.

PRÉSENTATION / PRESENTATION

GENEX COMMUNICATIONS INC. 310 / 1529

CANWEST GLOBAL 415 / 2061

METROMEDIA CMR BROADCASTING INC. 488 / 2446

Montréal, Quebec / Montréal (Québec)

--- L'audience reprend le mardi 4 février 2003

à 0930 / Upon resuming on Tuesday, February 4,

2003 at 0930

1522 LE PRÉSIDENT: À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît. Order, please.

1523 Bonjour tout le monde. Monsieur le secrétaire?

1524 M. LeBEL: Merci, monsieur le président.

1525 Le prochain article à l'ordre du jour est une demande présentée par Genex Communications inc. en vue d'obtenir une licence visant l'exploitation d'une station de radio commerciale FM de langue française à Montréal.

1526 La nouvelle station serait exploitée à la fréquence 106,3 MHz, au canal 292A, avec une puissance apparente rayonnée de 275 watts.

1527 Comparaissant pour la requérante : monsieur Patrice Demers, monsieur Jean Morin ainsi que maître René Dion.

1528 Vous avez 20 minutes pour faire votre présentation.

PRÉSENTATION / PRESENTATION

1529 M. DEMERS: Bonjour. Monsieur le président, mesdames, messieurs les conseillers, membres du personnel.

1530 Je suis Patrice Demers, président directeur général de Genex Communications.

1531 Je suis accompagné aujourd'hui de monsieur Jean Morin, actionnaire de Genex, à ma gauche; et à ma droite, de maître René Dion du service juridique de Genex.

1532 Vous connaissez déjà Genex qui a été créée en 1996 et qui possède les stations CHOI et CKNU. Nous sommes une entreprise indépendante et présentons aujourd'hui une demande pour une nouvelle licence de radiodiffusion de format rock alternatif pour le marché de Montréal et comparaîtrons ultérieurement pour une seconde demande pour le marché de Sherbrooke.

1533 Le Conseil évalue les demandes de nouvelles stations de radio en fonction d'objectifs culturels, économiques et sociaux desquels se dégagent généralement quatre principaux facteurs.

1534 Nous avons appliqué chacun de ces facteurs et critères à notre demande et, d'entrée de jeu, nous soumettons que celle-ci répond parfaitement aux objectifs du Conseil.

1535 Quant à l'incidence probable d'un nouveau venu dans le marché de Montréal, un produit de type « Rock & Sports » complétera l'offre de programmation existante. Attendu la forte dispersion de l'écoute des hommes 18-44 ans, nous croyons qu'aucune station ne verrait ses parts d'écoute affectées de plus de 1 pour cent. Donc, nous n'aurons aucune incidence réelle sur les joueurs existants.

1536 La présence d'une station « Rock & Sports » dans le marché de Montréal permettrait de dynamiser l'écoute des stations de radio locales toujours en compétition avec d'autres plates-formes musicales.

1537 Par exemple, pour le groupe cible des hommes 18-44 ans, les stations locales francophones du marché de Québec obtiennent 26 pour cent de plus d'écoute que les stations locales de Montréal. Ainsi, nous sommes convaincus que l'ajout d'une station de format « Rock & Sports » permettrait d'améliorer la performance de la radio à Montréal.

1538 Quant à l'état de la concurrence dans le marché, si le Conseil approuvait notre demande, Genex serait la seule entreprise appartenant à des intérêts hors Montréal qui contrôle la destinée d'un média, lorsque l'on considère l'ensemble du paysage médiatique : radio, télévision et presse écrite.

1539 Les stations de radio dans ce marché appartiennent presque toutes à de grands groupes intégrés de radiodiffusion comme Astral, Corus ou Cogeco.

1540 Genex est un des plus importants radiodiffuseurs francophones indépendants du Québec et dispose de l'expertise pour faire vivre et développer un format spécialisé. Il est très clair que la venue d'un joueur régional renforcé améliorera l'équilibre concurrentiel du marché de Montréal mais également préservera l'équilibre en région.

1541 Quant à la répercussion sur la diversité des voix, nous sommes convaincus que l'approbation de notre demande contribuera à la diversité des voix éditoriales dans le marché, et ce, à plus d'un titre, par l'ajout d'une alternative régionale forte et par l'ajout d'un service entièrement local et indépendant.

1542 Quant à la qualité de notre demande, ce facteur est assorti généralement de quatre critères.

1543 Notre plan de programmation comprend 126 heures de production locale au niveau de son animation, 8 heures de production originale de nouvelles par semaine. Nous avons prévu l'embauche de quatre journalistes à temps plein, deux étant dédiés à l'actualité en général et deux autres aux sports.

1544 Nous sommes disposés à prendre trois engagements originaux et contributifs au développement des talents canadiens, mais surtout envers la relève rock alternatif, à titre de conditions de licence.

1545 En effet, premièrement, nous diffuserons un minimum de 25 pour cent de pièces musicales nouvelles; nous diffuserons un minimum de 10 pour cent de pièces musicales de langue française d'artistes de la relève; et nous diffuserons un minimum de 50 pour cent de pièces canadiennes.

1546 Ces trois conditions de licence sont une preuve tangible de l'engagement que Genex entend prendre face au contenu canadien, et particulièrement le contenu de langue française et les nouveautés.

1547 La nouvelle station pourra bénéficier de l'expertise de la direction de Genex et de la synergie avec sa station soeur de Québec, notamment au niveau de la direction musicale, de la recherche musicale et de l'administration en général. Cette synergie permettra à Genex d'atteindre le seuil de rentabilité plus rapidement et ainsi dégager une marge de profit.

1548 De plus, Genex offre une solidité financière adéquate pour supporter les coûts reliés à ce projet de nouvelle station et peut réaliser les objectifs fixés.

1549 Genex est fière d'annoncer un investissement très significatif de 100 000 $ à l'égard des talents canadiens : 73 000 $ seraient investis dans le projet Qué-Rock; et le résidu, 27 000 $ serait versé sous forme de contributions directes à un organisme tiers admissible. Même l'ADISQ considère que ce niveau de contribution est significatif, ce n'est pas peu dire.

1550 Dans la décision visant le transfert de CKNU sur Québec, le Conseil fait du comportement d'une requérante, quant à ses autres licences, un critère additionnel lorsqu'il évalue l'opportunité d'octroyer une licence de radiodiffusion.

1551 Nous traiterons donc du comportement de Genex comme titulaire de ces deux autres licences en ayant à l'esprit que si notre présentation sur ce point ne convainc pas le Conseil, nos chances sont limitées, voire nulles, quant à l'approbation de notre demande.

1552 Commençons brièvement par CKNU. Cette station a toujours un dossier exemplaire d'un point de vue réglementaire depuis son acquisition, et Genex a toujours eu une conduite responsable comme titulaire de cette licence et s'est toujours conformée aux exigences qui lui étaient imposées par le Conseil, et ce, malgré une situation financière précaire. Nous accumulons déficit par-dessus déficit, mais continuons d'offrir le service à la population de Portneuf.

1553 Quant à CHOI, nous sommes fiers de présenter au Conseil les réformes appliquées, car celles-ci répondent à l'ensemble des exigences découlant de la décision relative au renouvellement de sa licence. Nous avons même la prétention d'avoir pris davantage de mesures afin de satisfaire le Conseil.

1554 Le nombre de plaintes a considérablement diminué et le contenu de celles-ci ne s'apparente aucunement à celles évoquées lors de l'audience de février 2002. Il est impossible d'enrayer totalement les plaintes puisque les émissions de contenu verbal sont un lieu privilégié d'expression sur des sujets d'actualité, et les divergences d'opinion constituent la base de notre démocratie.

1555 Aucune infraction réglementaire n'a été constatée concernant les autres aspects examinés par la décision, soit la musique vocale de langue française, la diffusion de pièces musicales en versions courtes, la diffusion de montages musicaux, l'incitation à consommer des boissons alcooliques, l'utilisation de la langue anglaise en ondes et la soumission de rubans témoins.

1556 CHOI est maintenant membre de l'ACR et du Conseil canadien des normes de la radiodiffusion et diffuse quotidiennement aux heures de grande écoute un message à l'effet que les auditeurs peuvent exprimer leurs préoccupations soit à la direction, au Conseil canadien des normes ou au CRTC, et explique la procédure à suivre.

1557 CHOI a également mis à la disposition de ses auditeurs un droit de réplique et diffuse quotidiennement aux heures de grande écoute un message indiquant la procédure à suivre pour se prémunir d'un tel droit de réplique.

1558 CHOI se conforme à ses obligations en matière de développement des talents canadiens et a, pour l'année financière en cours, approché MUSICACTION pour le versement de la somme de 8 000 $ en demandant à MUSICACTION de répondre aux préoccupations exprimées par le Conseil, notamment quant à l'opportunité que les sommes soient allouées aux talents locaux.

1559 CHOI a constitué un comité aviseur, lequel a été approuvé par le Conseil le 29 janvier dernier quant au mandat qui lui sera confié et son fonctionnement.

1560 CHOI a mis en place un système de délai de quelques secondes qui permet aux animateurs en devoir de censurer des interventions jugées problématiques.

1561 Enfin, Genex a embauché maître Dion qui a mis en place notre contentieux et qui a comme mandat de nous conseiller, ainsi que les animateurs, sur l'application des conditions de licence, de notre code de déontologie ainsi que l'ensemble de la réglementation et de la « Loi sur la radiodiffusion ».

1562 Ces deux dernières mesures sont en sus des conditions imposées par le Conseil et prises de l'initiative de Genex afin d'ajouter la ceinture aux bretelles.

1563 En conséquence de ce qui précède, il est clair que nous nous sommes conformés en tous points aux exigences du Conseil et nous avons vu à corriger les lacunes autrefois constatées.

1564 Je veux maintenant vous parler avec une certaine insistance du genre musical offert par la proposition de Genex et de l'importance cruciale que ces demandes représentent pour l'industrie rock alternatif du Québec.

1565 Historiquement, le CRTC a toujours veillé à ce que la radio reflète la diversité culturelle du Canada, notamment au niveau du format musical. Il y a déjà plusieurs années, Genex a pris avec CHOI le pari audacieux d'inclure dans cette diversité musicale le rock alternatif, et il s'avère que ce pari fut gagné, du moins en partie, car ce format a trouvé des centaines de milliers de preneurs et a grandement réconcilié les jeunes de Québec avec la radio commerciale francophone.

1566 Cette expérience nous amène à affirmer, sans l'ombre d'un doute, qu'il est possible d'exploiter une station de format rock alternatif au Québec. Voici un court historique de CHOI afin de donner un contexte à notre propos.

1567 CHOI amorce son virage rock en 1994. En 1996, elle s'oriente vers le rock alternatif pour conquérir le marché plus volatil que sont les 18-34 ans, les jeunes. Premier défi : trouver du matériel rock alternatif francophone pour répondre aux quotas de 65 pour cent de contenu.

1568 Nous devions utiliser toute la flexibilité offerte par la réglementation pour exploiter le matériel à son plein rendement. L'adoption de la « Politique de 1998 concernant la radio commerciale » a considérablement limité cette flexibilité en imposant des quotas aux heures de grande écoute.

1569 Deux conséquences directes de cette nouvelle réglementation.

1570 Dans un premier temps, nous avons augmenté le contenu verbal dans l'émission du matin afin de réduire le nombre de pièces musicales diffusées et permettre ainsi la différenciation du format.

1571 Dans un deuxième temps, Qué-Rock fut lancé pour accroître la production de matériel rock alternatif francophone.

1572 Genex a déjà présenté au Conseil cette initiative nommée Qué-Rock en insistant sur son apport vital au rock alternatif francophone, apport qui n'est pas offert par d'autres organismes. Le Conseil a estimé que le projet Qué-Rock ne respectait pas l'esprit de la politique actuelle.

1573 Cette non-reconnaissance du projet Qué-Rock de la part du Conseil a donné un dur coup à CHOI, qui comptait beaucoup sur cette initiative pour s'approvisionner en matériel rock alternatif et s'affirmer comme un leader du développement de nouveaux talents, statut qui nous est attribué par l'ensemble de l'industrie : CHOI est un « hit maker ».

1574 Quand la majorité des radiodiffuseurs se contente de jouer des pièces d'artistes établis, si ce n'est des pièces ayant été diffusées, rediffusées et re-rediffusées, CHOI ose, CHOI s'investit, CHOI lance et diffuse de nouvelles pièces des artistes de la relève. Les 21 interventions favorables à notre demande sont un réel témoignage du succès de notre projet envers la relève.

1575 Malgré nos efforts pour appuyer le contenu musical, nous devons de plus en plus nous appuyer sur le contenu verbal. Et, attention, ces ajouts de contenu verbal au détriment de la musique ne se font pas au détriment des cotes d'écoute. Au contraire, CHOI ne s'est jamais portée aussi bien et est maintenant une des stations de tête à Québec.

1576 Nous, CHOI, envisageons sérieusement l'adoption d'un format à 100 pour cent de contenu verbal à très court terme. Notre produit le plus dispendieux, la musique, ne joue plus qu'aux heures de faible écoute, et nous le déplorons.

1577 Déjà, nous ne diffusons aucune pièce musicale le matin entre 6 h 30 et 9 heures; aucune pièce musicale le midi entre 12 heures et 13 heures; aucune pièce musicale au retour entre 15 heures et 18 heures. Nous diffusons de moins en moins de musique tout court. Des économies substantielles peuvent être réalisées en adoptant la formule à 100 pour cent de contenu verbal.

1578 Qu'adviendra-t-il de la diversité? Trois formats seulement demeureront : les « all talk », les « Top 40 » et les « Rock détente ».

1579 J'ai mentionné les grands objectifs de diversité et la mission que s'est donnée le Conseil de promouvoir, de préserver cette diversité musicale. Quelle est la diversité que l'on retrouve présentement en ondes au Québec? Qui sont nos artistes rock? Un nom qui nous vient tous en tête lorsqu'on pense à un artiste rock au Québec, c'est Éric Lapointe.

1580 Pourtant, si on applique notre raisonnement sur le marché de Québec, Éric Lapointe joue régulièrement à CHIK, joue régulièrement à CITF, joue régulièrement à CJMF, joue régulièrement à CFOM, joue régulièrement à CHRC, et parions que ses chansons seront également tournées à la nouvelle station accordée à Cogeco.

1581 En fait, il n'y a plus de formats musicaux. La plupart des stations que je viens de mentionner ont fait un virage verbal depuis quelques années. La musique a été remplacée par des animateurs. La musique coûte trop cher pour ce qu'elle rapporte et ne permet pas de se distinguer de la concurrence.

1582 CHOI présente une émission à contenu verbal le matin, le midi et dans le retour à la maison. CHIK présente une émission à contenu verbal le matin, le midi et dans le retour à la maison. CJMF présente une émission à contenu verbal le matin, le midi et dans le retour à la maison. CHRC présente une émission à contenu verbal le matin, le midi et dans le retour à la maison. C'est deux tiers des stations de Québec qui sont à prédominance verbale aux heures de grande écoute.

1583 Autre fait alarmant : la jeunesse québécoise s'est détournée de la radio et plusieurs ont fait le saut vers des stations anglophones, les autres supports audio ou encore l'Internet. Le Conseil est d'ailleurs bien au fait de cette situation tragique pour s'en être inquiété dans le passé.

1584 Nous vous soulignons que la demande pour le rock alternatif est en grande partie celle des jeunes. Les jeunes s'identifient à la musique, ce n'est pas nouveau. Est-ce en leur donnant plusieurs réseaux semblables de rock détente que nous les réconcilierons avec le médium qui fait notre passion? Poser la question, c'est y répondre.

1585 En quoi la multiplication des réseaux montréalais semblables sert la diversité? Est-ce que les politiques du Conseil ont comme effet d'éliminer progressivement des ondes la musique? Nous ne cherchons pas à provoquer mais à allumer des lumières. Aidez-nous!

1586 En fait, trois éléments doivent changer pour permettre au rock alternatif de se développer, réconcilier les jeunes avec la radio et favoriser la diversité dans les formats musicaux.

1587 Premièrement, réviser la réglementation quant au contenu francophone. Deuxièmement, développer davantage les talents canadiens, et particulièrement les artistes rock alternatif francophone. Et enfin, troisièmement, il doit y avoir des stations de radio assurant la diversité et la diffusion de la musique rock alternatif francophone dans les marchés importants.

1588 Le pourcentage de pièces francophones exigé est trop important pour permettre la survie des formats musicaux. Toutes les stations se ressemblent, et les auditeurs s'en plaignent ardemment. Plus le pourcentage des pièces francophones exigé est élevé, plus l'approvisionnement en matériel doit être important pour assurer une sélection de qualité.

1589 L'inventaire est restreint lorsqu'on sort de la norme « populaire » ou « rock détente ». Une solution à cet épineux problème existe et fait l'objet de discussions de coulisses depuis de nombreuses années : bonifier la diffusion de nouveautés, et c'est d'ailleurs une des initiatives originales de notre demande d'inclure 25 pour cent de pièces nouvelles et 10 pour cent d'artistes de la relève.

1590 Comprenons-nous bien : nous ne remettons pas en question la loi et la réglementation, ce n'est pas le forum. Cependant, soyez assurés qu'en temps opportun, lorsqu'il sera question de réviser les politiques actuelles, Genex participera activement au processus.

1591 Quant à l'industrie musicale, il faut revoir la structure de nos investissements dans le développement des talents. Certains prétendent être les grands défenseurs de l'industrie du disque, nous prétendons qu'ils protègent les acquis de certains producteurs.

1592 Ils prétendent qu'Internet est la plus grande menace au monde et réclament subventions, crédits d'impôt, aides des gouvernements et des radiodiffuseurs pour leurs membres. Ils prétendent que MUSICACTION est le seul véhicule propre à développer les talents québécois. Nous prétendons que MUSICACTION néglige toute représentativité régionale et n'encourage que les producteurs et les artistes établis.

1593 Alors qu'au Canada anglais il existe une saine collaboration entre Factor, le fonds RadioStar, les radiodiffuseurs et les compagnies de disques, le tout ayant contribué à l'essor d'artistes tels Nickelback, Default, Our Lady Peace et Sum 41, au Québec c'est la confrontation, les revendications, les radiodiffuseurs n'ont que les profits en tête, les associations de producteurs que la protection des acquits; quota, pression politique, poursuite judiciaire sont tous des instruments pour la défense des acquis des membres de l'ADISQ ou des sautes d'humeur de sa direction.

1594 Nous prétendons qu'il est temps de redonner aux radiodiffuseurs l'accès à la musique, de redonner aux artistes l'accès aux stations de radio et de redonner aux Québécois la musique qu'ils veulent entendre. Ne sont-ils pas les vrais bénéficiaires du système de radiodiffusion?

1595 Quant au développement du genre rock alternatif, il faut encourager les initiatives existantes, tel Qué-Rock. Vous avez pu entendre le cri du coeur de plusieurs intervenants, musiciens, artistes, producteurs, groupes de la relève rock alternatif.

1596 Permettez-nous d'en nommer quelques-uns : Julien Martre du groupe Flangers, issu du projet Qué-Rock, qui joue à CHOI et qui ne joue pas ailleurs; Simon LaRochelle du groupe Wide Load, qui joue à CHOI et qui ne joue pas ailleurs; Pascal Lamontagne, qui joue à CHOI et qui ne joue pas ailleurs; François Vincent; Jean-Sébastien Arseneau; Jérôme Smith; Jean-Sébastien Blais de Pure Random, issu du projet Qué-Rock, qui joue à CHOI et qui ne joue pas ailleurs; Christian Bernard de Nucleair Jet, issu du projet Qué-Rock, qui joue à CHOI et qui ne joue pas ailleurs.

1597 Plusieurs autres musiciens et groupes rock alternatif ont également appuyé nos demandes. Sans doute ne connaissez-vous aucun de ces artistes et ça, ça fait partie de la problématique.

1598 La décision quant à la reconnaissance du projet Qué-Rock est donc cruciale à l'industrie. Genex parraine et finance des groupes de la relève rock alternatif depuis quatre ans, et ce, sans que ses dépenses soient réellement reconnues par le CRTC.

1599 Pourtant, les résultats sont probants : dans le « Top 100 2002 francophone » de l'ADISQ, New Rock Studio a placé six chansons, la plupart issues du projet Qué-Rock.

1600 Cette initiative de parrainage de la relève musicale fut même copiée par nos collègues radiodiffuseurs, tel qu'Astral lors de l'acquisition de Télémédia, mais le Conseil n'a pas encouragé ce type de projet.

1601 Laissez donc aux radiodiffuseurs le soin d'investir leur argent dans leur produit. À titre expérimental, donnez donc aux initiatives originales et valables la chance de survivre.

1602 Voici maintenant un court extrait sonore qui vous illustrera clairement en quoi le format rock alternatif est différent.

--- Clip audio / Audio clip

1603 Ça brasse, c'est dynamique, ce n'est sûrement pas votre musique favorite, mais c'est ça que les jeunes aiment, c'est ça que les jeunes veulent entendre.

1604 Les artistes rock alternatif doivent pouvoir compter sur un médium afin de rejoindre les auditeurs et ainsi promouvoir leurs oeuvres. La radio fait connaître les artistes, tout le monde le sait. Aucune antenne ne permet la diffusion des artistes rock alternatif francophones à Montréal. Seule Québec, par le biais de CHOI, leur permet de rejoindre leur clientèle.

1605 En fait, les résultats sont excellents, mais le marché est trop petit, les ventes se portent mal et les artistes se découragent. Sans une nouvelle station rock alternatif à Montréal et sans l'apport de Qué-Rock, la conséquence tragique est la suivante : il n'y aura plus d'industrie rock alternatif au Québec.

1606 Comment solutionner ce cercle vicieux? La seule et unique façon à brève échéance d'éviter cette mort est de donner au rock alternatif les antennes dont il a besoin pour rejoindre son public cible et stimuler le marché.

1607 Nul besoin de souligner l'importance du marché de Montréal quant à la population desservie. Genex est la requérante qui offre ce format musical et la seule capable de l'exploiter avec succès.

1608 La musique est maintenant en ondes sur les heures de faible écoute, et c'est l'industrie musicale qui en souffre. J'ai mentionné et je le répète : si nous ne pouvons travailler à corriger cette situation en stimulant l'industrie du disque et en donnant des licences pour diffuser les oeuvres de nouveaux artistes ou encore de nouvelles oeuvres d'artistes existants, notre industrie québécoise est menacée.

1609 Nous en sommes au dernier round de notre combat pour la survie du format rock alternatif et sommes à un iota de lancer la serviette.

1610 Le message que nous vous livrons aujourd'hui n'est qu'un pâle reflet d'un cri du coeur de toute l'industrie du rock alternatif qui est actuellement à l'agonie.

1611 Le message est clair : le sort du rock alternatif québécois, si ce n'est la vitalité de l'industrie radiophonique auprès des jeunes, est maintenant entre vos mains. C'est donc bien humblement que nous vous demandons de bien vouloir accéder à notre demande de nouvelles licences sur le marché de Montréal.

1612 En conclusion, quels que soient les problèmes que nous ayons vécus, en particulier dans le dossier de CHOI, nous souhaitons ardemment que le Conseil prendra acte de tous les correctifs apportés et dont nous avons fait état précédemment, et que ces réalités sauront primer sur les perceptions négatives qui ont pu découler de cette situation.

1613 Nous sommes maintenant disposés à répondre à vos questions.

1614 LE PRÉSIDENT: Merci, monsieur Demers. Je donne la parole au conseiller Jean-Marc Demers.

1615 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci, monsieur le président. Bonjour monsieur Demers, monsieur Morin, maître Dion.

1616 Alors, peut-être juste une petite précision, monsieur Demers, à la page du texte que vous venez... enfin, je vais juste lire, c'était là où vous dites : aucune pièce musicale le matin entre 6 h 30 et 10 heures. Vous avez dit : « 6 h 30 et 9 heures », ce n'est pas parce que vous vouliez changer ça?

1617 M. DEMERS: C'est bien un lapsus.

1618 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord.

1619 M. DEMERS: C'est 6 h 30 et 10 heures.

1620 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Merci.

1621 Évidemment, lorsque vous avez parlé de révision réglementaire et d'autres questions, je me demandais quelle était la solution que vous alliez nous suggérer, mais je pense qu'elle est venue à la fin quand vous avez dit que ce qu'il faut pour ça c'est donner des licences de rock alternatif.

1622 C'est parce qu'à l'avant-dernière page vous dites :

1623 M. DEMERS: En fait, ce qu'on essaie d'expliquer c'est que ça passe par trois solutions, trois éléments de solution.

1624 Je pense qu'on va devoir revoir la manière qu'on peut utiliser le contenu francophone à l'intérieur d'une station de radio rock alternatif. Toutefois, ce n'était pas nécessairement le forum aujourd'hui pour pouvoir en débattre.

1625 Et notre initiative de se commettre pour jouer de nouvelles pièces d'artistes de la relève ou encore de nouvelles pièces d'artistes existants, c'est pour donner l'opportunité à ces artistes-là de pouvoir jouer à la radio.

1626 C'est certain que de jouer à la radio c'est important, mais il faut aussi qu'il y ait des antennes qui veulent prendre ces chances-là. Aujourd'hui, il n'y en a pas à Montréal qui donnent la chance aux artistes rock alternatif. Et il faut les appuyer davantage au niveau du développement.

1627 Trois éléments : revoir la réglementation, investir davantage dans la production et donner des antennes pour le diffuser.

1628 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Mettons une question tout à fait directe mais sur laquelle vous pourriez... ce n'est pas un défi, mais pourquoi n'y aurait-il pas eu des entreprises qui en feraient? Pourquoi des entreprises n'en font-elles pas du rock alternatif actuellement? Outre, bien sûr, mais même là vous avez semblé indiquer qu'à Québec ça change un peu, mais pourquoi?

1629 M. DEMERS: Pourquoi il ne s'en fait pas actuellement? Parce qu'il n'y a pas de débouché. Parce que, comme je l'ai dit, nous avons investi massivement. À l'heure actuelle, il n'y a pas de station de radio qui n'en joue. Donc, les disques ne se vendent pas; donc, ce n'est pas rentable.

1630 Pourtant, au Canada, au Canada anglais, j'ai nommé plusieurs « bands » qui ont réussi à percer le marché international parce qu'ils ont été appuyés par des stations rock puis des stations alternatives. Ça existe à Vancouver, ça existe à Toronto. Pourtant à Montréal, ça n'existe pas.

1631 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Je comprends peut-être mieux. Alors, là vous parlez du rock alternatif francophone, ou enfin dans le territoire de la langue française?

1632 M. DEMERS: Exact.

1633 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Et le public est là, et les jeunes sont là prêts à en vouloir, mais les entreprises ne sentent pas le besoin de mettre ça en ondes, sauf vous?

1634 M. DEMERS: Je ne peux pas juger des intentions de tous les radiodiffuseurs de Montréal jusqu'à maintenant.

1635 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Pas d'intentions ici, là on parle des faits.

1636 M. DEMERS: Les faits sont que, non, on ne prend pas de chance. Il y avait une station qui prenait des chances jusqu'à récemment, qui s'appelle CKOO FM à Montréal, puis qui a décidé de l'abandonner parce que l'industrie de la radio est généralement bâtie pour aller rejoindre la clientèle prisée par les annonceurs, hommes ou femmes 25-54, et tout le monde vise toujours le créneau des gens un peu plus âgés.

1637 Bâtir un format spécialisé qui vise les jeunes, c'est un défi. Il y a moins d'annonceurs qui sont intéressés à ce type de format là. On l'a réussi à Québec, puis on en est fiers, mais c'est généralement une station que tu ne peux pas aspirer à être une station de tête, tu ne peux pas aspirer à avoir des revenus comme si on visait un marché.

1638 Les baby-boomers qu'on a entendu parler toute la journée hier, c'est sûr que c'est le marché le plus lucratif. Les annonceurs, c'est ça qu'ils recherchent. Sauf que si toutes les stations visent le même créneau, ça ne donne pas de diversité. Et ça ne donne pas de chances aux jeunes, aux artistes rock et puis aux jeunes d'écouter la radio.

1639 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Maintenant, une autre question qui ne se rapporte pas, je vais laisser votre document de ce matin maintenant. Vous avez deux demandes devant nous, là, pour établir la relation entre la demande Montréal et Sherbrooke. Y en a-t-il une, est-ce que ce sont deux demandes que le Conseil peut considérer divisibles, chacune d'elles est particulière?

1640 M. DEMERS: Chacune d'elles est particulière, elles sont divisibles.

1641 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Une décision peut être rendue dans l'une et ça ne suit pas que la même chose doit être dans l'autre?

1642 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

1643 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci.

1644 M. DEMERS: Ce qu'on a tenté d'exprimer ce matin, particulièrement pour le marché de Montréal, c'était l'importance de Montréal comme plate-forme pour la musique au Québec. Sherbrooke est un marché qui est fort intéressant. On pense qu'il y a de la place pour une station, mais n'aurait pas nécessairement les mêmes impacts sur l'industrie musicale.

1645 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Et quand on sera dans Sherbrooke, probablement que vous vous ferez poser la question si Sherbrooke peut vivre ça, en d'autres mots? Et ce que vous me dites, c'est : oui, vous faites votre demande même si Montréal, quoiqu'on comprend ce que vous voulez dire pour Montréal, et on va poursuivre là-dessus, mais...

1646 M. DEMERS: Si je peux me permettre d'ajouter un élément?

1647 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Oui.

1648 M. DEMERS: Toutefois, on a littéralement choisi de ne pas le faire dans les autres marchés puisqu'on considérait que les marchés étaient un peu trop petits, et particulièrement le marché de Trois-Rivières où la station CHOI de Québec rejoint les jeunes et est vraiment en position de tête auprès des adultes 18-24 ans dans le marché de Trois-Rivières déjà. Et puis je pense c'est une preuve tangible de l'intérêt des jeunes pour un format rock alternatif.

1649 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci beaucoup. Alors, je vais aller dans mon scénario à moi. Je vais vous poser plusieurs questions sur à peu près tous les sujets dont vous avez entendu les questions à d'autres hier : la programmation, les synergies, votre formule musicale par rapport à celle existante, le contenu canadien, le développement des talents canadiens, la diversité culturelle, votre plan d'affaires, les revenus publicitaires, la capacité de Montréal de soutenir des nouvelles stations. Et je finirai par quelques questions d'ordre technique par rapport à la fréquence.

1650 Alors, si on va tout de suite dans la programmation, pouvez-vous expliquer comment votre station se démarquera des autres dans la région de Montréal en matière de programmation locale et régionale?

1651 M. DEMERS: La réponse est la musique, la musique, la musique. Oui, on va avoir des animateurs qui vont la présenter. Oui, on va tenter de faire de l'information. Oui, on va tenter de couvrir le milieu sportif davantage parce que c'est un sujet d'intérêt. Mais notre « commitment » est de jouer de la musique différente.

1652 CONSEILLER DEMERS: C'est ça alors votre demande, et vous la confirmez bien, vous écrivez votre formule de programmation comme étant axée sur le rock alternatif. Alors, pouvez-vous expliquer dans quelle mesure la formule proposée, pour Montréal bien sûr, est différente de celle de CHOI FM. Vous en avez peut-être touché un peu tout à l'heure, dans votre présentation, mais par rapport à CHOI, pour qu'on comprenne bien votre projet pour Montréal.

1653 M. DEMERS: C'est sûr que le marché de Montréal est un marché plus compétitif à cause du nombre d'antennes qu'il y a de présentes dans le marché. Notre projet est de faire une station essentiellement axée sur la musique sans de grandes émissions à contenu verbal, que ce soit la matin ou au retour.

1654 On prévoit d'aller chercher une infime partie du marché publicitaire et de l'écoute de par cette spécialisation. Alors, si j'avais à la comparer à CHOI : la même musique, on la joue davantage toutefois, mais on investit beaucoup moins au niveau du contenu verbal.

1655 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Donc, tout à l'heure vous avez indiqué que CHOI n'avait pas de musique au début de la journée alors qu'à Montréal ça pourrait être le cas?

1656 M. DEMERS: Ce serait musical, effectivement.

1657 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Alors, vous avez indiqué que votre station produira environ 126 heures de programmation locale/semaine; pouvez-vous préciser le nombre d'heures, minutes de créations orales comprises dans cette programmation locale?

1658 M. DEMERS: Ça dépend de ce que vous entendez par « créations orales ». Dans le fond, notre projet c'est d'avoir une station 100 pour cent locale. Bien souvent dans le passé, puis je pense qu'on l'a mentionné au niveau du mémoire supplémentaire, la technologie a beaucoup évolué au niveau de la radio depuis plusieurs années.

1659 On est capables d'être en mode automation à plusieurs heures à peu de frais pour pouvoir être 100 pour cent local. Alors, on va mettre la technologie au service de cette antenne pour pouvoir diffuser de la musique.

1660 Contenu verbal ou créations orales, on n'a pas nécessairement mesuré le nombre de minutes qui seraient consacrées à l'information. Au niveau du bulletin de nouvelles on l'a compté, mais il n'y aura pas de lignes ouvertes, il n'y aura pas de commentaires. Ce serait essentiellement, comme je vous le disais, basé sur la musique.

1661 Alors, il n'y aura pas d'émissions de créations orales à contenu verbal.

1662 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Alors, peut-être ça va revenir, mais ça serait quoi le genre d'émissions locales? Donc, êtes-vous capable de nous donner une image de ça plus particulièrement?

1663 M. DEMERS: Un jeune, d'abord, qui serait animateur, qui va présenter sûrement une compilation des meilleures chansons qui sont demandées, en se contentant de couvrir l'actualité musicale et la météo, des choses très, très « basic » dans le quotidien d'un jeune.

1664 Comme je vous dis, le point de différenciation et puis le gros morceau de la programmation s'appellent la musique. Beaucoup de musique originale.

1665 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Alors, prenons la partie nouvelle qui, sans doute, n'est pas une quantité énorme, ça se passerait comment en ce qui concerne les nouvelles? Pouvez-vous préciser 8,25 heures par semaine qui seraient consacrées? Pouvez-vous préciser le pourcentage qui serait dévoué aux nouvelles locales et régionales?

1666 M. DEMERS: Faire la distinction entre le local et régional, la question que nous on se pose lorsqu'on fait un bulletin de nouvelles pour le jeune, c'est qu'est-ce qu'il doit savoir lorsqu'il va arriver à l'école, lorsqu'il va arriver dans son environnement de travail puis qu'est-ce qui l'intéresse.

1667 Puis la commande qu'on a toujours passée à nos journalistes par corrélation probablement à un journal écrit, à la presse écrite c'est : est-ce qu'on peut avoir le « front page »? Il faut avoir les grosses histoires de la journée, qu'elles soient locales, qu'elles se passent à Montréal ou qu'elles se passent... La guerre de l'Iraq, c'est un événement majeur, je pense que ça intéresse tout le monde, il faut le couvrir.

1668 Alors, je dirais qu'on n'a pas fait de distinction au niveau des nouvelles en ce qui a trait au local, régional, national ou international, c'est vraiment de savoir qu'est-ce qui se passe dans un bulletin de nouvelles relativement condensé.

1669 Toutefois, on se commet envers le sport, à savoir qu'on va investir autant au niveau du sport qu'au niveau de l'actualité, parce qu'on pense que c'est porteur, les jeunes sont intéressés, le milieu du sport a évolué énormément aussi dans les dernières années auprès des jeunes. Ce n'est plus simplement Le Canadien de Montréal, le sport, ou Les Expos de Montréal.

1670 Les jeunes sont intéressés par la course automobile, le football, le soccer, le basket-ball, et pour nous ça s'est morcelé énormément, les jeunes s'adressent à toutes sortes d'activités sportives et vont suivre les activités de celles-ci.

1671 C'est pour ça qu'on investit autant d'efforts pour couvrir le sport que pour couvrir l'actualité.

1672 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Peut-être dans un autre aspect local et régional, est-ce qu'il y a des localités de la région que vous pourriez décrire comme étant les endroits d'où vont provenir vos nouvelles locales ou régionales?

1673 M. DEMERS: Si vous avez vu le mémoire technique, notre couverture est essentiellement limitée à l'île de Montréal. Donc, on se consacrerait davantage à tout ce qui se passe sur l'île, c'est vraiment la région.

1674 Le sens local prend peut-être un peu sa saveur quand on parle de sport, parce que l'attachement est très souvent envers l'équipe sportive professionnelle ou semi-professionnelle ou même amateur qui est de la localité même. Alors, peut-être même dans ce contexte du sport, la saveur locale serait plus présente.

1675 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Indirectement vous l'avez peut-être couvert, mais vous ne l'avez pas indiqué. Les sources d'approvisionnement de nouvelles, et vous pouvez peut-être rattacher ça à vos quatre journalistes, là, est-ce que c'est quelque chose qui...

1676 M. DEMERS: Quatre journalistes pour faire une couverture, je dirais presque 24 heures par jour sur une antenne à deux niveaux d'activités, autant sport que d'information, on ne peut pas s'imaginer d'avoir des reporters sur le terrain énormément.

1677 C'est vraiment beaucoup plus des lecteurs des nouvelles, ou du moins des gens qui vont s'approvisionner auprès des médias conventionnels, que ce soit télévision, Radio-Canada, Internet et les journaux écrits, et puis qui vont dans le fond aller chercher l'essentiel de l'information dans une perspective jeune.

1678 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Ces journalistes-là vont être exclusivement dévoués à la station de Montréal?

1679 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

1680 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce qu'il y a une responsabilité du contrôle éditorial à Montréal?

1681 M. DEMERS: On a prévu un directeur des programmes à l'intérieur de la station et on a appris de nos expériences passées qu'il faut suivre religieusement ce que nos animateurs peuvent dire ou les commentaires qu'ils peuvent apporter. Et on entend y mettre les mêmes efforts qu'on a pu le faire dans les stations soeurs.

1682 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce que vous avez prévu des moments précis de bulletins de nouvelles durant la journée et à quelle heure?

1683 M. DEMERS: Je crois qu'au niveau de notre mémoire supplémentaire on avait fait valoir qu'il y en aurait particulièrement le matin et dans le retour, c'est les deux pôles principaux, en ce qui a trait à l'actualité, puis je pense que le matin est un lieu vraiment privilégié pour l'actualité, c'est là qu'on fait souvent le suivi.

1684 Et, de toute façon, un lieu privilégié pour la radio en général où est-ce que les cotes d'écoute ou le potentiel d'écoute est le plus important.

1685 Le sport, quant à lui, au contraire de l'actualité, se passe souvent dans les moments où l'actualité est plus faible et plus souvent le week-end, le soir, d'où c'est aussi une initiative un peu originale que de couvrir l'actualité sportive en soirée, en week-end, des heures que le potentiel d'écoute est peut-être moins élevé.

1686 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Donc, les autres bulletins de nouvelles moins sports seront aux heures de grande écoute, c'est ça?

1687 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

1688 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Principalement. Dans la programmation aux affaires publiques, alors vous avez confirmé ce matin et lors des lacunes vous avez affirmé qu'aucune émission d'affaire de type de celle diffusée à CHOI FM n'est prévue pour la station de Montréal, c'est exact?

1689 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

1690 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce à dire que vous ne prévoyez pas diffuser... Oui, c'est ça, vous ne prévoyez pas actuellement d'affaires publiques?

1691 M. DEMERS: Aucune.

1692 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Pouvez-vous décrire le contenu des émissions du matin de la station? Vous nous en avez parlé à l'angle que vous voulez y mettre, mais pourriez-vous revenir là-dessus un peu?

1693 M. DEMERS: Je voudrais peut-être un exemple pour expliquer ce qu'on a en tête. Pour moi, ça devrait être dix pièces musicales à l'heure. On a déjà prévu des bulletins de nouvelles d'une durée de quatre minutes; il y en a deux à l'heure, donc il reste peu de temps pour faire quoi que ce soit d'autre.

1694 Information, sport, musique. Et à titre d'exemple très concret, pas de circulation. Dans les stations de radio de Montréal, la circulation prend une large part souvent du temps d'antenne lors du matin, et je comprends que c'est une préoccupation.

1695 J'ai moi-même travaillé au centre-ville pendant dix ans et le trafic devient très important dans le quotidien, sauf que c'est une réalité que les gens apprennent à vivre et que les jeunes, on le sait, dépendamment de la température de la journée quand est-ce qu'il y a beaucoup de trafic et il n'y a nullement besoin d'avoir 10 ou 12 minutes à l'heure pour rappeler que le pont Jacques-Cartier est congestionné.

1696 Alors, on pense se démarquer, comme j'ai dit, d'abord et avant tout par notre musique, et on a, je dirais, un travail de défrichage à faire au niveau du rock. Si le rock vit bien en Amérique du Nord, aux États-Unis de manière incroyable, au Canada anglais de manière incroyable, au Québec, particulièrement à Montréal, il n'y a pas de culture ou d'antenne qui a été présente au format rock alternatif depuis... Il n'y en a jamais eu peut-être.

1697 Alors, on ne peut pas s'imaginer que demain on va arriver avec une station rock alternative et qu'on va connaître un succès extraordinaire instantané. La musique est appréciée par les auditeurs, c'est une musique qu'ils connaissent, qu'ils ont déjà entendue, un style de musique qu'ils connaissent, des artistes qu'ils connaissent.

1698 Et c'est ça la problématique à l'heure actuelle pour les artistes de pénétrer le marché de Montréal : ils sont inconnus. On ne réussira pas à les faire connaître en six mois, deux ans. C'est vraiment un plan à long terme de cinq ans, de dix ans pour développer et offrir aux jeunes de la musique qu'ils veulent. Et ils vont apprendre à l'apprécier.

1699 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Dans ces émissions du matin, vous n'envisagez pas de capsule qui viendrait, par exemple, de CKNU?

1700 M. DEMERS: Aucunement.

1701 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Ou de CHOI?

1702 M. DEMERS: Si la question est de savoir si on a l'intention d'utiliser Jeff Filion ou André Arthur sur les ondes de notre station de Montréal, la réponse est non.

1703 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Pas de capsule des deux stations?

1704 M. DEMERS: Ni l'une ni l'autre.

1705 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, le code de déontologie, vous en avez parlé tout à l'heure. Vous affirmez vouloir appliquer le code de déontologie de CHOI à la station de Montréal. Suite à l'expérience acquise de l'application de ce code à CHOI, anticipez-vous des modifications pour l'application à Montréal?

1706 M. DEMERS: Comme je l'ai dit, et attendu qu'on n'a pas d'émission à contenu verbal aussi important qu'on peut en avoir à Québec, sans vouloir enlever de l'importance au code de déontologie, lorsqu'on donne comme mandat à un animateur de présenter une pièce et de présenter l'actualité et le « front page » du journal, il y a beaucoup moins de risques de contrevenir à des choses prévues par le code de déontologie.

1707 Il n'y a pas d'émission à opinion ou de lignes ouvertes, donc les risques sont beaucoup moins présents. Pas qu'on veut s'en soustraire ou qu'on ne veut pas l'inclure dans notre mode d'opération. On a d'ailleurs baptisé le code de déontologie de Genex, qu'on essaie d'appliquer à toutes nos antennes et puis qu'on demande à tous nos animateurs d'appliquer.

1708 On va le demander aux animateurs de Montréal mais, comme je le mentionnais, leur mandat n'étant pas aussi élaboré au niveau du contenu verbal, les risques sont beaucoup moins présents.

1709 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, dans le dossier de renouvellement de CHOI, concrétisé par la décision 2002-189, vous aviez dans ce dossier-là proposé trois mesures principales de redressement dans le but de mieux baliser le contenu verbal diffusé par la station, en particulier, vous vous rappelez, vous en avez parlé tout à l'heure, le comité aviseur, le fait qu'il y avait les codes de l'ACR et du CCNR, et la diffusion de messages, trois questions que vous n'avez couvertes dans votre présentation verbale.

1710 Accepteriez-vous une condition de licence à l'effet de vous obliger à implanter ces trois mesures à la station de Montréal?

1711 M. DEMERS: En principe, aucun problème. Bien que, comme vous le savez, les conditions de licence imposées à un radiodiffuseur sont souvent vues comme des balises qu'on impose, sont mal perçues par l'industrie, les gens ont l'impression qu'on n'est pas nécessairement de bons radiodiffuseurs à cause de ces conditions de licence là.

1712 Je pense que les efforts qu'on a faits à Québec ont donné des résultats. On l'a même fait valoir dans notre présentation, on en a fait plus que ce qui était imposé comme conditions de licence, et on est déterminés à poursuivre dans ces efforts-là.

1713 Est-ce que c'est réellement nécessaire que ce soit imposé comme conditions de licence? Si le Conseil le croyait, je ne vois pas nécessairement de problème à ce qu'elles le soient aussi.

1714 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. En quelque sorte, même si vous avez réduit un peu la formule musicale à CHOI, il reste qu'il y a une bonne ressemblance, en tout cas par rapport à d'autres stations ça serait probablement la plus proche, entre CHOI et puis votre projet.

1715 Pour rencontrer les exigences de musique vocale de langue française dans ce format, CHOI indiquait faire appel aux pièces écourtées et aux montages, vous vous rappelez, et dans la décision le Conseil a traité de ces questions et vous a imposé des conditions de licence à cet effet.

1716 Accepteriez-vous que le Conseil vous impose les mêmes conditions de licence s'il approuvait votre demande pour Montréal?

1717 M. DEMERS: En ce qui a trait aux pièces écourtées, je pense qu'on est arrivés, suite aux discussions lors des dernières audiences, à une solution où est-ce qu'on avait des durées minimales, que nous avons respectées et que je n'ai pas de problème à devoir suivre.

1718 L'utilisation des montages est limitée à l'heure actuelle au niveau de CHOI. En fait, on est limités à trois montages par jour, alors que nos compétiteurs en font davantage. Est-ce de donner une vraie chance à une station alternative qui a déjà un problème de contenu que de survivre puis d'offrir un produit de qualité, en lui imposant des règles plus sévères que ses compétiteurs au niveau musical?

1719 Je pose la question. Je pense que la musique... et le format est suffisamment fort pour, je dirais, aller plus loin que ces contraintes-là et percer malgré tout, mais il serait préférable qu'elles ne soient pas présentes dans une station qui investit davantage que CHOI peut le faire au niveau musical.

1720 J'ai tenté d'expliquer dans la présentation que CHOI, à cause des contraintes de plus en plus présentes, est dans une situation où elle a de la difficulté à justifier et maintenir son orientation musicale.

1721 Aujourd'hui, j'essaie de vous présenter une station axée essentiellement sur la musique, alors je serais malvenu de vous dire : est-ce qu'on peut lui imposer des contraintes supplémentaires pour ne pas jouer ce que les jeunes veulent entendre?

1722 C'est vrai que les jeunes veulent entendre de la musique principalement anglaise. C'est un défi que de trouver de la production francophone de qualité qui plaise aux jeunes.

1723 On fait de la recherche musicale continuelle, sept jours par semaine, pour aller rejoindre les jeunes, pour savoir qu'est-ce qu'ils veulent entendre. Je vous invite n'importe quand à venir assister à un auditorium test avec 50 jeunes de 18-24 ans dans une salle, vous allez être étonné de voir comment les pièces francophones se classent dans le bas du peloton continuellement.

1724 C'est pourquoi on a fait cette présentation pour la nécessité de revoir les trois facteurs qu'on a mentionnés : investir dans la production, donner des chances à nos artistes de produire du matériel, donner des chances de les faire jouer, c'est ça qui va faire vivre le format musical. Trop de contraintes, ça va être juste plus difficile à le développer.

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1725 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Je pense aux synergies. Je dois dire sur la question, juste un commentaire et peut-être vous pourrez commenter. C'est que j'étais avocat au CRTC avant qu'il y ait des règlements sur le contenu canadien en radio et il y avait 5 pour cent de contenu canadien à la radio, aujourd'hui on est rendus un peu plus élevé.

1726 Est-ce que le règlement n'a pas une raison d'être pour stimuler le marché, avoir des exigences, créer un marché?

1727 M. DEMERS: Je suis convaincu que le règlement a sa raison d'être, et il faut le protéger sinon on n'aurait pas d'industrie québécoise ou canadienne.

1728 Toutefois, si je peux me permettre une analogie : les taxes sur les cigarettes sont importantes pour empêcher les jeunes de fumer, pour que ce ne soit pas abordable; pourtant, lorsqu'on va trop loin, la contrebande s'installe. Je pense qu'on est à l'heure actuelle en situation de contrebande au niveau musique chez les jeunes.

1729 Les jeunes écoutent la radio sur Internet, sont ouverts, le milieu est de plus en plus ouvert, et ont accès à ce type de musique qui ne vient pas nécessairement par la radio. Et la preuve, c'est que les jeunes écoutent de moins en moins de radio.

1730 Alors, si on veut que la radio survive, garde son impact auprès de la jeunesse, il faut leur offrir le produit qu'ils veulent et puis il faut savoir pondérer un produit canadien, un produit francophone à l'intérieur de produits probablement plus porteurs pour eux que sont les grandes vedettes internationales.

1731 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, je vais aller aux synergies. Vous en avez parlé dans votre présentation verbale. Sur le plan administratif pour les synergies, est-ce que vous êtes en mesure de les quantifier? Est-ce que vous avez quantifié, mis des chiffres là où ce serait économique pour vous d'avoir les synergies avec vos autres stations?

1732 M. DEMERS: Non. On ne les a pas quantifiées parce que lorsqu'on a fait, je dirais, la construction de notre plan d'affaires, on a tenu compte de notre expertise. Puis dans le fond, la synergie on ne l'a pas énormément identifiée, si ce n'est au niveau de la connaissance du marché, la connaissance du format musical.

1733 On vise, et ce qu'on a déposé, c'est une station 100 pour cent autonome qui n'est pas dépendante d'une tête de réseau, où qu'elle soit, mais qui profite seulement de l'expertise que la direction générale peut y apporter ou la recherche musicale peut y apporter.

1734 C'est les deux seuls endroits où on a vraiment tenu compte d'économies réelles : la recherche musicale et puis l'administration.

1735 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Alors, même dans la programmation vous ne pourriez pas dire que ça a été quantifié autrement que ce que vous venez de décrire?

1736 M. DEMERS: Aucunement, puisque comme je le disais, on va tenter d'être excessivement présent et local dans le marché avec des animateurs sur place.

1737 Même s'ils ne font que présenter une pièce musicale, c'est important qu'ils puissent réagir : à une tempête de neige qui arrive, ou il n'y en a pas de tempête de neige. Ça fait partie du quotidien et puis ça fait partie des forces : aujourd'hui, il y a du verglas à Montréal; à Québec il y a 25 centimètres de neige; les écoles sont fermées.

1738 Alors, c'est important d'avoir des animateurs qui sont dans la ville, qui y vivent, qui peuvent parler des événements ou des lieux de rencontre qui les intéressent. Alors, je ne pense pas qu'il y ait énormément de synergies potentielles.

1739 Effectivement, on pense qu'il est possible d'avoir des stations indépendantes qui ne sont pas des McDonald's de la radio où est-ce qu'on applique des recettes imposées dans une ville systématiquement.

1740 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, étant donné qu'on est dans les synergies, j'ai compris que vous allez avoir un directeur de programmation à Montréal à plein temps seulement pour la station de Montréal?

1741 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

1742 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce qu'il va être animateur en même temps?

1743 M. DEMERS: On n'a pas procédé à du recrutement et puis il n'y a pas de candidat d'identifié. J'avoue que dans la majorité des cas, on tente d'avoir des directeurs qui sont actifs sur le terrain, parce que ça nous permet d'avoir des gens qui sont beaucoup plus impliqués dans leur produit.

1744 Toutefois, si je peux me permettre la différenciation, une chose qui est particulière dans un format rock, et puis on a tenté de le faire vivre dans le démo tout à l'heure au niveau de l'image sonore, lorsque la majorité des radiodiffuseurs vont dans des studios de production professionnels aux États-Unis ou encore donnent des mandats pour se faire bâtir une image sonore une fois par année, après ça la jouent pendant un an, parfois même dix ans, j'entends encore les mêmes ritournelles du « Rock détente » de l'époque que j'y étais.

1745 Nous, on a deux producteurs qui sont aussi animateurs mais qui sont à temps plein au niveau de l'image sonore pour faire vivre l'actualité, pas l'actualité au sens propre, mais l'actualité de qu'est-ce qui se passe dans la vie des jeunes.

1746 Il y a un concert qui débarque, les Rolling Stones sont venus à Montréal, nous avons fait les autobus pour aller voir les Rolling Stones, on a fait venir la venue des Rolling Stones au niveau de l'image sonore, et pas nécessairement juste au niveau de l'animation conventionnelle.

1747 L'image sonore dans un format jeune est aussi importante que l'animation jusqu'à un certain point. Et c'est un des mandats formels d'un directeur des programmes que de faire vivre cette image sonore.

1748 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Y a-t-il ou avez-vous prévu un rôle pour, par exemple, un directeur de la programmation de CHOI-FM dans l'exploitation de la station de Montréal, directeur de programmes?

1749 M. DEMERS: En fait, c'est une directrice de la programmation maintenant, elle s'appelle Johanne Dubé.

1750 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Très bien.

1751 M. DEMERS: Qui est aussi animatrice à l'antenne. C'est clair, comme je l'ai dit, qu'on va tenter de profiter de l'expérience et de l'expertise qu'on a, notamment au niveau de la musique, au niveau de l'image sonore également, et de communiquer aux gens qui sont impliqués dans la station de Montréal l'expérience qu'on a pu vivre.

1752 Mais CHOI est dans un environnement où il y a eu des stations rock dans le passé, on est rendus près de dix ans plus tard du lancement de la station rock. Comme je le disais, la culture de la ville et des jeunes de la ville de Québec n'est pas la même que la culture des jeunes de Montréal, au niveau musical j'entends.

1753 Eux sont habitués d'avoir une station rock, sont habitués d'avoir un type de radio qui ne serait pas nécessairement approprié pour le marché de Montréal.

1754 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Tout à l'heure vous avez indiqué comment la technologie vous permettra une flexibilité de programmation, en tout cas une façon de faire qui n'était pas là autrefois. Y aura-t-il de la programmation? Pouvez-vous nous en parler de la programmation préenregistrée à Montréal?

1755 M. DEMERS: Lorsqu'on fait référence au niveau de... je pense à une des lettres de lacunes, on aurait envoyé le détail de notre programmation et on fait référence à de l'automation à certaines heures, c'est tout du préenregistré.

1756 On fait vivre... comme je disais, l'antenne, par son image sonore, c'est tout du préenregistré. À la limite, c'est presque continuel puisque l'image sonore est omniprésente dans toute la programmation. Mais à certaines heures on va se contenter de l'image sonore ou d'interventions préenregistrées.

1757 Lorsqu'on fait référence à de l'automation, c'est ça qu'on veut dire.

1758 CONSEILLER DEMERS: On retrouverait ça quand, à quelles occasions, dans quelles circonstances durant la journée, mettons? La question est un petit peu générale, c'est...

1759 M. DEMERS: En fait, c'est sûr qu'on le retrouve le soir et la nuit, les fins de semaine aux heures de moins grande écoute. Mais de par notre format, je dirais sport, on est obligés d'être « live » et non en mode automation lorsque les grands événements surviennent, c'est-à-dire en soirée et en week-end.

1760 Je fais référence à la lettre du 4 octobre, une réponse à une lettre de lacunes du 17 septembre, je pense qu'on présente la programmation, on fait référence où est-ce qu'à partir de 20 heures le soir on serait en mode automation jusqu'à minuit ou jusqu'à 6 heures le lendemain matin essentiellement. Et à partir de 6 heures les week-ends.

1761 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Autrement, ce sera, comme vous dites, « live »?

1762 M. DEMERS: Toujours avec un animateur en devoir.

1763 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Avec un animateur.

1764 M. DEMERS: Qui peut réagir à une tempête de neige ou de verglas, dépendamment de la ville.

1765 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Merci. On a couvert pas mal... En tout cas, vous m'avez dit qu'entre CHOI FM, CKNU, il n'y pas de simultané, il n'y a pas d'inspiration de programmation ou d'enregistrement. C'est le cas, c'est toujours, si j'ai bien compris?

1766 M. DEMERS: Il n'y a aucune diffusion en simultané, vous avez dit d'inspiration de programmation c'est clair qu'au niveau musical, comme je le disais... puis je pense j'en ai fait la plaidoirie...

1767 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Oui.

1768 M. DEMERS: ... la musique rock alternative a besoin d'antenne.

1769 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. S'il y avait une station à Sherbrooke, prévoyez-vous en faire, des simultanés?

1770 M. DEMERS: Non. Également à Sherbrooke, c'est une station 100 pour cent indépendante. Qui va probablement recourir davantage à l'automation toutefois.

1771 CONSEILLER DEMERS: La dernière question de synergie, ce serait : Planifiez-vous diffuser à Montréal des émissions de votre animateur, monsieur André Arthur, en « syndication » ou autrement?

1772 M. DEMERS: Non, pas sur notre antenne.

1773 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. La programmation est celle des stations de la région de Montréal, stations existantes. Pouvez-vous préciser en quoi la formule musicale que vous proposez se distingue des stations en place dans le marché, être un peu plus précis?

1774 Tout à l'heure, vous avez fait une esquisse, mais peut-être...

1775 M. DEMERS: Je vous l'ai dit, la station repose sur son contenu musical. La majorité des pièces rock alternatives ne trouvent pas preneur dans la région de Montréal. Particulièrement, et puis je m'en désole énormément depuis le changement de format de Cool ou de CKOO à Montréal, où est-ce qu'ils ont pris un virage CHOM, plus rock classique.

1776 C'est Lucien Francoeur et Nanette Workman qui animent à la station. C'est pas que je veux dénigrer ces animateurs-là, loin de là, mais ils ne représentent rien pour un jeune de 20 ans : lorsqu'ils étaient des vedettes, ils n'étaient pas nés.

1777 Alors, je vous dirais : nous allons nous distinguer de par la musique que nous allons jouer.

1778 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Vous nous avez précisé les aspects musicaux. Une dernière question sur ce point-là : Quel est le rôle de la langue anglaise dans votre programmation? Et je ne parle pas dans la partie musicale.

1779 M. DEMERS: Techniquement, elle n'a pas de rôle. On a demandé puis on avait discuté avec le Conseil lors de l'audience sur le renouvellement de CHOI que nous faisions une utilisation abusive de la langue anglaise, au niveau notamment de l'image sonore ou au niveau du vocabulaire utilisé par nos animateurs.

1780 C'est certain qu'on tente par nos animateurs d'être proches des jeunes et, comme je le disais, on est à côté d'un marché énorme qui est le Canada anglais, qui est les États-Unis, qui est dans une langue anglaise; donc, les artistes, les événements ont souvent lieu dans la langue anglaise.

1781 Alors, ça intervient dans le quotidien, mais il n'y a pas d'utilisation de prévue particulière de la langue anglaise au niveau de la station. On va essayer d'utiliser au maximum notre 35 pour cent de contenu anglophone au niveau musical pour les mettre aux meilleurs moments pour nos auditeurs.

1782 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Les animateurs vont utiliser la langue française?

1783 M. DEMERS: Oui, sauf que je dirais la seule exception à ça qu'on rencontre dans le quotidien, puisqu'on se dédie à la musique ou aux arts et spectacles, est lorsque les vedettes viennent, les concerts au Centre Bell, et qu'on a l'occasion d'avoir ce genre d'artistes là en entrevue, malheureusement elles ne parlent pas français.

1784 Donc, parfois on peut avoir recours à la langue anglaise au niveau d'entrevues avec des artistes, des joueurs professionnels de sport. Il y en a quand même peu qui parlent en français.

1785 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Je pense au contenu canadien et vous avez insisté tout à l'heure sur le fait que vous proposez que 50 pour cent des pièces musicales de catégorie 2 soient des pièces musicales canadiennes diffusées intégralement, distribuées de manière raisonnable au cours de la journée.

1786 Est-ce que ce pourcentage plus élevé de pièces musicales canadiennes s'appliquerait également du lundi au vendredi de 6 heures à 18 heures?

1787 M. DEMERS: Vous savez, le pourcentage de contenu canadien... puis on l'a fait d'un point de vue réglementaire pour vous plaire, mettre ce quota-là parce qu'il n'est vraiment pas une préoccupation dans le quotidien.

1788 Quand on a à rencontrer le 65 pour cent de contenu francophone où 95 pour cent de ces pièces sont déjà du contenu canadien, et qu'on ajoute les artistes anglophones qui ont connu le succès dans le format que j'ai nommé également, la préoccupation fait que ce contenu canadien n'est pas vraiment présent à l'esprit de la programmation d'une station rock alternatif.

1789 On en joue, puis tout probable qu'on excéderait le 50 pour cent sans problème.

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1790 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Accepteriez-vous une condition de licence dans ce sens-là?

1791 M. DEMERS: Oui. Je croyais qu'on les avait vraiment déposées comme trois conditions de licence pour réconforter le Conseil face à nos « commitments », face aux nouvelles pièces et aux nouveaux artistes.

1792 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, vous proposez des engagements par rapport aux pièces musicales. Pouvez-vous donner des précisions sur la nature, le genre, l'origine des pièces de catégorie 2 que vous vous proposez de diffuser?

1793 M. DEMERS: Vous faites référence exactement à...?

1794 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Qui? Bien, peut-être que vous allez comprendre avec ma question suivante. Pouvez-vous élaborer sur le mécanisme qui vous permettrait de déterminer si un artiste fait partie de la relève, par exemple, le fonctionnement de la question de trouver la relève?

1795 M. DEMERS: On a tenté d'y mettre une définition, je crois, dans notre demande, à savoir qu'un artiste de la relève c'est quelqu'un qui n'aurait pas vendu 5 000 copies d'un album. J'avoue que c'est difficilement... ça va toujours rester une certaine interprétation à savoir qu'est-ce qu'un artiste de la relève ou qu'est-ce qu'un nouvel artiste.

1796 Je pense que le nombre de disques vendus peut être un bon étalon. On a tenté, on en a soumis des définitions originales dans nos conditions de licence, à savoir... je l'ai devant moi :

1797 Bien, ça atteint l'objectif qu'on ne jouera pas Joe Dassin, que toutes les stations adultes jouent actuellement même s'il est décédé depuis plusieurs années. Ça va donner un incitatif aux producteurs de produire de nouveaux artistes puis de nouvelles pièces.

1798 On a défini les artistes ou groupes de la relève comme étant :

1799 Par définition, c'est le premier... généralement devrait être un nouvel artiste :

1800 C'est sûr, ça devient difficile à contrôler, sauf que nos directeurs musicaux sont très, très au fait des nouveaux artistes, on est continuellement à la recherche de matériel au niveau rock alternatif, puis je pense que dans ces conditions on ne fait pas référence nécessairement toujours au français, c'est vraiment au niveau du francophone qu'on a de la difficulté de s'approvisionner.

1801 Donc, c'est le marché du Québec où on est très proches, on n'a pas affaire à une surveillance au niveau international de tous les artistes.

1802 Et je vous dirais, généralement les nouveaux artistes ou les lancements d'albums, on n'a pas besoin de courir après beaucoup, c'est eux autres qui nous appellent généralement.

1803 CONSEILLER DEMERS: C'est bien. C'est bien. Vous êtes bien connus, alors? Les répétitions. Vous en avez parlé. Est-ce que vous n'avez rien changé là-dessus, le nombre de répétitions, qui ferait en sorte que vous rencontriez vos pourcentages? Vous avez, je crois, critiqué dans votre présentation ou ailleurs dans votre...

1804 M. DEMERS: Ce qu'on fait référence dans les diffusions et rediffusions et re-rediffusions de pièces...

1805 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Oui?

1806 M. DEMERS: C'est beaucoup plus par rapport à des pièces qui sont connues depuis 15 ou 20 ans. Notre stratégie de programmation est bien d'avoir... c'est un inventaire musical relativement restreint.

1807 Puis je pense c'est une erreur, si on veut avoir une station de radio vivante, que de diffuser au maximum sept fois par semaine une pièce musicale. Si on veut que la pièce soit connue, reconnue, l'artiste connu et reconnu par l'auditeur, il faut la jouer abondamment au cours d'une semaine de radiodiffusion.

1808 Ça ne veut pas dire la jouer abondamment pendant 25 ans, mais de la jouer abondamment pendant une certaine période. Il va arriver qu'on va jouer une pièce jusqu'à 40 fois par semaine, parce que ça fait reconnaître que notre auditeur moyen écoute la station dix heures par semaine; et lui, ce qu'il veut entendre c'est une pièce qu'il reconnaît ou qu'il a appris à apprécier récemment.

1809 Généralement, notre stratégie est lorsqu'on incorpore une pièce, quelle qu'elle soit, soit en français ou en anglais, de l'introduire sur une période deux à trois mois en passant de deux, trois diffusions par semaine jusqu'à... puis celles qui vont aller en tête jusqu'à 40 fois par semaine.

1810 Et tant et aussi longtemps qu'on aura de la demande, on teste, comme je vous le disais, de manière quotidienne notre palmarès et nos pièces, et lorsqu'on a un rejet de notre auditoire, elle va tendre à disparaître rapidement du catalogue musical pour laisser place à de nouvelles pièces.

1811 Alors, quand je fais référence à trop de diffusion, ce n'est pas trop de diffusion de la même pièce durant la même semaine, je pense c'est un des atouts d'une station de radio que de pouvoir jouer souvent la même pièce dans une période donnée, mais d'arriver avec du nouveau matériel puis donner la chance à de nouveaux artistes de jouer à la radio et d'effectuer un roulement, je vous dirais, de notre inventaire musical.

1812 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, je pense au développement des talents canadiens. Vous nous avez parlé de votre projet Qué-Rock. Je ne vous demande pas de questions là-dessus, mais si au cours des autres questions vous avez quelque chose à ajouter sur Qué-Rock, vous le ferez, s'il vous plaît.

1813 Alors, ma question serait plus sur les sommes. Alors, pouvez-vous préciser si les sommes dédiées à la région de Montréal sont effectivement versées à cette région?

1814 M. DEMERS: Montréal a un bassin de 2,5 millions ou 3 millions de personnes. Une des limites de notre projet à l'heure actuelle à Québec... et puis même si on est commis sur 8 000 dollars par année, on en investit plus de 100 000 dollars depuis quatre ans.

1815 Parce qu'on y croit, parce qu'on aime ce format-là puis parce qu'on en a besoin pour le faire vivre. Et on a besoin du marché de Montréal pour nous approvisionner en nouveaux groupes et en nouveaux artistes.

1816 Alors, j'aurais aucun problème à ce que les montants soient spécifiquement... et rapporter au Conseil que les argents ont été investis dans la région de Montréal sur des artistes de la région de Montréal.

1817 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Prévoyez-vous ouvrir des studios d'enregistrement dans la région de Montréal ou faire d'autres investissements de ce genre?

1818 M. DEMERS: Vous savez, nous opérons un studio d'enregistrement depuis maintenant plusieurs années, et la technologie également dans ce milieu-là a fait des progrès immenses.

1819 On a maintenant compétitionné chacun des ordinateurs personnels de tous les artistes du Québec et je pense que les studios d'enregistrement comme tels pour enregistrer des artistes, particulièrement rock, n'ont plus leur raison d'être.

1820 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord.

1821 M. DEMERS: Ça fait bizarre à dire pour quelqu'un qui est propriétaire d'un studio d'enregistrement, mais la seule raison d'être c'est de leur donner un local où est-ce qu'ils ont la liberté de pouvoir jouer sans nuire trop à leurs voisins.

1822 Parce que d'un point de vue équipement, c'est très, très abordable maintenant.

1823 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Avez-vous des liens avec les studios New Rock?

1824 M. DEMERS: C'est une filiale de Genex maintenant. Puisque nous étions actionnaires au début avec deux jeunes producteurs, mais devant les difficultés financières énormes que le studio a rencontrées on n'a pas eu d'autre choix que de s'y investir davantage.

1825 Même si on travaille encore énormément en collaboration avec les deux producteurs qui étaient au départ, mais ce sont de jeunes... j'allais dire de jeunes, ils sont peut-être moins jeunes, ils sont rendus à 30 ans, mais de moins jeunes artistes du rock et n'ayant pas réussi à gagner une autonomie financière suffisante pour juste payer le loyer.

1826 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce qu'il y a d'autres stations que les vôtres qui se sont montrées intéressées à ces studios, à ces productions?

1827 M. DEMERS: Nous avions une entente avec CFJO à Victoriaville qui utilisait les productions musicales. Nous avons été en discussion avec Cool à Montréal pour collaborer, parce qu'ils avaient un effort similaire qui lui ressemblait, qu'ils appelaient « Cool dream », qui était essentiellement le même genre de processus pour certains artistes de Montréal.

1828 Ces discussions ont été, je veux dire, rompues ou annulées suite au changement de format récent de la station.

1829 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Sur maintenant le 27 000 $ pour la région de Montréal, à quels programmes ou tiers admissibles comptez-vous donner ce 27 000 $?

1830 M. DEMERS: Tout comme le 8 000 $ à la région de Québec, puis je devrais dire que ce montant-là a été révisé à la lumière de la décision qui avait été rendue sur Québec.

1831 Si on avait eu le choix, nous aurions investi 100 pour cent de nos investissements en développement de talents canadiens dans notre propre projet parce qu'on le trouve plus probant et plus constructif à la relève rock alternatif.

1832 Mais si on est obligés de respecter ce minimum-là puis de l'envoyer à un organisme, on a approché MUSICACTION pour leur verser, sujet à ce qu'ils nous assurent de la représentativité régionale ainsi que du type de musique qu'ils allaient subventionner.

1833 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Donc, accepteriez-vous une condition de licence à l'effet que Genex doive consacrer les 27 000 $ par année pour Montréal à des tiers admissibles voués au développement et à la mise en valeur des nouveaux talents canadiens dans la formule rock alternatif?

1834 M. DEMERS: Oui.

1835 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci.

1836 M. DEMERS: La seule que j'ajouterais, c'est autant que faire se peut, surtout si vous ajoutez le rock alternatif au bout. Comme je vous dis, il y a très peu d'organismes qui y travaillent et qui le font.

1837 Je n'ai pas le poids ou l'influence pour forcer les organismes à faire des choses qu'ils ne veulent pas faire. Alors, si autant que je peux transférer la pression que de l'investir dans le rock alternatif aux organismes en question, j'ai pas de problème à verser l'argent.

1838 Mais comme on l'a fait dans le cas de MUSICACTION, on leur a demandé de nous rassurer quant aux investissements, et on le ferait dans le cas de Montréal également.

1839 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. La politique de diversité culturelle. Alors, vous connaissez la politique de la radio commerciale qui encourage les radiodiffuseurs à refléter la diversité culturelle du Canada dans leurs émissions, les pratiques d'emploi, en particulier en ce qui concerne les nouvelles, la musique et la promotion des artistes canadiens.

1840 Pouvez-vous clarifier comment la formule « Rock & Sports » favorise la diversité culturelle?

1841 M. DEMERS: Je vous dirais elle est en partie absente du marché de Montréal et présente dans le reste du Canada et dans le reste du monde.

1842 Alors, je pense que c'est d'abord et avant tout une certaine ouverture d'esprit face à qu'est-ce qui se passe à travers le monde. Et ça nous a permis à Québec d'avoir un succès phénoménal auprès des jeunes, et je ne peux pas croire que les jeunes de Montréal sont différents.

1843 On a des cotes d'écoute au-delà des 50 pour cent au niveau des 18-24 à Québec, et c'est majoritairement dû à notre contenu musical.

1844 La diversité culturelle, ça s'applique à la race, au sexe, à tout ce qui peut être différent, mais la musique sert à rassembler le monde.

1845 Nous, qu'il soit de n'importe quelle origine, de n'importe quel sexe, il reste un jeune. Ils peuvent se rejoindre au niveau de la musique.

1846 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Dans la réalité vous vivez ça. À Québec, la diversité culturelle telle qu'on la décrit ici, est-ce qu'il y a des obstacles?

1847 M. DEMERS: Vous savez, à Québec ça reste une ville qui est... et puis je ne sais pas les pourcentages exacts puis je pense qu'on les avait sortis dans un rapport sur l'équité en matière d'emploi, mais qui était probablement à 99 pour cent francophone de race blanche.

1848 Alors, la diversité culturelle qu'on peut rencontrer dans des centres urbains comme Montréal ou Toronto n'est pas aussi présente dans le marché de Québec.

1849 Et puis je vais peut-être dire une horreur, mais quand on se promène à Québec et puis un individu de race noire qui marche dans la rue, les gens vont se revirer parfois. Et puis ça fait partie de la réalité parce qu'il y en a très, très, très peu.

1850 Je pense que si on veut bien s'implanter dans le marché de Montréal, je suis Montréalais d'origine, j'ai travaillé au centre-ville, la diversité culturelle fait partie du quotidien qu'il faut refléter au niveau de nos stations de radio.

1851 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Avez-vous une stratégie, une réflexion particulière pour arriver à ça? Des étapes fermes, un plan?

1852 M. DEMERS: Maître Dion pourrait probablement compléter sur ce, parce que je pense qu'on a déjà répondu... Veux-tu y aller, René?

1853 Me DION: D'abord, bonjour.

1854 Donc, effectivement ça va peut-être se refléter niveau de l'embauche des journalistes comme tels et puis du personnel qui vont devoir avoir une connaissance approfondie de la diversité culturelle présente à Montréal.

1855 Et ça sera des facteurs, on en avait fait abondamment état dans notre demande au niveau des lacunes du 12 décembre, ce sera des éléments qui seront tenus en ligne de compte, au niveau de l'embauche des journalistes qui connaissent bien les différences culturelles qu'on retrouve à Montréal pour pouvoir livrer et refléter à travers les reportages qu'ils feront les différentes réalités qu'on peut y retrouver.

1856 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Donc, pour ce qui est des journalistes en tout cas, vous avez un plan de refléter la diversité culturelle de Montréal? Sur la musique, la même chose, les nouvelles...?

1857 M. DEMERS: Au niveau musical, c'est un format qui est bien défini, qui ne fait pas nécessairement référence à qui le chante ou qui est ouvert à tous, c'est bien plus le format qui va primer.

1858 On a parlé des journalistes, mais j'imagine ça peut autant s'appliquer au niveau des animateurs. Des jeunes qui font de la radio, puis c'en est une autre des problématiques de l'industrie où est-ce que la montréalisation, ou je dirais la création des réseaux de radio, fait qu'on offre très, très peu de chances aux jeunes de faire de la radio et d'apprendre à en faire.

1859 Parce qu'aux heures de faible écoute, on lève la « switch » sur le satellite qui rentre partout en région, les jeunes se sont désintéressés de faire de la radio.

1860 J'ose croire qu'à Montréal on trouvera un bassin de gens d'intérêt et qui auront aussi les qualités pour devenir animateur de radio. Ça a l'air tellement facile puis à la fois ça ne l'est pas.

1861 La radio, ça a l'air simple. Tout le monde écoute ça puis dit : moi, je serais capable d'en faire. Moi je peux vous dire que je ne suis pas capable d'en faire. On dirait qu'un micro ça m'intimide.

1862 Et il va falloir faire la recherche de talents qu'on fait continuellement aujourd'hui, à la grandeur de la province, pour identifier des jeunes de talent qui peuvent animer avec toute la saveur que les jeunes peuvent rechercher.

1863 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Je pense à votre plan d'affaires, et je me réfère à l'étude, je ne sais pas si on appelle Zins Beauchesne, vous devez avoir une prononciation particulière pour cette compagnie, Beauchesne et Associés, qui a fait une enquête seulement sur les hommes de 18 à 44 ans.

1864 Alors, la requérante a-t-elle limité le mandat de cette firme à questionner ces gens-là uniquement, les hommes 18-44 ans?

1865 M. DEMERS: Oui, la firme c'est Zins Beauchesne qui est une filiale de Secor. En fait, au niveau de recherche on voulait spécifiquement faire valoir l'homme 18-44 qui était notre clientèle cible numéro 1.

1866 Un, les hommes sont plus attirés vers le sport. Les hommes sont plus attirés vers le rock. Partout, toutes les stations rock alternatives au monde ont une écoute à prédominance masculine et jeune.

1867 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, c'est un peu difficile, mais peut-être vous pourriez m'expliquer pourquoi vous avez éliminé les autres hommes et toutes les femmes?

1868 M. DEMERS: Parce que l'offre de programmation dans le marché de Montréal est excessivement développée envers les femmes. Parce qu'on a tenté de se... lorsqu'on a bâti le dossier sur Montréal, on a vraiment, je dirais, un double objectif : le rock, le rock alternatif, et le sport.

1869 Et à ce moment-là, je dirais, notre vision du marché de Montréal était peut-être même un peu différente puisqu'il y avait Cool qui existait dans un format puis qui se disait qu'elle allait devenir une station rock.

1870 Quand on se réfère à il y a un an, Cool avait entrepris un virage alternatif et on trouvait que notre argument avait moins de poids, on n'avait moins un cri aussi urgent qu'on peut l'avoir aujourd'hui du fait que cette station-là a désormais changé de format.

1871 Aujourd'hui, il n'y en a plus. À cette époque-là, il y avait une station, du moins qui se disait ou qui s'enlignait pour devenir alternative. Ce qui fait que toutes nos études avaient été basées davantage sur l'axe sport que sur l'axe rock.

1872 On a été amenés à revoir un peu notre plan à la lumière de l'évolution du marché.

1873 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Pour la première année, vous prévoyez une part d'écoute de 3,5 pour cent auprès de l'auditoire 12 ans et plus. Comment êtes-vous arrivés à prévoir ce 3,5 pour cent chez ces 12 ans et plus de tout sexe alors que votre étude ne portait pas sur ces gens-là?

1874 M. DEMERS: J'avoue que je ne l'ai peut-être pas avec moi, mais essentiellement c'étaient les taux de pénétration à long terme qu'on pouvait espérer au niveau des hommes 18-44 qu'on faisait refléter au niveau du 12 et plus pour tout simplement faire la projection de revenus.

1875 L'expérience nous a démontré que le meilleur indicatif de ce que sont les revenus d'une station de radio sont les cotes d'écoute sur les 12 et plus même si, dépendamment des formats, on fait valoir toutes sortes d'autres stratégies au niveau de la vente directe aux clients.

1876 Il est clair que le type de station qu'on vise va avoir une clientèle particulière. Mais c'est tout simplement un reflet par rapport au poids qu'est le groupe cible donné, 18-34 ou 18-44 hommes, par rapport à la population générale.

1877 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Avez-vous des statistiques sur la population, le nombre d'hommes 18-44 ans par rapport au total d'hommes-femmes 12 ans et plus dans le marché de Montréal?

1878 M. DEMERS: Je ne les ai malheureusement pas avec moi, mais je pourrais vous revenir sans problème. C'est disponible sur micro BBM continuellement...

1879 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Oui?

1880 M. DEMERS: ... c'est des chiffres publics faciles à obtenir juste en faisant une « run » de BBM.

1881 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Ce serait intéressant que vous nous les déposiez. Alors, selon certaines études, et mes collègues en ont parlé hier, le Québécois est davantage un auditeur fidèle qu'un téléspectateur fidèle.

1882 Alors, dans ce contexte, face à cette fidélité des auditeurs pour la radio, pouvez-vous expliquer comment vous allez vous y prendre pour attirer et fidéliser à votre future station les auditeurs de Montréal?

1883 M. DEMERS: En tentant de faire de la bonne radio. Il reste qu'il faut y croire à notre produit, il faut le bâtir, il faut tenter de livrer ce que les auditeurs veulent entendre.

1884 On a réussi à le faire dans le marché de Québec, on est rendus à plus de 330 000 auditeurs qui nous écoutent plus de 11 heures par semaine.

1885 Et je pense qu'on faisait valoir au niveau de la présentation que, toutes proportions gardées, les hommes écoutaient 26 pour cent plus les stations locales à Québec que c'est le cas à Montréal. Je pense que c'est principalement dû à la qualité des produits offerts dans le marché, dont celui de CHOI.

1886 Il reste que trop souvent les radiodiffuseurs regardent leur station comme : on a un format, on l'applique puis on a une part de marché puis on la développe. Nous, on pense qu'on fait partie du groupe cible, on y croit, on y vit et puis on investit dans notre produit.

1887 Puis si on offre un produit de qualité, on va avoir des auditeurs. La plus belle campagne qu'on peut avoir, c'est un auditeur qui dit à son voisin ou à son ami d'écouter notre station de radio.

1888 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Et votre nouvelle station affectera sans doute l'écoute des stations existantes. Pouvez-vous nous décrire de quelle façon, comment vous voyez votre arrivée par rapport aux autres stations, les auditeurs?

1889 M. DEMERS: Je pense que notre impact sera partagé en deux temps. Un, on arrive dans un format qui est inexistant. Donc, on ne peut pas dire qu'on va avoir un impact direct sur une station de radio existante dans le marché de Montréal.

1890 Possiblement, je dirais celle qui pourrait être le plus atteinte, et ce n'est même pas une station de Montréal, bien plus « 999 the Buzz » à Burlington qui, je pense, répond à un certain besoin au niveau rock alternatif puisqu'il rentre particulièrement bien dans le marché de Montréal et qu'il joue le type de musique que nous comptons diffuser.

1891 Le reste, comme on l'a fait valoir, les stations de radio appartiennent toutes à de très grands groupes, on arrive avec une couverture limitée dans le marché de Montréal, je pense que l'impact serait relativement marginal sur leurs résultats d'écoute ou leurs résultats de vente.

1892 Comme je le dis, en faisant de la bonne radio, on réussit à attirer 26 pour cent de plus à Québec. Donc, si on est capables d'aller attirer 5 pour cent de plus à Montréal, ce sera probablement largement suffisant pour suffire à notre besoin.

1893 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, monsieur le président, j'en ai encore pour quelques minutes. Si vous voulez suspendre, ça peut être un bon moment.

1894 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui, on va prendre une pause-café pour 15 minutes et on reviendra à 11 h 15. We will resume à 11:15.

--- Suspension à 1100 / Upon recessing at 1100

--- Reprise à 1120 / Upon resuming at 1120

1895 LE PRÉSIDENT: À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît. Order, please. Maître Demers?

1896 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci, monsieur le président. Alors, nous allons passer aux projections de revenus.

1897 M. DEMERS: Si vous voulez me permettre peut-être, j'ai les réponses aux questions que j'avais dit que je vous reviendrais. En fait, j'ai regardé sur micro BBM, sur le marché central de Montréal, la population 12 et plus, c'est 2 283 000.

1898 Les hommes 18-44 représentent 24 pour cent avec 547 000 individus de la population de Montréal.

1899 Et les projections de revenus ont été basées sur le 12 et plus, mais tenant compte du 18-24 et du 12-17 également qui sont des créneaux ciblés.

1900 Le 18-24 c'est 239 000 pour 10,5 pour cent de la population et le 12-17 8,5 pour cent de la population avec 193 000 personnes.

1901 Conjointement, le 18-24 ou le 12-24 ça représente aussi 19 ou 20 pour cent de la population de Montréal dans le 12 et plus, selon micro BBM.

1902 C'est particulièrement un groupe qu'on pense qu'on est capables de rejoindre avec notre format musical parce que ça rejoint les jeunes. C'est eux les jeunes de 12-24 et puis c'est eux qui écoutent...

1903 On a parlé de « Buzz » à Burlington, les lettres d'appel étant WBTZ pour avoir confirmé, et la fréquence 99,9 qui offre essentiellement le secteur musical que nous souhaitons utiliser, du moins en ce qui a trait à la portion anglophone puisqu'ils ne jouent effectivement aucun francophone.

1904 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci beaucoup, monsieur Demers. Alors, la firme Top Alliance Marketing estime que les revenus totaux du marché de la radio de Montréal seraient d'environ 68,5 millions en 2001 et atteindraient 69,9 en 2004. Les revenus croîtraient de 2 pour cent annuellement par la suite.

1905 Pouvez-vous préciser sur quelles hypothèses vous vous êtes basés pour prévoir une croissance de 2 pour cent?

1906 M. DEMERS: Il n'y a pas de raisons très scientifiques, c'est peut-être l'expérience d'un comptable qui essaie d'être conservateur. Et je dirais pour cette année, il est clair que la croissance a été largement supérieure à 2 pour cent depuis 2001.

1907 Et, je dirais, tout bon ministre des finances inclut une certaine croissance, puis 2 pour cent m'apparaissaient relativement conservateurs.

1908 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Alors, Genex prévoit dans sa demande que les revenus publicitaires du marché radio de Montréal croîtraient d'environ 9 millions de l'an 1 à l'an 7. Elle prévoit aussi une croissance de plus de 1,9 million pour la nouvelle station au cours de la même période.

1909 Est-ce que ces projections signifient que la station de Genex irait chercher au-delà de 20 pour cent de cette croissance ou encore qu'elle irait chercher davantage de revenus auprès des autres stations locales?

1910 M. DEMERS: Je pense que nos prévisions sont basées sur le fait qu'on va chercher essentiellement la moitié des revenus auprès du marché radiophonique existant. Toutefois, les données qu'on a utilisées à la base, c'est probablement le « tram report » qu'on a utilisé comme base pour le marché de Montréal francophone, ne tiennent réalistement pas compte de stations transfrontalières comme « 999 the Buzz » qui sollicitent aussi des annonceurs sur le marché de Montréal.

1911 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Alors, vous estimez que 50 pour cent, 1,1 million des revenus publicitaires de la nouvelle station pour l'an 1, proviendraient des stations locales existantes.

1912 Pouvez-vous répartir ce montant-là sur les stations existantes?

1913 M. DEMERS: On n'a pas fait l'exercice comme tel, mais c'est clair que c'est le marché qu'on vise au niveau des hommes et des jeunes.

1914 Je pense que dans un des documents on a fait référence à quelles stations qui étaient en situation de solliciter cette clientèle-là et seraient vraisemblablement celles qui seraient le plus affectées.

1915 Je pense que les deux stations de tête étant CKOI et CKMF, qui rejoignent cette clientèle-là, verraient vraisemblablement leur part de revenus, du moins seraient les plus affectées au niveau de la sollicitation.

1916 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, l'autre moitié proviendrait de la télévision, des journaux, de l'affichage et d'autres médias. Pouvez-vous préciser chez les autres médias?

1917 M. DEMERS: Tout ce qui est utilisé pour aller chercher les jeunes? Généralement, quand on fait des événements pour les jeunes on va utiliser les « flyers », l'imprimerie, l'affichage sauvage qui sont tous des médias qui sont généralement utilisés pour rejoindre les jeunes.

1918 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Quels sont les facteurs qui inciteraient les annonceurs autres que la radio à transférer leurs annonces publicitaires chez vous?

1919 M. DEMERS: Je pense que dans ce cas-ci, l'expérience de Québec pourrait nous aider du fait qu'on a déjà des relations d'établies très privilégiées avec beaucoup d'annonceurs qui recherchent ce créneau chez les jeunes.

1920 Je prends l'exemple des brasseries. On travaille conjointement avec eux depuis... quelles qu'elles soient, que ce soit Molson, Labatt, Sleeman, on travaille déjà avec eux dans toutes sortes de projets, autant au niveau publicitaire qu'au niveau production d'événements, et qu'on serait accueillis avec beaucoup, je dirais, d'enthousiasme de la part de ces annonceurs nationaux là, avec une station dans le format à Montréal.

1921 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Alors, normalement une nouvelle station avec un format différent des stations existantes s'attend aussi à attirer de nouvelles recettes supplémentaires des annonceurs existants ou de la part de nouveaux annonceurs.

1922 Genex ne semble prévoir aucun montant à cet effet dans son tableau de provenance des revenus présenté à la section 5 de son mémoire complémentaire. Pourquoi?

1923 M. DEMERS: Vous faites référence à de nouveaux annonceurs?

1924 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Oui.

1925 M. DEMERS: Vous savez, d'année en année les annonceurs viennent, utilisent le média, quittent, reviennent deux ans après.

1926 L'expérience nous porte à croire que c'est difficile de prévoir que... je ne sais pas, on renouvelle probablement 20, 30 pour cent de notre clientèle à toutes les années du fait que l'annonceur va être parfois attiré vers d'autres médias, d'autres formes de médias, veut essayer autre chose.

1927 On a plutôt tenté d'identifier quels étaient les médias qui rejoignaient les jeunes et qu'on était capables d'aller chercher un peu d'argent dans le marché.

1928 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Maintenant, l'impact de deux nouvelles stations possibles. Alors, dans le présent processus, et vous êtes bien familier, le Conseil a devant lui cinq demandes de licence pour des radios commerciales afin de desservir le marché de Montréal.

1929 Le Conseil pourrait potentiellement approuver deux demandes en attribuant, comme vous pouvez le constater, une nouvelle licence à 106,3 et une autre pour les autres fréquences FM qui sont demandées. Et en plus, il y a aussi deux demandes pour de la radio AM.

1930 Quel serait l'impact sur votre plan d'affaires si le Conseil acceptait deux demandes pour des licences FM?

1931 M. DEMERS: Notre demande, nous, vise essentiellement les jeunes, et du moins celles que j'ai entendues jusqu'à maintenant et puis la connaissance que j'ai des autres demandes est beaucoup plus dans un autre créneau totalement différent.

1932 Alors, je pense que l'approbation d'une seconde demande n'aurait réalistement pas d'impact à la lumière des formats qui sont proposés et aussi de l'ampleur du marché de Montréal à l'heure actuelle.

1933 CONSEILLER DEMERS: D'accord. Alors, je pense que vous avez répondu à mon autre question. Vous calculez que le marché pourrait prendre deux nouvelles licences?

1934 M. DEMERS: Sans problème.

1935 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Vous prévoyez que la station de Montréal atteindra le seuil de rentabilité au cours de la troisième année. Advenant que la nouvelle station ait des difficultés à pénétrer le marché de Montréal sur le plan de l'auditoire et sur le plan des revenus publicitaires, les déficits prévus pour la première année pourraient être plus élevés, des fonds supplémentaires pourraient être requis.

1936 Avez-vous la capacité de le faire?

1937 M. DEMERS: Je vous dirais, nous, l'entreprise est suffisamment petite pour que je sois au courant de tous les détails des planifications financières, et on s'y est attardés largement.

1938 Bien qu'il est loin d'être dans notre idée de provoquer le déficit supplémentaire de qu'est-ce qu'on a prévu, on a été très conservateurs dans l'établissement de nos budgets, autant au niveau revenus que cotes d'écoute que budget de dépenses.

1939 Alors, comme je le disais, on est très confiants face à l'accomplissement de nos objectifs puis de notre plan d'affaires.

1940 Si jamais il y avait des dépassements ou des manques de revenus, on a certainement la capacité financière qu'on a réussi, je dirais, à gagner avec nos stations de Québec pour supporter un projet comme tel.

1941 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Et advenant que le Conseil autorise les deux demandes, votre demande de Sherbrooke et votre demande de Montréal, que vos projections d'écoute et de revenus soient inférieures, des ajustements pourraient s'imposer.

1942 Alors, quels ajustements apporteriez-vous à vos opérations pour redresser la rentabilité?

1943 M. DEMERS: Comme je le disais, on a été dans les deux cas conservateurs au niveau des projections d'écoute. Les revenus, on est déjà excessivement présents au niveau des annonceurs nationaux puis on sait qu'on aura un accueil très, très positif. Alors, je n'entrevois réalistement pas d'écart, je dirais, phénoménal.

1944 C'est sûr qu'il pourrait y avoir, je dirais, le timing, des fois le temps peut faire son oeuvre, le temps qu'on ait des sondages, des résultats d'écoute à démontrer aux annonceurs, mais je vois difficilement comment on ne pourrait pas atteindre nos objectifs.

1945 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Je joue le rôle de pessimiste, tel que vous voyez. Alors, si d'autres fonds étaient nécessaires pour réinvestir, on parle toujours des possibilités des deux stations, une à Montréal et une à Sherbrooke, est-ce que vous auriez des ressources additionnelles?

1946 M. DEMERS: La santé financière de Genex est largement suffisante pour compenser les deux lancements et ou même certains écarts qui pourraient être occasionnés, ainsi que toute la structure financière qu'on a élaborée dans le cadre du lancement.

1947 Je pense qu'on a déposé des « commitments » de la part de notre institution financière face au financement du lancement des deux stations, conjointement.

1948 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Et sur la compétitivité technique. Comme vous le savez, votre requête est compétitive et techniquement exclusive avec deux autres demandes qui visent l'utilisation de la même fréquence ou d'une qui est à quelques iotas près.

1949 Dans un tel cas, le Conseil vise à recueillir l'opinion des compétiteurs afin de l'assister dans sa détermination à savoir quel titulaire propose l'utilisation optimale de la fréquence.

1950 D'un point de vue technique, de quelle façon votre requête fait-elle un usage optimal de la fréquence 106,3?

1951 M. DEMERS: Je vais peut-être être très franc. Je ne sais pas si d'un point de vue technique c'est le plus optimal. Ce que je sais, c'est qu'on a une clientèle qui s'appelle les jeunes, on a un format musical qui s'appelle le rock alternatif qui n'a de chance de survivre que si on lui octroie une licence qu'on va pouvoir opérer puis qu'on va pouvoir promouvoir ce type musical là au Québec.

1952 Alors, l'enjeu pour moi, et ce que je dépose, c'est bien plus un choix par rapport au groupe, par rapport aux besoins urgents de cette communauté artistique là qui a besoin d'une station de radio. Et puis pour opérer une station de radio, ça a besoin d'une fréquence.

1953 J'ai remarqué que les demandes techniques de certains ont la même fréquence, certains utilisent plus de puissance, moins de puissance.

1954 Et puis je sais qu'on a eu beaucoup d'échanges de correspondance avec Industrie Canada. Notre ingénieur nous a assurés qu'on avait un projet qui était techniquement viable et acceptable par Industrie Canada. Je dirais notre projet c'est bien plus de lancer une station de radio que de lancer un émetteur sur une fréquence.

1955 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Le code de sécurité 6. Vous êtes au courant, je suppose, de cette question de santé. Àlors, quelles étapes allez-vous mettre en oeuvre pour vous conformer au code 6 pour la station de Montréal à partir du mont Royal?

1956 M. DEMERS: Maître Dion pourra compléter, mais moi ce que j'en comprends c'est que notre ingénieur nous a dit que, de par les discussions, on avait identifié les pistes de solution à tous les problèmes techniques qui avaient été identifiés et qu'on réussirait à trouver les solutions pour répondre au problème d'Industrie Canada et du site du mont Royal particulièrement.

1957 Il faut dire que notre puissance est probablement, est légèrement inférieure à certains de nos compétiteurs et ça va probablement dans un sens où c'est plus acceptable à cette puissance-là.

1958 Me DION: Oui, effectivement je pense que monsieur Demers a quand même référé notre ingénieur, qui est monsieur Doug Macaulay. Il ne pouvait pas être ici aujourd'hui. Par contre, j'ai travaillé étroitement avec lui et je sais qu'il est déjà en discussion avec des directeurs d'Industrie Canada pour élaborer des scénarios, pour se conformer à ce problème-là.

1959 Et d'ailleurs, ils en font référence, là, dans la lettre qu'ils ont envoyée le 16 janvier 2003 lorsqu'ils ont confirmé que la demande était techniquement acceptable.

1960 Dans les paragraphes suivants, ils font état de ces scénarios-là, ils font état qu'ils vont travailler en étroite collaboration, à faire des tests pour se conformer totalement au problème potentiel.

1961 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Vous n'avez pas prévu avec lui un site alternatif?

1962 Me DION: Pas à ce stade-ci.

1963 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. Une dernière question technique. Ça concerne une station d'Astral. Comme vous le savez, Astral propose d'augmenter la puissance apparente rayonnée de CFEI-FM Saint-Hyacinthe de 3 000 à 48 000 watts.

1964 Étant donné qu'il y a une possibilité de brouillage à votre station à cause de la modification technique à CFEI, accepteriez-vous l'interférence potentielle de la part de CFEI dans l'éventualité que les deux demandes seraient approuvées?

1965 M. DEMERS: Tout d'abord, cette demande-là nous a un peu étonnés. Parce que si on se rappelle quelques années dans le passé, nous avons fait une demande pour une station de Donacona où on tentait d'augmenter la puissance dans le marché de Québec.

1966 Et les gens d'Astral, ou de Radio Mutuel à l'époque, sont montés aux barricades pour dire qu'on ne pouvait pas utiliser une station en banlieue pour rentrer dans un marché central principal et que c'était totalement inacceptable, que ça devait être fait dans un processus concurrentiel de demande de nouvelle licence.

1967 Aujourd'hui, ce qui n'était pas bon pour nous autres à l'époque est rendu bon pour eux autres, puisqu'ils refont essentiellement le scénario que nous avons lancé sur CKNU puis ils l'essaient avec CFEI qui est la région de Saint-Hyacinthe.

1968 Je connais très bien la région de Saint-Hyacinthe pour y avoir étudié, y avoir vécu toute mon enfance, et c'est un marché qui est très autonome et distinct du marché de Montréal ou de la banlieue de Montréal. Quand quelqu'un vit à Saint-Hyacinthe, il sort à Saint-Hyacinthe, il va magasiner à Saint-Hyacinthe et non à Longueuil ou à Montréal.

1969 Alors qu'eux demandent l'augmentation de puissance pour venir solliciter le marché de Longueuil, c'est littéralement une troisième station radio dans le marché de Montréal, ce que, je crois, la réglementation interdit.

1970 Vous savez, d'un point de vue technique, le marché de Montréal est très, très contingenté, on fait une demande avec peu de puissance. D'y ajouter des contraintes supplémentaires au niveau de la diffusion, ce serait peut-être de compromettre nos chances de succès de rejoindre les jeunes qui ne sont pas seulement sur l'île de Montréal.

1971 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Est-ce que je devrais déduire de ce que vous dites que dans cette hypothèse d'augmentation, vous croyez que ça pourrait affecter votre plan d'affaires?

1972 M. DEMERS: Si on ajoutait des contraintes techniques énormes sur la diffusion et que le signal serait rendu beaucoup moins disponible ou, du moins, moins performant dans le marché de Montréal, effectivement ça pourrait nuire à notre potentiel d'écoute puis à notre potentiel de revenus.

1973 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Merci. C'est la fin des questions que j'ai prévues. Peut-être y a-t-il des questions que vous auriez voulu que je vous pose et que je ne vous ai pas posées. Alors si c'était le cas, voici le temps d'y répondre.

1974 M. DEMERS: J'ai peut-être juste une précision parce que mon collègue Jean Morin n'arrête pas, dans le fond, de me mentionner qu'on n'est peut-être pas assez clairs sur ce qu'est un jeune, ce qu'est un jeune de 18-24 ans dans le contexte actuel et puis que c'est une station de radio qui peut répondre à ce besoin-là.

1975 C'est une étape de la vie qui est très particulière que le 18-24 ou le 16-24, où l'individu choisit son mode de consommation, choisit sa marque de bière, choisit son institution financière.

1976 À cause de CHOI, on a été amenés à bien comprendre ce créneau-là, de s'implanter comme une station ultra-dominante au niveau de l'Université Laval, et c'est peut-être une étape cruciale dans le développement de la personnalité de l'être humain.

1977 Et je pense que le rôle de la radio c'est parfois de l'accompagner d'un point de vue divertissement, d'un point de vue implication dans cette communauté-là, puis c'est ce qu'on souhaite faire dans le marché de Montréal.

1978 Le jeune de 16 à 24 ans n'a pas 45 ans. La musique que vous avez entendue puis le démo qu'on a bâti ce n'était pas pour vous choquer les oreilles, ce n'était pas pour vous démontrer qu'on était capables de jouer quelque chose qui brasse. Je peux vous dire que c'est ce que les jeunes aiment écouter aujourd'hui.

1979 Même moi, chaque fois qu'arrive un nouveau groupe, je dis « même moi », je commence à avoir un âge avancé, il y a un nouveau qui arrive, je trouve ça bruyant, dérangeant, sauf qu'on dirait que la musique va de plus en plus loin au niveau du bruit et du dérangement que ça peut occasionner pour les gens peut-être un peu plus âgés.

1980 Alors, si je veux vraiment faire, je dirais, le point : que le jeune a besoin d'une musique différente, s'associer à une musique différente. Rappelez-vous quand vous aviez 20 ans, vous n'écoutiez pas la musique de vos parents et encore moins celle de vos grands-parents.

1981 C'est tout.

1982 CONSEILLER DEMERS: Bravo. Merci beaucoup, monsieur Demers, monsieur Morin, monsieur Dion. Merci, monsieur le président.

1983 LE PRÉSIDENT: Merci, maître Demers. Monsieur Demers, j'ai quelques questions parce que j'ai peut-être un peu trop de confusion. Je fais référence à votre présentation orale de ce matin qui n'est pas paginée, mais je lis : « Malgré nos efforts pour... »

1984 Mais peut-être d'abord constater que votre présentation pour une licence à Montréal est basée sur le thème du rock alternatif, diversité sur les ondes, une alternative qui n'existe pas dans le marché. Est-ce que ça c'est correct?

1985 M. DEMERS: Exact. Ajouté à la dimension sport.

1986 LE PRÉSIDENT: Je reviens à votre présentation. Vous parlez là d'un choix à Québec et vous dites que :

1987 Ensuite, vous décrivez comment vous comptez ou peut-être vous avez déjà remplacé dans les heures de grande écoute le « talk », vous n'avez aucune pièce musicale dans les trois fenêtres, et vous posez vous-même la question : « Qu'adviendrait-il de la diversité? »

1988 M. DEMERS: Exact.

1989 LE PRÉSIDENT: Et comment est-ce qu'on peut réconcilier ces deux choses-là? Comment est-ce qu'on peut être rassurés que si on vous octroie une licence à Montréal basée sur un argument sur la diversité musicale, adresser, promouvoir le rock alternatif et tout ça, que six mois après vous allez faire la même chose « talk », et comme vous dites vous-même à Québec comme les autres postes radio, « Qu'adviendrait-il de la diversité? » Je vous pose la même question.

1990 M. DEMERS: Je vous assure que c'est notre plan que de bâtir une station musicale. Et je dirais même plus : l'attribution d'une licence à Montréal aiderait à promouvoir l'industrie du rock alternatif et réconforterait notre choix dans le dossier de CHOI sur l'utilisation de ce type de musique, et pourrait même nous aider à en jouer davantage.

1991 C'est comme on a un problème d'approvisionnement, on a un problème industriel au niveau de CHOI. D'avoir une station sur le marché de Montréal va juste nous aider à solutionner un problème d'approvisionnement en termes de contenu musical.

1992 Si jamais vous décidiez d'envisager une condition de licence sur le contenu musical, pas de problème : c'est ça notre projet, c'est ça notre plan.

1993 Il faut dire que l'environnement concurrentiel du marché de Montréal est tout à fait différent. Une station avec, je dirais, une capacité de diffusion plus limitée comme celle qu'on demande aurait de la difficulté à rejoindre autant d'annonceurs que les grandes stations et, par conséquent, à attirer les animateurs au niveau financier et aller se battre sur le marché, je dirais, du contenu verbal.

1994 Il reste que le marché de la radio à Montréal est très différent de celui qui est à Québec, puisque à Montréal il y a de la télévision, des journaux qui sont excessivement présents. Les vedettes à Montréal sont des vedettes de télévision qu'on importe en radio.

1995 À Québec, il n'y a pas de télévision si ce n'est les départements de vente, il n'y a que très, très peu de productions télévisuelles dans une ville comme Québec. Les vedettes sont en radio.

1996 Alors, c'est une dynamique très différente. Moi, je vous fais valoir, monsieur le président, que si vous nous aidez à développer une industrie musicale, non seulement on va s'y astreindre dans le marché de Montréal, mais qu'on va faire des efforts pour y donner plus de place sur notre station de Québec.

1997 LE PRÉSIDENT: Oui, mais je remarque que vous dites que : « le rock alternatif c'est nous », « c'est nous », vous vous basez sur votre expérience à Québec, et ensuite vous nous dites que vous avez changé le format ou que vous avez remplacé la musique par des animateurs.

1998 C'est difficile à réconcilier le passé et l'expérience à Québec avec votre argument pour Montréal, parce que advenant des difficultés dans le marché pourquoi est-ce qu'on ne peut pas tirer la conclusion que vous allez faire la même chose : engager des animateurs et faire le « talk » dans les mêmes fenêtres de la journée?

1999 M. DEMERS: Le problème fondamental dans le cas de Québec, c'est un problème d'approvisionnement matériel. Plus on va avoir de stations dans le format, plus on va avoir du matériel, moins on va avoir de difficultés à faire vivre le format différent.

2000 On a fait valoir que la survie du rock alternatif passe par trois éléments : de bien faire valoir les arguments au point de vue réglementaire au niveau de la diversité de la musique qu'on peut jouer; d'investir dans la programmation; et d'ajouter des antennes qui sont en mesure de le diffuser.

2001 Ces trois éléments-là, si on veut avoir une industrie rock alternatif forte au Québec, vont devoir être adressés puis être réglés dans les prochaines années. Mais lequel va arriver en premier?

2002 Ce qu'on vous dit, nous, aujourd'hui dans le contexte du marché de Québec, c'est que jusqu'à maintenant on est seuls à se battre pour faire vivre ce format-là puis qu'on n'est plus capables.

2003 Nous n'avons pas suffisamment de matériel, on n'est pas capables de le faire vivre si on n'a pas d'antenne sur le marché de Montréal.

2004 LE PRÉSIDENT: Je pense que je vous ai compris. Madame Noël?

2005 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Bonjour, monsieur Demers, monsieur Morin. J'aurais deux petites questions. D'abord, vous nous avez dit au début de votre présentation que les jeunes écoutent de moins en moins la radio.

2006 Moi, j'aimerais juste savoir sur quoi vous vous fondez pour nous dire ça. Est-ce que vous avez des études? Il y a quelque chose qui est publié là-dessus ou pouvez-vous nous préciser quelles sont vos sources d'information?

2007 M. DEMERS: J'avoue que je n'ai pas fait une étude exhaustive et je pense qu'on avait sorti certaines données au niveau de BBM, mais qu'effectivement le créneau des jeunes est celui qui écoute le moins la radio par rapport aux créneaux plus âgés.

2008 Ça fait partie, je dirais, peut-être d'affirmations gratuites qui viennent de la culture d'un radiodiffuseur, mais les jeunes de 12 à 24 ans sont ceux qui écoutent le moins de radio par semaine.

2009 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Ma deuxième question : Vous avez parlé de la station CKOO, Cool comme on l'appelait ici et qui a changé de format, qui a délaissé le rock alternatif.

2010 Est-ce que ça ne vous met pas la puce à l'oreille s'ils ont décidé de laisser aller le rock alternatif, pensez-vous que c'est un format qui, si vous vous lancez là-dedans, va vous permettre d'avoir une station viable à Montréal?

2011 M. DEMERS: Je pense qu'ils font une erreur. Le rock alternatif vit très bien à Québec, vit très bien à Toronto, vit très bien à Vancouver, vit très bien à Ottawa, vit très bien partout dans tous les marchés aux États-Unis. Je ne vois pas pourquoi Montréal serait réellement différent.

2012 Comme je le disais...

2013 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Mais s'ils ont fait l'expérience puis ils l'ont laissé aller, est-ce qu'il y a une raison à ça?

2014 M. DEMERS: Je ne veux pas porter de trop grand jugement sur mes compétiteurs, mais je l'ai dit : une station rock alternative va connaître un succès sur une longue période.

2015 Il y a toujours une question d'attente qu'on a par rapport aux résultats d'une station de radio. Si demain matin il y a un radiodiffuseur qui pense lancer une station de rock alternatif puis d'être numéro 1 à Montréal avec, c'est impossible.

2016 C'est un travail de longue haleine, ça se fait sur plusieurs années et ça se bâtit sur plusieurs années. Je pense que mes compétiteurs n'ont pas eu la patience nécessaire pour faire avancer ce format-là.

2017 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Maintenant, peut-être une troisième question parce que ça me vient à l'esprit pendant que je vous parle. Vous avez mentionné dans votre présentation que votre station CHOI à Québec était une station de pointe ou une des stations qui est la plus écoutée à Québec.

2018 Pouvez-vous nous préciser quelles émissions sont les plus écoutées? Est-ce que c'est vos émissions de contenu verbal ou si c'est vos émissions musicales?

2019 M. DEMERS: Il est clair, on l'a mentionné, que nos émissions de contenu verbal c'est à heures de grande écoute. Donc, par conséquent, elles ont les plus importantes cotes d'écoute.

2020 Toutefois, qu'on prenne la majorité des groupes d'âge, chez les hommes ou encore chez les jeunes de 18 à 34 ans, on est en position de tête. À n'importe quelle heure de la journée.

2021 On a encore des véhicules très, très forts au niveau musical. On a une émission qui s'appelle le « DRX », qui est diffusée tous les jours de la semaine, sept jours par semaine, qui est une compilation des 30 meilleures chansons à la demande de nos auditeurs, qu'on maintient en situation d'écoute, en positionnement d'écoute très, très important, puis qui demeure un véhicule de la station, qui n'est pas une émission à contenu verbal puis qui connaît beaucoup, beaucoup de succès.

2022 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Je vous remercie.

2023 LE PRÉSIDENT: Maître Moore?

2024 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Merci, monsieur le président. Bonjour.

2025 M. DEMERS: Bonjour.

2026 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: J'ai quelques questions à vous poser. La première : Vous avez proposé des conditions de licence en ce qui concerne les pièces musicales nouvelles, les pièces musicales de langue française et les pièces musicales canadiennes.

2027 Seriez-vous disposés à accepter une condition de licence qui implique le dépôt d'un rapport annuel qui démontrerait la conformité avec ces conditions sur la répartition des pourcentages des pièces musicales?

2028 M. DEMERS: Sans aucun problème, je dirais, si on a peut-être à peaufiner un peu les définitions qu'on a mises de l'avant sur ce qu'est une pièce musicale nouvelle et ce qu'est un artiste de la relève.

2029 Ça devient, comme je le disais préalablement, parfois difficile à bien identifier, mais à la lumière des définitions qu'on a dites, si le Conseil est d'accord, aucun problème à produire un rapport à cet effet.

2030 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Et vous serez prêts à travailler avec le personnel du Conseil pour raffiner les termes du rapport annuel?

2031 M. DEMERS: Tout à fait.

2032 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Merci. Dans la décision CRTC 2002-189, et vous en avez parlé un petit peu avec maître Demers ce matin, le Conseil vous a imposé des conditions de licence en ce qui concerne les pièces écourtées et les montages.

2033 Et dans l'hypothèse que votre demande soit approuvée mais qu'elle soit assujettie aux conditions de licence semblables, est-ce que ça serait votre intention de quand même mettre en oeuvre votre nouvelle station?

2034 M. DEMERS: Oui, mais j'expliquerais davantage dans chacun des cas. Au niveau des pièces écourtées, pas de problème puisqu'on en a fait une pratique au niveau de tout ce qui s'appelle production de respecter le deux minutes et de respecter le fait qu'on n'écourte pas des pièces.

2035 En ce qui a trait au montage, ça demeure, je dirais, une contrainte supplémentaire qu'on a à faire face, qui altère notre capacité à compétitionner d'un point de vue musical avec nos compétiteurs qui en font davantage.

2036 Si ça devenait une pratique générale pour tous les radiodiffuseurs avec qui on a à compétitionner, pour moi ça serait davantage acceptable.

2037 Je préférerais que ce ne soit pas une condition de licence à très long terme, du moins pour ne pas nous défavoriser au niveau compétitif par rapport à nos compétiteurs au niveau des montages, ou du moins à ce que le règlement s'applique à tous.

2038 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Merci. Vous avez mentionné la possibilité d'une condition de licence sur le contenu musical, et je voulais savoir quel serait le pourcentage du point de vue pratique que nous pouvions vous imposer?

2039 M. DEMERS: Encore là, on aurait probablement une difficulté au niveau de la mesure, à savoir est-ce qu'on considère le pourcentage au niveau du nombre de pièces musicales qui sont jouées ou au niveau de la durée par rapport au contenu verbal que peuvent être le commercial, les interventions et l'image sonore.

2040 Encore là, on pourrait s'asseoir pour définir des mesures ou des méthodes pour bien mesurer que la station est à prédominance musicale et on accepterait la condition sans problème.

2041 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Pourriez-vous, par contre, même s'il y a des questions de définition, juste pour nous aider parce que c'est enfin le moment pour le faire, une idée des pourcentages en termes de contenu musical, en termes de pièces musicales?

2042 M. DEMERS: Une émission à contenu musical a généralement plus de dix pièces musicales à l'heure. Ce qui fait que si on le calcule en minutes, on peut penser à un 30-40 minutes musicales à l'heure, ce qui nous ferait plus de 50 pour cent au niveau musical.

2043 Attendu que dans une heure il va y avoir entre 14 et 16 minutes de commercial, on ajoute l'image sonore, les interventions. Facilement, on pourrait imaginer un 50 pour cent musical.

2044 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Merci. Finalement, je voulais juste poursuivre un petit peu au sujet de la demande d'Astral pour augmenter la puissance.

2045 Et je voulais savoir : si cette demande était approuvée, est-ce que ce serait votre intention quand même de mettre en oeuvre votre nouvelle station?

2046 M. DEMERS: Si elle n'altère pas notre capacité à rayonner de manière acceptable, sans problème.

2047 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Mais s'il y avait une possibilité de brouillage, est-ce que...?

2048 M. DEMERS: Ça dépendrait de l'importance de ce brouillage. C'est sûr que si on bâtit une station de radio que personne ne va pouvoir écouter, on n'a pas d'intérêt.

2049 On a fait notre étude basée sur une couverture limitée, qui se limite dans ma compréhension essentiellement à l'île de Montréal, et c'est sûr que si la décision d'Astral venait limiter considérablement cette couverture-là, ça deviendrait un projet non viable.

2050 CONSEILLÈRE MOORE: Je vous remercie. Merci, monsieur le président.

2051 LE PRÉSIDENT: Merci. Madame Wylie?

2052 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Est-ce que votre ingénieur a fait des études à cet effet-là?

2053 M. DEMERS: Malheureusement, pas à la lumière de la demande d'Astral.

2054 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Merci.

2055 LE PRÉSIDENT: Merci beaucoup, messieurs, pour votre présentation. Monsieur le secrétaire?

2056 MR. LeBEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Item 5 on the agenda is an application by Global Communications Limited for a licence to operate an english-language commercial specialty FM radio station in Montreal.

2057 The new station would operate on frequency 106.3 MHz, channel 292-B1, with an effective radiated power of 550 watts.

2058 Mr. Chairman, I would suggest a two minute break, on location, to allow for the two panels to switch.

2059 THE CHAIRPERSON: That's fine.

--- Pause

1205

2060 THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms Bell, over to you.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

2061 MS BELL: Thank you.

2062 Bonjour, monsieur le président, madame la vice-présidente, membres du Conseil.

2063 Mon nom est Charlotte Bell, et je suis la vice-présidente aux affaires réglementaires pour CanWest Global.

2064 As you are aware, last week our company announced a restructuring plan that resulted in bringing our broadcast and print operations under the overall leadership of our Chief Operating Officer, Rick Camilleri.

2065 Regrettably, he is unable to be with us here today as he is currently across Canada in order to personally meet with management and staff in each of the markets in which we operate.

2066 As former President of Sony Music Canada, Mr. Camilleri is personally committed to forge ahead with our plan to establish a new radio presence in Canada, one that will significantly contribute to the development of Canadian recording talent.

2067 We are pleased to be here today to discuss our proposal for a new English-language jazz radio station to serve Montreal, the Big Easy. I will now introduce the members of our panel.

2068 To my right is Jack Tomik, President of CanWest Media Sales, who has appeared before the Commission on many occasions. As a key member of our senior executive team, Jack not only oversees our sales and marketing operations. He has been one of the architects of our convergence plans, as well as a key member of our integration team for WIC and our print assets.

2069 To my left is Del Sexsmith, General Manager of our newly licensed smooth jazz radio station in Winnipeg, Cool FM. Dell has extensive experience in the radio industry and is assisting us today by sharing his knowledge and expertise in radio operations, a well as jazz music.

2070 In the row behind to my far left is our Senior Financial Analyst, Katherine Brown, who has also appeared before the Commission on many occasions.

2071 Next to Katherine is Linda Fraraccio, General Manager of our local ethnic television station CJNT who joined us in May of last year.

2072 Next to Linda is Marika Versailles, Promotions Manager of Global Quebec. Both Linda and Marika bring with them extensive experience in serving the unique and diverse needs of this market.

2073 At the side table to my far right is David Oakes, President of Oakes Research who conducted our format and demand survey.

2074 Sitting next to him his Jim Moltner, our Technical Engineer.

2075 MR. SEXSMITH: This proposal represents an important building block in our plan to establish a new radio voice in Canada.

2076 Commissioners, as you know, it was in Winnipeg through the start-up of CKND-TV that CanWest Global laid down the first building block for what has now become a national television network for Canadians.

2077 With the imminent launch of Cool FM it is with great pride that we begin a new chapter for our company in the city where it all began, Winnipeg.

2078 Our expansion into radio is an integral part of our plan to extend our brand to another platform in order to reach the widest possible audience for our content. At the same time, it provides an unparalleled opportunity for Canadian talent to benefit from exposure and cross-promotion over a number of media platforms, both locally and nationally. We look forward to telling more about this later in our presentation and during our discussions.

2079 Beyond meeting these objectives, this proposal will bring unequivocal benefits to Montrealers in the following ways:

2080 Introducing the first commercial English-language radio station licensed since 1959;

2081 Responding to clear consumer demand for a jazz radio station in a city where jazz music thrives;

2082 Providing a new local radio voice in a community where we have strong roots and an established record of support for local charities, cultural groups, creative talent and local events;

2083 Providing a window through which local artists who perform in many jazz and related music styles can be heard;

2084 And, providing significant exposure, training and financial support to local music artists through our Canadian Talent Development Initiatives.

2085 Throughout Canada, we are deeply rooted in the communities we serve. As well, we already have strong ties to Canada's jazz community as significant supporters of the Jazz Winnipeg Festival through a variety of initiatives each year.

2086 This application is also reflected of our Chairman, I.H. Asper's personal commitment and passion for creating a Canadian jazz star system.

2087 Mme BELL: De plus, ce projet correspond pleinement aux critères pertinent à l'évaluation des demandes en vue d'obtenir de nouveaux services de radio tels qu'énoncés par le Conseil.

2088 Si elle est approuvée, notre proposition contribuera pleinement à la réalisation des objectifs de la Loi sur la radiodiffusion par l'entremise, entre autres, de notre plan de développement de talent canadien qui compte le plus important versement à cet égard dans le cadre de cette audience publique.

2089 Notre contribution de 2,1 million $ au cours de la période de la licence contribuera nettement à l'amélioration de la promotion d'artistes locaux, à la création d'enregistrements de musique jazz sous toutes ses formes et interprétés par des artistes de Montréal et d'ailleurs au Canada, ainsi qu'à l'appui de programmes d'enseignement de musique de jazz bien reconnus des universités McGill et Concordia.

2090 Most importantly in our view, we know that Montrealers want this service. We know this because we took the time to ask them what they wanted, not once, but twice.

2091 First, through a demand survey conducted by Oakes Research before we filed this proposal. And then we confirmed demand for this service by inviting Montrealers to show their support through personal letters and visits to a special Website we created for this purpose.

2092 According to the Commission's own records, it has received some 1,500 letters of support for the 29 applications considered in this proceeding. Almost 900, or 60 per cent of those letters, were in support of the Big Easy. In accordance with the Commission's criteria, demand for this application has clearly been established.

2093 MR. TOMIK: Over the course of this proceeding, the Commission will consider a number of attractive radio proposals in French, English and other languages. As a result, you will be challenged with determining which proposal or proposals make the best use of scarce frequencies in this market and best meet the objectives of the Broadcasting Act.

2094 Montreal is a unique cosmopolitan market that resembles no other. While the majority of the residents claim French as their first spoken language, English-language residents in Montreal comprises a significant minority, one that surpasses in population the size of cities like Winnipeg and equals the size of major Canadian markets like Edmonton and Calgary.

2095 According to the BBM fall 2002 survey, the size of the English-language radio market in Montreal represents over 800,000 people. This number is also consistent with the latest statistics from Stats Canada.

2096 In terms of an advertising market, we know from experience that Montreal is divided in two. There is clearly a French market and an English market.

2097 We are an English-language application with a strong local presence in the community. Our other media outlets across Canada provide exceptional exhibition and promotional opportunities for the creative talent in a variety of ways.

2098 While others have given up on convergence, we know from experience that cross-promotion and joint reporting between different media platforms serves the communities well. It can also provide immeasurable promotional support for Canadian talent.

2099 I would now like to ask Marika and Linda to share their first-hand experience in this area and give you a glimpse of how the Big Easy will elevate the profile of local talent like no other proposal before you.

2100 MS VERSAILLES: Commissioners, as Promotions Manager for Global Quebec, I work with an established convergence team in Montreal that was recently created to encourage the flow of ideas and identify business opportunities between our print, television and Internet assets in the market.

2101 We meet on a regular basis for the purpose of collaborating on these projects and stories that we believe are important to our community and need to be told.

2102 The advantage of collaborating on projects not only lies in the sum of all these parts, but in the unique perspective that each of us bring to the table on issues that matter to our community.

2103 These collaborative ventures can also help elevate the profile of local artists. For instance, Global Quebec recently aired a one-hour music special featuring local jazz performer Coral Egan. This special also aired on Global television stations across Canada as well on Prime TV.

2104 Locally, our entertainment reporter did a feature about her for the entertainment segment of our newscast. The Gazette ran a review of her album and Canada.com ran a promotion for the special. The addition of a new jazz radio station would create another window to expose local talent who would also benefit from opportunities for national exposure.

2105 MS FRARACCIO: Our cross-promotion and joint efforts also contribute significantly to advance cultural diversity.

2106 For instance, eight times each year the Gazette publishes pull-up sections profiling Montreal cultural communities. The Gazette calls on the assistance of CJNT to help establish contacts with ethnic community leaders.

2107 These special features are promoted on our station as well as Canada.com and Global Quebec. At the same time, CJNT and Global Quebec, through its morning show, typically conduct interviews with prominent members of the communities profiled at the time of publication of these features.

2108 The City of Montreal's Multicultural Council recently called on us as a doorway to connect with Montreal English-speaking community. As a group, Global Quebec, CJNT, Canada.com and the Gazette worked with the city in order to share information to better reach Montreal's English-speaking community.

2109 This initiative has led to a number of projects. For instance, when the city announced that it was giving Citizenship Awards to recognize individuals in the community, Global Quebec was there to cover the story as a news item, and Canada.com and the Gazette published the names of the winners. CJNT also interviewed one of the recipients who happened to be from the local Caribbean community.

2110 In terms of supporting local music talent, CJNT already incorporates world beat, international, latino and jazz music within its local ethnic programs by airing live performances and interviews with music artists.

2111 Approval of the Big Easy will provide additional opportunities for Montreal's ethnic music talent to find its way on our airways.

2112 MS BELL: We will now show you a short video presentation to give you an idea of what the service might sound like.

--- Video Presentation / Présentation vidéo

2113 MS BELL: We are ready for your questions.

2114 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

2115 Commissioner Pennefather.

2116 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Good afternoon.

2117 MS BELL: Good afternoon.

2118 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: We can get started perhaps appropriately before lunch and continue on the music scene that we have just had thanks to your video presentation.

2119 In fact, my first area of questioning will be on programming and after lunch we will have more programming questions and then look at the economic analysis using your study, Mr. Oakes, and some questions on ownership and cross-ownership and editorial independence, and finally some technical questions.

2120 If I begin with programming in your proposed jazz format -- I don't know if you here yesterday, but again what I would like to do here for the Commission is to try to understand very clearly what your select music playlist will be and how and why you define it as jazz. I think you also call it jazz-related format. So it's the jazz-related area that I think we need a little more clarification on.

2121 One of the aspects of this is the mix of instrumental to vocal. In fact, listening and watching the presentation, I was trying to keep track of that balance.

2122 If you take the Category 3 music component, usually the ratio -- if we look at your list that you submitted in the playlist of 25 October deficiency letter, which had a very detailed listing, in that Category 3 listing, the vocal to instrumental ratio comes out to about 55/45, and when we add the smooth jazz style Category 2 vocal music to this mix, which is around 25 per cent of the total music package, the vocal to instrumental ratio increases to around 65 to 35.

2123 So the point here is what we seem to come out with is a stronger balance towards vocal than instrumental and while, obviously, there is a great vocal tradition in jazz music, some might argue that jazz is still viewed today as fundamentally and predominantly an instrument form and is programmed as such in other jazz stations both here and in the United States.

2124 So would you elaborate on why you have chosen to develop a jazz, jazz-related format music mix that consists of approximately two-thirds vocal music as opposed to the more traditional jazz format mix that places the emphasis on instrumental music?

2125 MS BELL: Commissioner Pennefather, I guess the first thing I would say is we did supply a very detailed playlist to you which only represents certain block hours in the day. In fact, I think there are four different examples. So it's not a weekly playlist.

2126 I think that when we look at the different styles of jazz that we are planning to air on this station, the vocal to instrumental ratio is probably around 60/40, 60 vocal, 40 per cent instrumental.

2127 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I understand that what we have on record is presented as weekday morning drive, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, evenings, so you can well imagine we saw it as a pretty good representation of what you plan to do.

2128 So you say, yes, you have chosen to balance more in terms of vocal and instrumental. Can you tell us why?

2129 MS BELL: That's correct. Our playlist is based the research that we conducted in this market and in the specific demands of residents of Montreal. According to Mr. Oakes' research, the different types of jazz music that they wanted to hear were blends of vocal and instrumental styles and as it turns out when you put it on paper it turns out to be around 60/40. I think some weeks it might be 55/45, 65/35, but overall, I guess, if you average it out I think that's about the level of instrumental selections that the station would play.

2130 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So are we looking more at a so-called jazz-related station with a relatively strong component of Category 2?

2131 MS BELL: We would be restricted to 30 per cent of our schedule to do Category 2 in any event. It is a very strong jazz radio station.

2132 Perhaps I could have Mr. Sexsmith provide a little more detail about the music breakdown.

2133 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And I think too, in relation to this market, why do you feel this particular mix, which is not strictly jazz as per the beginning of the video, but rather more of a jazz-related mix, why do you think it will work in Montreal?

2134 MR. SEXSMITH: I guess there are two questions there, Commissioner.

2135 The first one is just about the blend of vocal and instrumental. I think Ms Bell explained it very well. It looks one way on paper, but as you continue to listen to and put together sample hours, the blend changes slightly from hour to hour and you are somewhere in that 55 to 45 ratio of vocals and instrumentals. It flows a little back and forth. There are some hours when you feel you are hearing more instrumentals than vocals. So I wouldn't put a firm number to it, but I would be content in saying you are somewhere in between 50 and 60 per cent instrumental in any given hour.

2136 The other part of that question, the first question, is that there is a wide range of artists, especially Canadian artists, who provide material that is sometimes original and is sometimes what we used to call "cover" music. That is they are recording a tune that has already been released by a previous artist and, therefore, it's well known. That also seems to balance out very well.

2137 So just in terms of our overall library there is a wide range of music to pick in both vocal and instrumental selections and it seems to balance nicely.

2138 In terms of how that would impact on the Montreal audience, Montreal has a very great heritage in jazz and it has what I would call a greater knowledge base and a greater familiarity with even mor traditional jazz. So the blend again here is to mix well-known selections, well-known songs, which may be cover artists, well-known new material and well-known traditional material and the tolerance here is higher for traditional material.

2139 So that would suggest, again, that we have a bit more instrumental material.

2140 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you. That's very helpful.

2141 So if we look though at even what you call the proposed station, the "Big Easy", and I think there is a comment in Oakes research which you repeat in the supplementary brief that Montrealers are looking for something easy, calm music, calming music, if we can say that, at least the group of Montrealers that you think you are addressing yourself to. But if I look at what is available in this market now, at least on English-language stations, light rock, known contemporary music, if I can slightly change the definitions.

2142 How would this selection differ from what is already available?

2143 MS BELL: I think if you refer back to our playlist, you will find the majority of artists we are planning on the station are not played anywhere else in this market, or very little, and relegated to some programs on the CBC that are aired in the evening, and I think there is one jazz program on CKUT which is the McGill radio station.

2144 I think the majority of the music on the station is not heard anywhere else, and I think it is also one of the reasons why there was such support for this application because people are looking for something they are not getting right now, and our research did confirm that.

2145 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2146 We will come back to that when we look a little more precisely at reach and revenues. But I think we could stop now because the next section on local programming and oral programming is a little longer. So we might want to take a break now.

2147 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

2148 We will resume at 2:00 p.m. Nous reprendrons à 14 heures.

--- Upon recessing at 1430 / Suspension à 1430

--- Upon resuming at 1400 / Reprise à 1400

2149 LE PRÉSIDENT: A l'ordre, s'il vous plaît. Order, please.

2150 Madame Pennefather?

2151 CONSEILLÈRE PENNEFATHER: Merci, monsieur le président. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon again.

2152 We will continue on programming. I said we would discuss the local programming spoken word, but before we get to that I thought best just to complete some questions on the musical programming.

2153 Just to clarify the Canadian content condition of licence, you have indicated that you would broadcast a weekly minimum of 35 per cent Canadian content in Category 3 music. Would you accept this commitment as a condition of licence?

2154 MS BELL: Yes, we would.

2155 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2156 And clarifying some points on the Canadian talent development projects. On page 3 of your 11 October deficiency response you provided a breakdown of $50,000 in expenditures related to the support of local talent initiative. I think that breakdown is on page 3.

2157 We show $30,000 for musician fees for each of the two concerts; hall rentals for each of the concerts, lighting, sound, et cetera, $15,000; honoraria to the jury for tape judging, $4,000; honoraria to the contest judges, $3,000; and miscellaneous third-party costs for the concert, $8,000. That adds up to $60,000 not $50,000.

2158 MS BELL: We were overly generous.

2159 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I'm not complaining. I just needed clarification.

2160 MS BELL: Okay. If I can just have a moment and double check those figures and see where I went wrong?

--- Pause

2161 MS BELL: Commissioner Pennefather, I obviously made a mistake.

2162 When we divided those amounts the intention was that we estimated that it would cost about $50,000 and they are always estimates. I take it we would have to readjust in terms of the musician fees and perhaps some of the third-party costs. So hall rental again, we put $15,000. It might be less than that. We could revise those numbers and refile with the Commission if that would be appropriate.

2163 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: All right, but our total remains $50,000 as part of the total of one million over seven years.

2164 MS BELL: That's right.

2165 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you very much.

2166 Again, just to take that same October 11 letter a little further. On the same page down at the bottom, we are pursuing the question about the $100,000 to FACTOR and your concept that half of this would go to Montreal and Quebec artists and half elsewhere.

2167 We asked if you had confirmed this agreement and you said you would file a letter of confirmation shortly. Is there any news on that? I don't seem to have that on file.

2168 MS BELL: Yes, we filed a letter this morning with the Secretary confirming that arrangement with FACTOR.

2169 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Okay. I imagine if there is anything that has to be done for procedure, that legal will ask you about that.

2170 And, finally, again the same deficiency letter at page 4, is there any update on your response to question 3e), where you were looking to develop your relationship with the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Is there anything on that goal, on that project?

2171 MS BELL: Commissioner Pennefather, we always wait until our application is gazetted before we contact our proposed recipients for Canadian development just to keep things confidential before it becomes public.

2172 I did place a call -- in fact, I placed a couple of calls -- to the festival and I did not get a return phone call back. Having said that, we work the Jazz Festival every year. In fact, we cover the festival which is some of the footage you saw on our video, and we promote the festival on our airwaves, in the Gazette, Canada.com. We would continue to do that and, of course, if we had the licence then we would hope that we could sit down and discuss with them our intention for that money.

2173 Our intention is that it would be used to put up two free concerts, additional concerts at the Jazz Festival.

2174 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Can we assume though that should that not materialize the $30,000 remains part of the $2.1 million over seven years package?

2175 MS BELL: Absolutely, and I think that what we would want to do, because the intention for that money was to add to the exposure of local artists, so what we would do is perhaps create two other opportunities every year outside of the festival season to promote local artists.

2176 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Turning now to cultural diversity, and you have addressed this matter in your application, particularly in the November 12th deficiency letter. I would appreciate if you would expand a little bit. As you know, the Commercial Radio Policy encourages broadcasters to reflect cultural diversity in their programming and employment practices, especially with respect to news, music and promotion of Canadian artists.

2177 If you could elaborate a little more, especially in terms of how you see the particular radio environment, what are the opportunities, what are the challenges that we face in the radio environment to encourage cultural diversity.

2178 MS BELL: I would be glad to do so, bearing in mind that I don't want to speak for all of my radio colleagues.

2179 I am very happy to see that the Commission recognizes the fact that opportunity to promote cultural diversity is also, to a certain extent, contingent upon the format of its station, especially if you are looking at the music side of things.

2180 Certainly whatever format you are in I think that you have many opportunities to promote cultural diversity in spoken word programming, in your news content, but it's not going to be exactly the way you would do it with television, obviously, because you don't have the visuals that go with it.

2181 Having said all of that, this particular format lends itself well to that because, as you know, a number of the artists that you would feature in a jazz radio station, including the world beat component that we have added here, would give you a tremendous opportunity to profile different cultures, to make a point of giving background information about where artists are from, what their own cultural background is, some of the obstacles they face, especially if you go back to earlier times like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and artists like that.

2182 So I think there is an opportunity to make a positive contribution overall, and certainly in our employment practices. As you know, we just filed our cultural diversity update with the Commission and we will be meeting you on February 27th to go over in more detail what our plan is. We would, obviously, incorporate this station within the plan that is with the Commission.

2183 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Just to push a little further on that, let's take for granted that the music has a component, and God bless the artists that gave us that music. They are there, but if we don't take that into consideration, what is your corporate strategy to assure that, for example, the news voices, the opinions of the station, the editorial content of the station, would be reflective of the cultural diversity of Montreal?

2184 MS BELL: As a matter of fact, we have the great advantage of having a presence in this market through Global Quebec, but also through CJNT which is, as you know, the only ethnic television station in the marketplace.

2185 As we explained in our opening remarks, and Linda could provide more examples for you, we have had occasion, in fact, to take advantage of the relationships that CJNT already has in the marketplace in terms of, first of all, helping us contact the appropriate ethnic groups that are in this market, contact the appropriate leaders of those ethnic groups, get some feedback. We also have an advisory committee that is representative of the Montreal cultural community.

2186 So we have a lot of opportunities through CJNT, as a matter of fact, to promote cultural diversity, in terms of our news content also because of the contacts we have with CJNT, and we have been doing this with CKMI already, expanding on our list of experts so that we are going to an expert who happens to be from another ethnic background, whether it's in finance, legal, health matters and trying to expand on that on our television. We would do the same thing for radio. So there is a great opportunity there.

2187 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you, Ms Bell. I am addressing the future potential FM station. I was trying to be very precise on that because, as we will discuss further in our questioning, we are assuming editorial independence for the radio station. So it's important that I understand what your plan is for cultural diversity with the news in the radio station proposed.

2188 MS BELL: If I wasn't clear, I'm sorry. I was focused on the cultural diversity component of that, but the radio station, as we have already said, would have its own news director, its own reporters.

2189 We would obviously seek out reporters from different cultural backgrounds also, but while we can liaise with the television stations and the newspaper, the news director and the reporters are going to make the decision as to what items they are going to cover and how they are going to present those stories and how to best reflect the interests of their particular audience which is somewhat different from the other services that we operate here.

2190 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you. I was trying to just focus on that particular station, the proposed station.

2191 Speaking of synergies, can you clarify for us a little bit in more detail the synergies with the jazz channel -- I believe you have that licence -- and your new smooth jazz FM in Winnipeg? You have indicated that if your application in Montreal is approved, it would benefit from available strategies with both of the above.

2192 Can you elaborate a little further on that?

2193 MS BELL: We would gladly elaborate. I will just begin and I will ask Del Sexsmith who actually is the General Manager for the new smooth jazz station in Winnipeg which, by the way, we are planning to launch on March 1st, just for your information.

2194 There are some opportunities for synergies. We have looked at, in fact, if some of the special programming that we are planning to do for the Big Easy could possibly fit with one or two programs that we are doing on the station in Winnipeg.

2195 Even if you are not broadcasting the exact same programs, there is an opportunity for sharing information and sharing background information in terms of producing those segments. There is also, obviously if we had two licences in two different markets -- and one of our goals is to, in fact, create a Canadian jazz star system. So I think it would be very relevant and desirable for us to find ways in which we could create perhaps a program or program segments that would highlight local artists from Montreal and take them to the West, take Canadian artists in other markets and give them a window of exposure in Montreal.

2196 So there are some opportunities there, and I will ask Del to perhaps give you more detail.

2197 MR. SEXSMITH: Thank you.

2198 First of all, just to note that Cool TV is not launched yet. So all these ideas are still in the planning stages.

2199 In Winnipeg, for example, there is a series of concerts in the Izzy Asper Performance Series. Cool TV has recorded one program and the plan is to record other programs in the future. The audio version of that particular performance is being made available so it can be programmed for Cool FM.

2200 Our plan is to be able to take co-productions of that nature and offer them again in Montreal so that the artists that come to that performance series can be recorded and then showcased on three entirely separate platforms, the Big Easy, Cool TV and Cool FM.

2201 Some of the artists are Canadian and some are not, but where they are Canadian artists there is the opportunity to promote them as well in both markets since when Cool TV launches it will have a national audience and we will be able to identify them and their local concerts with respect to both the Big Easy and Cool FM.

2202 We have been contacted by artists coming to town for other purposes. So again, the mandate will be to use the jazz platform to promote those artists when they appear locally and use those promotions -- this is separate from recorded programs, but promotional feature them on both Cool TV and Cool FM.

2203 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So I hear a promotional side. Is there also programming exchange side? In other words, will we see the same programs or hear the same programs in Montreal and Winnipeg?

2204 MR. SEXSMITH: The first part of that question -- pardon me, Commissioner. The first part of that answer was an actual recording. So that is programming, that is content that we will be making available.

2205 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: When you, in your presentation earlier this afternoon, said:

2206 What did you mean by "brand" and how far does this go?

2207 MR. SEXSMITH: I think it's a very valid question and really we finally identified jazz after 25 years of fighting the owner off and saying, "No, we don't want to do jazz". It's finally having a time and an age, and the importance of a jazz brand across the country to an aging population I think is a good one. I think it's a new music platform that finally has a chance to succeed.

2208 There have been jazz stations in Canada in the past, and they haven't been to successful. I remember especially CJAZZ in Vancouver many years ago, but I think the time is there.

2209 In terms of trying to market a brand, we see the ability to make jazz a new kind of a platform for communications across Canada as a big opportunity. We see it as a way to offer content in many markets across the country that is valid for those markets, that will allow the creative community to do things like building a star system for jazz artists.

2210 Certainly there have been some great ones coming out of Canada recently in Diana Krall and Remy Shand and Holly Cole, but I think, and we think, there is a great opportunity to build that out.

2211 In terms of national brands, we have been very successful over the year in national brands like Global Television or CH Television which have a national brand, but really serve a specific community in very different ways.

2212 We see the same kind of opportunity with Cool Jazz, or the Big Easy, or a jazz station.

2213 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2214 I'm sure we will come back to that discussion at the end. I would like to move on, but come back to that discussion when we have examined thoroughly this particular component.

2215 I take it then your first response is the brand you are referring to is the jazz brand.

2216 MR. SEXSMITH: I think it's the jazz brand and also moving into another medium. We are really excited about the launch March 1st.

2217 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: We can also call it the "Global brand" then, and it's that component we will come back to.

2218 Let's go to local programming and spoken word, back to the Montreal market. You specify that your proposed station would produce approximately 126 hours of local programming per broadcast week, and that it would include an unspecified amount of spoken word.

2219 Based on a 126-hour broadcast week, can you give us an approximate breakdown in the amount of spoken word to music programming in hours?

2220 MS BELL: We have a detailed breakdown in terms of news, surveillance and all the different categories of spoken word programming.

2221 I will ask Del Sexsmith to take you through that.

2222 MR. SEXSMITH: Thank you, Commissioner.

2223 The details are in three portions. The news portion, which comes in news and information packages; total surveillance which is spoken word outside newscasts and in generic music programming; and then total special programming. The total of all of these will be 17 hours.

2224 In the news and information programming, the Big Easy will present hourly newscasts from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 6:00 a.m. to noon on Saturday and Sunday. Major news and information packages will be formatted as the "big news", while brief, 2 to 2.5-minute packages will be presented as "easy updates". Information packages Monday through Friday at 8:00 a.m., 12 noon and 6:00 p.m. will be 8.5 seconds in length, consisting of five minutes of news, subcategory 11, followed by weather, traffic, business, sports and entertainment reports.

2225 Newscasts at 6:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. weekdays would include three minutes of news, followed again by brief reports on weather, traffic, business, sports and entertainment.

2226 The easy updates, the 90-second newscasts would be followed by brief weather and traffic reports in the music hours presented on the half-hour in breakfast and drive periods as well during weekdays.

2227 The total spoken word in news and information packages on those hourly and half-hour newscasts is seven hours. Included in that is four hours subcategory 11, news.

2228 Total surveillance spoken word, which again would be weather, information, general entertainment, and so forth, 8.5 hours weekly between 6:00 a.m. and midnight Monday to Sunday.

2229 Total special programming would occur in the programs we have named, Daily Jazz Magazine, Weekly Cool 20, Our Jazz, the Global Beat, and Big Blue.

2230 The Daily Jazz Magazine provides news, information, interviews and music involving the jazz and local scene as well as international and national stories to do with jazz.

2231 The Weekly Cool 20 is a countdown of 20 songs prepared that week with introductions.

2232 Our Jazz is a two-hour program of local CD material provided by local artists who have not been able to achieve status with major labels.

2233 The Global Beat will be a 10-minute program, two hours weekly. This is a profile of world beat music, and Big Blue, which is blues and rhythm and blues.

2234 The total spoken word content in those programs would be 1.5 hours weekly. So in total that's 17 hours of spoken word.

2235 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Seventeen hours of spoken word. I believe you said of that 17, four hours would be news. Is that local or is that all news?

2236 MR. SEXSMITH: That's all news.

2237 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: What portion of that is local news?

2238 MR. SEXSMITH: In general, a newscast prepared by a News Director entirely on his own is obviously going to be whatever he or she determines it to be. My guess, from listening to average newscasts, is approximately half the content of the newscast package tends to be local, but I would never hold a News Director to that because they should always lead with the most important story of the day, whether it's the space shuttle or George Bush' impact on Iraq, or whether it's the local municipal hospital story. But in general, the news is not defined specifically as strictly local.

2239 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And these local newscasts would be both presented during the week and on the weekend?

2240 MR. SEXSMITH: Yes, Monday to Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. would be newscasts on the hour, and Saturday and Sunday, 6:00 a.m. to noon.

2241 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: What are your primary sources for the local news?

2242 MR. SEXSMITH: I think with a News Director and four reporters I would ask them to use whatever sources they feel are best at profiling stories to an audience that is primarily musical in scope and is also looking for information on the local club scene and jazz scene.

2243 I would ask them to be tenacious in their own right in pursuing those stories. That will mean they will have to go and talk to people in the community themselves directly.

2244 The other sources they would have would be standard. They would be broadcast news and wire copy and also any information they can glean from local media simply by either subscribing to the newspaper or scanning it themselves from a television set up or the Internet.

2245 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2246 Now, you have said that the station would have its own separate and distinct newsroom and, I think you have repeated just now, a dedicated News Director who would be responsible for the supervision of an unspecified number of journalists-announcers.

2247 So how many journalists do you intend on hiring for the station?

2248 MR. SEXSMITH: Four.

2249 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Four. Of these, how many will be full time and how many part time?

2250 MR. SEXSMITH: All four of those journalists will be full time.

2251 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Would there be an independent treatment of the news locally?

2252 MR. SEXSMITH: Yes.

2253 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And will the journalists in the Montreal station concentrate solely on the production of local news for the proposed station?

2254 MR. SEXSMITH: Yes.

2255 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Would the local station maintain editorial control?

2256 MR. SEXSMITH: Yes. I think the implication, as I have said, is that it is a stand-alone entity in many respects and has to be able to communicate directly with the local jazz audience. So its news has to be entirely under its own control and of the General Manager of that station.

2257 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Perhaps then you could help me understand the comment on page 19 of your supplementary brief.

2258 Again, you do say in the paragraph at the bottom of the page that the station will have its own News Director, et cetera:

2259 So can you help us understand, in light of your comment of editorial control and independence, what you mean by "benefitting from the news coverage from the television newsroom and the news gathering resources of the CanWest stations"?

2260 MS BELL: I will just begin and I guess say one thing about that.

2261 If you scan local radio stations in any market right now, for instance if there are three CHUM stations in a market or two Rogers stations, you will often hear that it came from the Rogers newsroom, or one of those entities is subscribing to the NewsWire and sharing that information.

2262 The newscast will be presented more than likely differently, but at the end of the day the source of information is the same. In fact, if you scan different radio stations from different companies doing things differently, you will find that there is not going to be a huge difference in terms of what their items are going to be in the newscast because the news of the day is the news of the day.

2263 I understand the concept is editorial independence and we do respect it, but in terms of knowing what the top news items are for the day, it makes no sense to go and pay additional costs to get the NewsWire separately when Global TV already is subscribing to the same NewsWire, getting the same information.

2264 So in terms of sharing the resources and gathering resources of our other stations, that's really what we mean.

2265 Del?

2266 MR. SEXSMITH: From the view point of a news person, Commissioner, the most important thing is to have the most information as quickly as possible to then be able to digest it and present it on-air. So there is an advantage to a newsroom having immediate access to some of the other newsrooms' information, not that news in newspaper or television or some other source is written for radio.

2267 Part of that is technological. For example, stories can be written in a text form and filed by e-mail, picked up immediately by a news reporter who looks at it from a radio perspective, looks for a radio comment, builds an entirely new story, but to have access to that content is a great thing.

2268 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So, if I may continue on this point in practical terms, how is the separate newsroom, how is its editorial independence defined? If you could explain that in as much detail as possible. I am beginning to get a sense here of anything but a distinct newsroom, news gathering.

2269 Can you explain a little more how, on the one hand, you say there is editorial independence but, on the other hand, there is what you called earlier "joint reporting" in your presentation on page 10? How does it break down? How does it work?

2270 MS BELL: Can I just make a specific comment? What we are referring to as "joint reporting" is on specific issues that television, print, the Internet properties decide that they are going to follow a specific story and do a joint report. That has nothing to do with their daily newscasts, absolutely not. That's not how it works and it has never worked that way and it's not going to. Every single entity has its own news reporters, its own News Director, and at the end of the day that person makes the decision in terms of what stories they are going to cover, the line up of the stories, and how they are going to cover them, and they are going to cover them from different angles.

2271 CJNT doesn't do any news programming. It does local programming, but it has no news content whatsoever. The Gazette is a newspaper. It covers stories from a variety of angles, from editorial perspectives, but our television station is not presenting news at all in the same way that a newspaper would or in any same detail. Television has the benefit of having visuals added to the story, but their newscasts are a lot shorter, less detailed.

2272 A radio station, as you know, when you listen to the radio unless you are listening to talk radio or a radio station that specialized in talk and information and news, it's fairly quick. It's giving you the headlines of the day and there is not a whole lot of time to make editorial comments within those newscasts.

2273 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I am going to stop there for the moment. I am going to come back to this subject though again because, in my view, it's one of the most important components of this proposal, but I have a couple of other questions about your programming and about the economic study, just to complete those and we will come back to this discussion.

2274 Part of the discussion which will help us as well is to clarify synergies versus separation and how the opportunities -- we are not unaware of those opportunities, but how they also can be looked at. You must understand the concern we have that there is another way of looking down the telescope and if the opportunities become for one group only it becomes a problem.

2275 Just to complete the questioning on your local program and your spoken word programming, I think I understood by virtue of what is on the public file, you have the regular entertainment reports played through the day, and I think you included those in the listing you just gave us. Am I correct?

1420

2276 MR. SEXSMITH: Yes.

2277 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: In total them, if you look at the spoken word programming, how do you see your station distinguishing itself from what already exists in the English Montreal market?

2278 MR. SEXSMITH: Well, essentially all that spoken word is designed for an audience that has tuned to us primarily for jazz, and trusts us as the local voice for that particular genre and would expect the information to tie into it.

2279 You are also dealing with an audience that is a little bit more mature. So the stories are focused more on stories that are of interest to adults from their perspective, stories about teens from an adult perspective as opposed to the opposite.

2280 The information being presented sometimes contains business and other information that is not universally carried by other radio stations. So in that respect I think we would be quite distinct.

2281 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2282 That segues nicely to some further discussions about the audience and the business plan related to this station.

2283 The audience you are looking for is 35 to 64-year-old English-speaking Montrealers. Am I correct?

2284 MS BELL: Yes, it is.

2285 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: In your presentation today you are saying you are looking at a market of about 800,000. Is that correct?

2286 MS BELL: What we are saying is that the English-language market equals about 800,000 people according to BBM.

2287 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And that BBM is a breakdown of people whose English is their mother tongue or/and includes English as a second language, I assume.

2288 MS BELL: The way they break it down, which is interesting because I wanted to understand where the number came from and how they arrive at that, because what that is essentially is -- I wanted to know what the size of the English market was, or the English radio market according to BBM because that's what advertisers based their purchases on.

2289 What BBM does is they include all people who claim English as a first language. Then they also add to that people who speak English as a second language, and divide that number in two. So they would take, for instance, the bilingual population and divide it down the middle, according to the information we obtained because they recognize that this particular market has a very high percentage of people who speak more than one language.

2290 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So when we work our way through the Oakes report and look at the jazz reach or acumen -- is that the correct pronunciation? I prefer reach because if I am right that is the same thing. Is that not so? If we look at that slice that you have taken of the Montreal market, page 28 of your research offers an interesting breakdown, in fact, of the language groups: English as most used home language; French; French home language but bilingual; English and French equally home language; bilingual allophones. It sounds like my home town.

2291 Can you tell us the breakdown of your audience by language group? This I assumed was the basic breakdown of the city's jazz, the group in the city interested in jazz. But for your station, what do you expect to be the breakdown of English versus French listeners?

2292 MS BELL: Actually, Mr. Oakes has prepared a breakdown according to his research.

2293 Do you have that information handy?

2294 MR. OAKES: I do. Thank you.

2295 We have basically pointed out on page 28 what the breakdown would be. Now, I categorized based on home language used most often which is a bit different from some of the other ones, and basically the numbers there: 46 per cent English as the most used home language; French as the most used home language; English and French equally home language; and bilingual allophones, bilingual in the sense that they can speak English.

2296 So that is pretty well the way the audience would break out.

2297 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you. That clarifies it. I thought it was just in general, but that's what you expect the breakout to be.

2298 With that in mind then, can you clarify for me what impact do you expect your proposed station to have on the stations that are in fact listed for the English market in Montreal, of which there are six commercial stations, three AM, three FM. What station do you expect your proposed to have the most impact on?

2299 MS BELL: Actually, Katherine Browne could answer that question.

2300 MS BROWNE: Thank you, Commissioner.

2301 We estimate that in the first year of our launch we will reduce the -- or have less than a 2 per cent impact on the combined advertising revenues of the current incumbents and that, given conservative growth estimates, they would be back to their normal levels by year two or year three.

2302 Now, in terms of which station we would impact the most, we haven't really estimated that as it would be somewhat difficult given the fact that this is a very special niche and currently not being addressed in the market. So it would be difficult for us to determine which station would be impacted the most.

2303 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And when you look at the revenue potential then for the Montreal market, I believe the CanWest economic study project looked at a growth rate of 3 per cent for both local and national advertising revenues. Do you know what the growth rate would be for just local revenues?

2304 MS BROWNE: We used fairly conservative projections. We found that over the past six years the average growth rate has been about 4 to 5 per cent annually and the growth rates that we have seen in the first four months of fiscal 2002 from our most recent BBM study -- if I could just flip to that page -- have shown about a 12 per cent increase in the anglophone market.

2305 I am just going to, if you will give me a moment, look at what portion of that is local.

--- Pause

2306 MS BROWNE: Local at 17 per cent.

2307 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I am looking at the going forward basis. I understood your study to have said that it would be 3 per cent going forward growth rate.

2308 MS BROWNE: Yes.

2309 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: But it's local and national. So what I am after is the impact on the local advertising of a new station in the English-speaking market of Montreal.

2310 MS BROWNE: Okay. The impact of the local advertising market, we have determined that the split between the two would be about 60/40 between the two.

2311 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So is it your opinion that the Montreal English radio market can absorb a new English-language station?

2312 MS BELL: Yes, it is.

2313 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: And just finally to be sure, you mention the 800,000 as a number that includes different components. If we said to you that we look at Statistics Canada statistics that deal with the English-speaking population per se and -- as you know, of course, that is presented in terms of mother tongue -- that we are looking at a number closer to 400,000 or 12.7 per cent of the population, you would still feel that the market can absorb a new station and that there is the revenue potential for a new English-language station?

2314 MS BELL: If I may just answer that in two components? Yes, we do, and we have looked at the Statistics Canada numbers and you are absolutely right, the mother tongue number is I believe 441,000, if I am not mistaken.

2315 I guess I would submit that using mother tongue as the measurement to determine the size of the market in most markets in Canada I think is pretty relevant. In fact, I compared with other markets what the number, in terms of the number of people who say "English is my mother tongue" and the language that they speak most often at home. Those numbers are really quite closely mirrored in other markets in Canada. They are fairly close.

2316 When you look at Montreal, it doubles. It literally doubles. It's 441,000 mother tongue English and it goes up to 885,000. So the StatsCan number is actually higher in terms of language spoken at home.

2317 I can use myself as an example of that. It's people like me, people like Gwen O'Farrell who grew up in Quebec. Our mother tongues are French. We are fluent in English and we function in both languages and there are thousands of us out there. So I think that is why the difference in the numbers. I just feel that it is appropriate to take that into account, which is I think what BBM is taking into account also.

2318 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2319 I have a question on your revenues and expenses, only one question, in fact. Earlier we talked about synergies with the other broadcasting operations and we talked about it in terms of programming, the entertainment programming, music programming and we will get to synergies amongst the news operations once again.

2320 When we look at the programming expenses, have you incorporated these synergies into your proposed programming expenses for the Montreal station?

2321 MS BELL: I would like to ask Katherine Browne to answer this.

2322 MS BROWNE: No, we have not. The programming expenses that you see here are completely representative of a stand-alone station programming for the local market.

2323 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you.

2324 Let's get back now to the question of ownership, to cross-media ownership and editorial independence, and we will pick up again on our conversation. But I wanted to also start from a larger starting point.

2325 You have said in your application that your proposed station will add to the diversity of local English-language radio in the Montreal market.

2326 However, we can look at this another way. If we look at the position of CanWest in the Canadian broadcasting system, and the fact that in this market you currently operate two English-language television stations, you are involved in the Montreal Gazette, a major local newspaper, and in the daily newspaper, the National Post, you can understand why we might want to pose questions and why we might be concerned about cross-media ownership with Global's added presence in Montreal through a radio outlet.

2327 Can you explain to us why we should not be concerned about this presence of Global? You may see yourself as a new voice in terms of radio but, in fact, you are here already as a voice, as a brand, if you will, in this market.

2328 So can you give us some reason not to be concerned?

2329 MS BELL: We appreciate the fact that the Commission is concerned. In fact, it's your job to ensure that when you make decisions you are taking into account the positive, the negative, and finding a balance.

2330 I guess what I would say about our presence in Montreal, I believe -- and Katherine Browne may correct me if I am wrong -- our total reach between CJNT and CKMI is 9.4 per cent of the market, or somewhere around there, 9.7 --

2331 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: It's 9.7 and two point something.

2332 MS BELL: That's right. So it's a fairly small percentage share in the market which means that people are going to a number of other places to obtain information. They have a variety of sources to go to, both locally and nationally and through foreign services. So that is one thing, I mean, just to establish what our position is in the marketplace.

2333 I guess the other thing I would say is that we have two TV stations. One of them is a regional station, and albeit it does have a strong local component because of the fact that Montreal is the largest English-language market in Quebec, that Global Quebec is the regional station and so it does cover wider ranges of stories, not just Montreal-centric.

2334 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: But, if I may interrupt, its contour covers Montreal.

2335 MS BELL: Yes, absolutely.

2336 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: It's available over the air in Montreal.

2337 MS BELL: Absolutely. CJNT is only available in Montreal, but again 60 per cent of its programming is ethnic programming. So it's targeting a different audience for the most part. It does include some English-language and French-language programming in order the cover the costs of operating the station because, as the Commission knows, we basically saved CJNT from bankruptcy when we took over a couple of years ago through the WIC acquisition.

2338 So those services provide very different services to Montrealers and CJNT, as I said earlier, does not do any local news at all. It doesn't do news period. So we are looking at CKMI and the Gazette, which is an institution in Montreal that has been around since the late 1700s.

2339 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Is that as old as -- no, I am younger than that.

2340 MS BELL: I know.

2341 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: At least a reference to something older than I am today. Thank you for that.

2342 That having been said, I think in fairness one of the issues that is of concern to the Commission and has been in several important decisions we have taken, many of which involve Global on diversity of voices, and we mentioned this earlier in terms of cultural diversity. The reason I asked a little more about cultural diversity was this very point.

2343 The concern is really focused on editorial independence in the newsroom, if we could take it there. Now, we have had a discussion about how you plan to set up the newsroom in the proposed Montreal station, but in all practical terms we talked about the synergies with your other news operations and broadcasting operations.

2344 So when we look at this and we look at the impact, as we have said previously, on the Global brand in this market, there are some approaches which we might want to examine to look at this.

2345 In your recently licensed Winnipeg FM station, there is a requirement to operate under a condition of licence to this effect, to ensure the editorial independence of the station's newsroom from that of your Winnipeg television station. This matter was also discussed at the recent hearing in Kitchener.

2346 What measures would you be prepared to put in place to preserve the editorial independence of the news programming of your proposed Montreal FM station in light of the presence of television stations and the Montreal Gazette?

2347 MS BELL: I believe we answered that in deficiency -- or are you referring to that?

2348 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: I was going to get there, yes.

2349 MS BELL: Okay. We are prepared to accept the same condition of licence as we have for the Winnipeg station. I just don't have the wording of it in front of me, and we have accepted that in our deficiency --

2350 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Well, you almost did.

2351 MS BELL: Okay.

2352 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: You said you would do it, but you did not refer to the condition of licence. So I am going to ask you: Would you agree, if we felt it appropriate to impose such a measure, would you agree to a condition of licence as per the Winnipeg condition of licence which I have in front of me here?

2353 MS BELL: Yes, we would.

2354 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: But again, if we just continue about the approach we took in Winnipeg, but in Winnipeg we did not have the situation where you also owned a paper the likes of the Montreal Gazette, a local paper.

2355 So in light of that context, you are aware of the development of an industry code regarding principles and practices in the operations information services.

2356 Do you see any reasons why this code should not also apply to radio?

2357 MS BELL: Oh, I would expect it to, absolutely. We worked on this code jointly with the CBSC and other broadcasters. We looked at the draft and felt comfortable. Absolutely, I would expect that it would apply to radio, to all broadcast assets.

2358 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: So in either case this code seeing the light of day, or it light of the condition of licence for the Winnipeg station, in that situation we didn't have the newspaper as well. So you would agree that any such condition or the code itself would also apply to your radio operations, radio vis-à-vis newspaper, radio vis-à-vis television?

2359 MS BELL: With only one precision, and that is that that is still a proposed code and I haven't -- this is subject to the Commission's approval, and if the code changed significantly then I don't know how we would feel about it. But if it's presented the way I have seen it, yes, we are comfortable with it.

2360 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: That's what we were interested in knowing, and we understand as well the source of that discussion and where it's at, but it is important at this hearing for us to have an understanding where you would stand on that.

2361 I have a question regarding technical, regarding the frequency you have chosen. Your application is for 106.3 and that is competitive with two other applications. It is also competitive with frequency 106.5 due to a second adjacency.

2362 From a strictly technical perspective, in what way does your proposal constitute the best use of the frequency 106.3?

2363 MS BELL: From a technical perspective making the best use of the frequency?

2364 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: That's right. From a technical perspective, what is this the best use of the frequency -- from a strictly technical perspective?

2365 MS BELL: If I understand your question correctly then I think I should refer that back to our engineer.

2366 MR. MOLTNER: Considering the use of the frequency in isolation, we basically squeezed every kilometre of coverage out of it that we can. So that constitutes the optimal use of the frequency.

2367 Comparing our use of the frequency to the other applications, we have more coverage, therefore we cover more people. A second note is that since we are not sited on Mount Royal we avoid the Safety Code 6 issue.

2368 COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER: Thank you very much.

2369 Those are my questions, Mr. Chair. Some of my colleagues might have questions for you. Thank you for your patience.

2370 MS BELL: Thank you.

2371 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

2372 Commissioner Noël?

2373 COMMISSIONER NOËL: I am going back to the demand. I am looking at figures from Statistics Canada and other figures that were published by, I think, a related newspaper which is called the Financial Post for Canadian markets 2002, and the statistics I get from Statistics Canada as a following is that mother tongue is 12.7 per cent and mother tongue French, 67.3. If we go to home language, the figures published by the Financial Post show that English is 16.6 per cent, roughly, and in French it's 69.2 per cent, with other language for mother tongue, 14.1 per cent.

2374 I understand that you made a study that the format of jazz is asked for the city, but is it needed in English? This is my question. Is it needed in an English-language format given that in this market commercial radio stations total 15 at the current time. Six of them are in English, which is 40 per cent, serving between 12 and 16 per cent of the population, and 50 per cent for French serving between 67 and 69 per cent of the population.

2375 So my question is one of equilibrium. Maybe there is a need for a jazz station, but is it a need for a jazz station in English?

2376 MS BELL: I appreciate that question and it's a very fair question. The first comment I would make about the numbers that you are citing, in fairness I am not familiar with those numbers, and I am not sure how they were arrived at.

2377 COMMISSIONER NOËL: I took them from the Financial Post Market of Canadians Survey, which is, as I said, a --

2378 MS BELL: It's one of our publications, but having said that I haven't reviewed those numbers. What I am trying to say --

2379 COMMISSIONER NOËL: Those are your numbers.

2380 MS BELL: Things are not converged that well. Nobody told me. I guess in fairness I don't want to comment on numbers unless I know where they came from.

2381 If I can be very honest with all of you on the size of the market. I went home one night two weeks ago and almost tore my hair out trying to figure out, to make sense out of what is the real number? There are so many numbers out there. Then I printed out every press release, every analysis, demographers, analysts, and then some people were saying, "Well, the English market has declined a little bit, maybe it was 2 per cent, maybe it's 1.2 per cent, maybe it's 5". No one agreed. Some people attributed the perceived slight decline to the fact that the questions have changed, that the order of the answers has changed. I don't really --

2382 It's complicated and we could spend two hours figuring out what the numbers are. What I feel is an accurate number is to go back to who decides how the advertising -- I mean, the market is divided in two because the advertising is divided in two. I look at my own situation and, as I said before, my mother tongue is French, but I work mostly now -- granted, I live in Toronto now, but the fact of the matter is I was just as fluently bilingual when I lived in Quebec, and there are a lot of people in that situation.

2383 So I felt that those numbers, and they seemed to be within a few percentage points of each other, that they seemed to be fairly accurate.

2384 COMMISSIONER NOËL: I agree with you that the largest population of bilingual people is in Montreal. It's 53 per cent of the population and that's StatsCan numbers for 2001.

2385 MS BELL: That's right.

2386 COMMISSIONER NOËL: But language spoken at home is, I think, a very good measure of what the people are, and the figures are still 69.2 per cent for French and they are only 16.6 per cent for English, with 14.1 per cent of foreign language. But there is still a big differential between the English spoken at home and the French spoken at home. That's why I am asking. Maybe the format is the right one, but is the language for the format the right one?

2387 MS BELL: Well, I would say a couple of things to that. Our research showed a demand for this service and the research conducted by Mr. Oakes was, in fact, people who speak English and there was a high demand for the service that we proposed from the English community.

2388 As I said earlier, we received 900 letters of support for this application, and that is another strange story because I have been doing regulatory for 17 years and I had never seen this happen before. In Montreal, there seems to be this community of jazz fans that all know each other and the moment the word got out they all started e-mailing each other and they took over the entire intervention process and the letters poured in.

2389 To a large extent, we didn't do anything. I mean, we initiated and all of a sudden people took over and said, "Did you hear Global was doing this?". To a large extent the people who supported this proposal are English. There were some French-language people. There are a lot of French names on our list. Primarily I would say about 80 per cent are English and a fair number of people also with other names obviously from other nationalities.

2390 So I think there is a demand in the English-language market for this station. I guess the other thing is just the make up of the music, and then again that just becomes a question of what the spoken word is going to be. But in my view, we don't have the benefit of having a playlist from the competing applicants, but we did our research and there are not a lot of French vocal jazz artists. You are mostly going to find on any jazz station English-language vocal, obviously a fair amount of instrumental, and with the world beat component that is going to be third language.

2391 There are some artists who cross over in both, and that is probably the reason why MUSICACTION doesn't have a separate envelope because the fund primarily French-language vocal artists. FACTOR already funded, I think, over 50 jazz recordings last year. They didn't have quite as much money as they would like in their envelope, although with the licensing of our Winnipeg station, and if you licence this station, it would inject a significant amount of funds in terms of producing quality jazz programming, or jazz recordings in Canada.

2392 So I think we have established demand and I believe this service is something that is going to contribute to the community and that francophones would also have an interest in listening to, but we did not test the francophone market. We do know that there is a market for this and room in the market for an English-language station.

2393 MR. OAKES: If I could just put that in perspective. If you are looking at English, the most often used home language, you are looking at about 400,000 people, close to that. That's the size of Kitchener. So that's a good size city.

2394 COMMISSIONER NOËL: I don't think Kitchener has as many French-speaking stations as Montreal has English-speaking stations in proportion.

2395 MR. OAKES: I would agree, but there are only three FMs in this market. So from the standpoint of demand and diversity it is market with 400,000 people you can produce quite a large audience with the jazz and achieve diversity out of it as well.

1500

2396 COMMISSIONER NOËL: Thank you.

2397 THE CHAIRPERSON: I just have one line of questioning that I pick up from page 10 of your oral presentation. I think it was Mr. Tomik, where you say:

2398 And notwithstanding the divergence between the Financial Post statistical data and your information here, I wonder whether you can give me any hard information on that, Mr. Tomik, on what the concrete benefits that your organization has derived in these respects benefit to the communities and promotional support for Canadian talent?

2399 MR. TOMIK: I think we could be here until next Tuesday talking about the convergence and how it works, but maybe there are some concrete examples that have come to our company as a result of convergence, and good ones, I think, for Canada, for the broadcasting community.

2400 The first and foremost would be our flagship news, Global National with Kevin Newman wherein in one year we have become the number two most watched newscast in the country. Would we have been able to launch as a bunch of television stations a National Newscast that could be number two and add another voice that quickly and that successfully in this country without the benefit of convergence, without the benefit of use of the journalists at the Montreal Gazette or the Ottawa Citizen or at the National Post or a number of other smaller newspapers? That's a very, very specific example of how convergence has been working for us.

2401 THE CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps you could just spell that out for me a bit. You are saying that the reason for the success of the Kevin Newman newscast is because of the drawing on the journalists from the newspapers?

2402 MR. TOMIK: I think it's a matter of having a richness of resources in order to have launched Kevin Newman and the National. I think our ability to be able to report in a much richer fashion because of the other assets that were available to that newscast made a huge difference in its success and the addition of that voice to Canada.

2403 THE CHAIRPERSON: What role would those journalists play in feeding the Newman Global National Newscast?

2404 MR. TOMIK: In some cases, those reporters would be reporters that would be in markets around the country that would be available instantaneously to report on news on the spot, where we either don't have television stations or the televisions stations wouldn't be involved.

2405 A typical case would have been -- I was watching over the weekend during the shuttle disaster and we had the fastest journalist down there, among others, was a reporter from the National Post who did live reports into Kevin Newman's newscast, until a reporter from Vancouver on the national news could make it down there.

2406 So that ability to use assets and not in a demanding fashion, but the very large depth and breadth of assets that are available to every newscast, whether it's local or the National across the country has had significant benefits to our broadcast.

2407 THE CHAIRPERSON: Does promotion have anything to do with it in the Southam newspapers, in the National Post?

2408 MR. TOMIK: Absolutely. Another good example would be the preponderance of promotion that we have done in the National Post for Kevin Newman, and also a significant amount of promotion for the local newscast within each market where we operate a newspaper. Those have helped actually grow our news audiences, both on a local and national basis.

2409 We have been --

2410 THE CHAIRPERSON: You got it before and after in terms of the ratings of the Newman Newscast relative to when you acquired -- is it the National Post that you think is the key factor here or that hand in Southam papers, or just the Post?

2411 MR. TOMIK: In the case of the National, I think it has more to do with the local market newspapers than the National. The National is --

2412 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have before and after figures for his ratings that would give you the comfort to draw the conclusion you appear to have drawn?

2413 MR. TOMIK: Now, we don't because we had the papers when we launched the National Newscast with Kevin Newman. But if we look at things like -- one of our best assets is the BCTV asset in Vancouver, and that has always been recognized as a significant news force everywhere in the country. When we acquired that WIC asset, as well as the newspapers, we were able to drive the audiences in the News at six o'clock there up 8 per cent over what they had historically been.

2414 I think there are other examples that have benefitted Canada. Another one would be Global Sunday, our current affairs program which, again, we don't have a comparison, but is now the number one current affairs program in the country after one year. Those kinds of benefits through convergence have been very well felt by our company.

2415 In the case of what we are talking about here today, Mr. Chair, one of the processes that are under way right now is we are putting a compilation CD of jazz music together in honour of the launch of Cool FM in Winnipeg. That jazz CD, notably with Canadian musicians, will be promoted nationally through Global, through CH, through our digital channels and in our newspapers to help drive that Canadian talent and try to create -- again back to my words earlier of creating a jazz brand in this country, not a Global brand, but a significantly different and separate brand. So we have seen many benefits from convergence.

2416 We are committed as a company, the ownership is committed, and we are just seeing now the fruits of the labour in a lot of different ways.

2417 THE CHAIRPERSON: Have you got any other examples than Kevin Newman, who I certainly agree with you, is Canadian talent that fits your statement here. Are there any other examples that you can cite?

2418 MR. TOMIK: In terms of programming?

2419 THE CHAIRPERSON: In terms of the benefits of convergence that give you the confidence based on some pretty hard evidence.

2420 MR. TOMIK: I spoke of Global Sunday. Another one that comes to mind directly is we have a feature concerning people's health called "Body and Health" that runs across the country. We have been able to take "Body and Health" as a franchise and start building it out in terms of a little feature, within the body of some of our newscasts. Now we are about to spin out half of our Prime Time series on specific health matters across the country. From Body and Health have come columns within the body of the newspapers that talk to Canadians about something that is important to them in a big fashion.

2421 Not only has this been a great success in terms of readers and viewers, it has also been a great financial success in terms of advertisers who like to see that kind of very targeted content because it creates a new environment for them to advertise in.

2422 THE CHAIRPERSON: Are there journalists involved in the writing of the columns in the newspapers and Body and Health?

2423 MR. TOMIK: Yes, in some cases yes, but not only restricted to that, we have Deirdre McMurtry who is a television broadcaster who now writes regularly in the National Post.

2424 What convergence is doing fundamentally is allowing us to provide a richer content on all of these platforms for the consumers. If we can enrich that content for them over what it would have been separately, we get more share of attention, we engage more Canadians, and fundamentally that works.

2425 THE CHAIRPERSON: So in an age of doubting of convergence, you are a believer and you have given me some of the reasons why you are believers and --

2426 MR. TOMIK: We are fully committed as a company, as an ownership because we see concrete examples of it working. Our definition and execution of convergence is not like other people's. We are not in the pipeline business. We are in the content creation business. Other companies, including AOL Time Warner and Canadian companies were fundamentally pipeline companies that were looking for product to stuff down it. We did not go that route. We are looking for complementary content producers who can enrich each other's products in order to increase our share of the attention of Canadians, and it seems to be working for us.

2427 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Perhaps others who appear will want to take you up on the comparison that you just drew.

2428 MR. TOMIK: Absolutely. I'm sure there are. This is a long story.

2429 THE CHAIRPERSON: Madame Wylie?

2430 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Mr. Tomik, even if we agree that the synergies that come from concentration produce enrichment, if you were the regulatory body would you also take into consideration how you balance that against diversity? Because if you press your view far enough then the best way to have the richest programming possible or media possible is to have it all owned by the same person.

2431 So where is that balance? You know, it could be excellent, but they all look the same.

2432 MR. TOMIK: I think it's this, and certainly over the past couple of years, as we have been before the Commission and a number of other regulatory bodies, we have been very forthright in putting into place comforts that you should ask for.

2433 In terms of the practical day to day, and you can talk to anyone of our news editors across the country in broadcast or in a newspaper, hopefully another one in radio soon, and ask them what the benefits are, and really it's this. It's having a source and a resource of more content than they could have otherwise had before, not to be used in a dictatorial sense, but they have more choice of the kind of places and the types of information they have to make their own local newscasts or write their own newspapers or to do whatever part of the process they are doing.

2434 We have been able through convergence to provide much better, more accurate, timely, and just volumes of information that they make choices about what goes on the air or what goes into those vehicles. That's what it is. So this is not about one story from one angle, but this is allowing all of these people, these journalists, to have a better pile of building blocks in order to build content for Canadians, and it's their choice in a very, very independent way.

2435 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

2436 Counsel? No?

2437 Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen for your presentation.

2438 We will now take a 15-minute break and resume at 3:30.

2439 On reprendra à 15 h 30.

--- Upon recessing at 1515 / Suspension à 1515

--- Upon resuming at 1540 / Reprise à 1540

2440 THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. A l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.

2441 Monsieur le secrétaire?

2442 MR. LeBEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

2443 Item 6 on the agenda is an application by Metromedia CMR Broadcasting Incorporated for a licence to operate an English-language FM commercial radio station in Montreal.

2444 The new station would operate on frequency 91.9 MHz, on channel 220A, with an effective radiated power of 602 watts.

2445 Mr. Pierre Arcand will introduce his colleagues. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

2446 MR. ARCAND: Before beginning our presentation, we would like to take a few moments to introduce our panel.

2447 Mon nom est Pierre Arcand. Je suis président de Corus Québec.

2448 Seated to my left is Joanne Leboeuf, Vice-President, Sales, Corus Quebec. To my right, John Cassaday, President and CEO of Corus Entertainment. Beside him is Ted Silver, Program Director of Corus Quebec, and next to him, Brian Kenemy, Vice-President of English Operations.

2449 Behind me starting from the left, Gilbert Cerat, Corporate Comptroller, Corus Quebec; Kathleen McNair, Vice-President, Regulatory and Business Affairs of Corus Entertainment; John Hayes, President of Corus Radio, and Pierre Béland, one of the founders of Metromedia and a Director of Corus Entertainment.

2450 At the side table is Gloria Di Loia, Managing Partner from publicité MBS, the company that prepared the analysis of the Montreal radio market filed with our application.

2451 Next to her is Chris Kennedy from Joint Communications, the firm that conducted our format study, and finally, Jean Fréchette, our Consulting Engineer.

2452 MR. CASSADAY: Corus has made a significant contribution to radio in Canada. In the past three years since our inception, we have acquired approximately 40 stations in Canada, and have stimulated Canadian talent development with over $27 million in public benefit contributions.

2453 But we have not stopped there. We have played a leadership role in our industry with Corus executives involved in the CAB, RMB, FACTOR, MUSICACTION, CBSC, the Radio Starmaker Fund, and le Fonds RadioStar.

2454 We promised we would invest in radio in Canada if you approved our expansion plans and we have. We have new facilities in Toronto, Rimouski, Barrie, London, Calgary, Amqui and Edmonton. Winnipeg's improvement is on the horizon.

2455 We invested over $12 million bringing Corus Radio closer to its audiences and instilling pride in our radio employees. We promised to invest in research, to improve the quality of programming in Canada, and the diversity of formats.

2456 Again, we did what we said we would do, investing over $6 million in research and reformatting over a dozen stations.

2457 We have supported the introduction of all news stations in Montreal. We brought a much needed country format to Southern Ontario, and we restored CHML and CFPL to their heritage roots.

2458 We programmed to a younger audience in Barrie, one of Canada's fastest growing communities, and we invested in training our people. Over $800,000 in sales training alone to ensure that radio realizes its growth potential in Canada and continues as a vibrant medium capable of exposing Canada's best and most promising music talent.

2459 We have not stood in the way of new voices. We have strong positions in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton and the Peterborough/Lindsay area. As a result, when you called for applications for new licences in these markets, we did not intervene. We were confident in our ability to serve our audience and our advertisers.

2460 In this regard, we did not oppose the Astral/Telemedia transaction, nor did we oppose or comment on the Standard and CHUM swap in Quebec and Manitoba.

2461 We are here today in significant numbers, a measure of how enthusiastically we view this opportunity. Yes, we are already Canada's leader in radio, but radio is not a national medium. It is a local medium, and today we are asking you to provide us with the opportunity to better serve the community of Montreal.

2462 We will make the case for a new English radio station for Montreal as it has been quite sometime since the city has had one. We hope to demonstrate to you that it should be licensed to us for format reasons, for competitive reasons, and for the opportunity to repatriate Canadian audiences and advertisers and, perhaps more importantly, because of our passion and commitment.

2463 MR. ARCAND: Let me give you a small road map of our presentation.

2464 I will briefly explain why we are making the application. Brian Kenemy will then describe the Montreal English radio market. Joanne Leboeuf will explain why the market is ready for the service we propose. Ted Silver will then elaborate on the programming described in the application, and I will offer some concluding remarks.

2465 Why then are we making the application? The answer is threefold. First, Montreal is long overdue for a new English commercial station, the last one having been licensed for decades ago in 1963.

2466 Secondly, there is a clear gap in the spectrum of music formats offered by both French and English radio stations in Montreal which our station's urban dance music will fill with minimal disruption to incumbent stations.

2467 A third important reason for the application is to create a more competitive balance in Montreal English radio. For example, among the six English commercial stations, Standard captures 69 per cent of total tuning, and approximately 66 per cent of advertising revenues. Clearly, a more competitive balance would be healthier for the Montreal English market.

2468 The well-known benefits of competition, more choice, diversity, innovation and service quality, would accrue to Montreal radio audiences with the approval of this application. Audiences will benefit from a new station dedicated to a popular music format already introduced into markets such as Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver, but not yet into Montreal.

2469 Local advertisers will have a strong alternative. Listeners who tune to out-of-market stations to find the music our station will provide will have a local station to meet their needs. An energetic new voice will stimulate the market with fresh personalities, programs and contributions to community life in Montreal, all benefits that will flow from increased competition.

2470 Brian?

2471 MR. KENEMY: We are very proud to present our project to you, and we believe in its success.

2472 Corus Quebec is strongly active in both linguistic communities in Montreal. CFQR-FM is a strong player in the English community as well as 940 News. Our projected radio station is formatted to attract the young radio listener who is clearly not adequately served with existing adult-targeted stations such as CJFM, the hot adult contemporary, CHOM, an adult-targeted classic rock, and CFQR, a soft adult contemporary.

2473 But more significantly we will repatriate listening hours from border American stations, particularly those Montrealers who simply cannot find a local station that satisfies their cravings for urban dance, hip-hop and soul.

2474 Based on the data from our format finder study, we are convinced of the necessity of such a station directed at a 15 to 34-year-old market. It will offer true diversity of musical style, virtually non-existent in Montreal. The fall BBM of 2002 once again reconfirms there is a significant number of younger people between the ages of 12 and 34 who are listening to American border signals for the music they like.

2475 These stations are currently capturing 8 per cent of the total hours tuned in English Montreal by this demographic, representing a 509 per cent increase in the share of tuning since the fall of 2000.

2476 That figure of 8 per cent is significantly higher than the percentage of tuning that we are projecting for our new station in year 1 and even in year 7. The year 7 forecast is 7.1 per cent.

2477 This phenomenon has important business consequences. For example, border stations like WBTZ-FM, better known as The Buzz, compete heavily for advertising dollars in the Montreal English market, particularly with advertisers interested in young adults. WBTZ-FM ranks fourth in the English market for tuning of the 12 to 34-year-old group.

2478 More recently other U.S. players, WYUL-FM, 94.7, better known as Hits FM, and Wild Country 96.5 FM have established sales offices in Montreal and promote themselves strongly in the city. Attached to this presentation are copies of their Montreal rate cards.

2479 As well, these stations actually identify themselves as serving Montreal in their station IDs. This is what they sound like.

--- Audio Clip / Clip audio

2480 MR. KENEMY: We believe these stations have seized an opportunity to target Montreal audiences, especially younger audiences, because local services are not addressing the latter's tastes and interests.

2481 We are convinced that the station we proposed will repatriate a significant portion of the listernership and advertising dollars now being lost to these border stations.

2482 We are also convinced that the Montreal radio market can easily absorb our proposed new service as Joanne Leboeuf will explain.

2483 MS LEBOEUF: The radio market in Montreal has taken off. The MBS study prepared last April and filed with our application saw the Montreal English radio market growing over the next seven years from 32 million to 42 million based on a conservative estimate of an average annual 3 per cent growth. Already that forecast is being surpassed.

2484 For the first four months of this broadcast year the market grew by 12.1 per cent compared to the same period last year which is double the national average of 6.1 per cent.

2485 Even without the market growth we are experiencing, the application would have been timely for another reason. There are more than 700 anglophones 12+ in Montreal, representing the fifth largest English market in Canada.

2486 As Pierre mentioned, there are only six English radio stations that attract significant advertising revenue.

2487 If our proposed station is licensed, the ratio of population to station will be about 100,000 to one. This ratio is significantly wider than exist in other English markets of a comparable size. For example, in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, the ratios are respectively: 58,000, 62,000 and 70,000 to one.

2488 There are important opportunities to expand the advertising market in Montreal. We estimate conservatively that at least three quarters of a million dollar annually is being removed from the Montreal market by U.S. border stations. Our station will recapture a substantial share of that lost revenue.

2489 Secondly, our station will provide more capacity for advertisers to reach target demographics in peak listening periods, and generally to provide more opportunities and incentives for local retail businesses in Montreal to advertise on radio.

2490 As our consultants have told us, the Montreal English radio market is underserved, both with respect to music formats and available advertising opportunities.

2491 We are projecting relatively modest revenues for the new station of $1.1 million in year 1, only 3 per cent of the existing total English market revenues, growing to approximately $4 million in year 7. This will not have a serious impact on existing radio stations.

2492 Accordingly, it's a win-win situation for Montrealers, the introduction of a dynamic new FM music service without the danger of undermining their existing radio services.

2493 MR. SILVER: We are very enthused by the format we have chosen for our new station. No station is dedicated to the urban dance format in Montreal, and it's the format of choice among younger audiences.

2494 So with the music, promotions, interviews with leading artists in the genre, exposing local Montreal talent in the genre and other methods, we will bring younger audiences back to radio.

2495 Our format consultant, Joint Communications, after surveying 700 Montrealers and employing sophisticated cross-referencing and analytical techniques, found that there is a high level of dissatisfaction with music radio in Montreal. The study concluded that the largest unserved format opportunity is urban dance, and it is most likely to attract a younger audience dissatisfied with Montreal radio.

2496 We thus believe there is a very large opportunity to build audiences among those who feel they are musically underserved by Montreal radio.

2497 We expect that our annual StarFinder Talent Search for local urban dance artists will generate a high level of interest among our listeners. The annual contest will flow out of our program, the Basement Tapes, which will be a nightly broadcast of recordings sent to the station by unsigned artists from Montreal and throughout Canada.

2498 Throughout the StarFinder star contest, there will be more than 300 promotional announcements over a three-month period soliciting demos. Twenty-five semi-finalists will be selected and their music broadcast so that listeners will be able to vote for the artists they like best. Ten finalists will then be selected based on these votes, and the station will broadcast a final competition in which a winner and runner up will be chosen and cash prizes awarded. We will then fund a professionally produced CD featuring the ten finalists. Five thousand copies of the CD will be pressed for sale, and some will be released to urban dance stations across the country. The CD will receive regular airplay on the new station and will be sold locally with the proceeds going to the artists.

2499 In addition to the annual production of the CD, the StarFinder initiative will also involve significant promotions of the winning artists, including concert tours and the production of music videos. In total, we will spend $1.5 million over seven years on the StarFinder project to launch and further the careers of emerging artists in the station's musical genre.

2500 As well we will contribute a further $250,000 to each FACTOR and MUSICACTION for a total commitment of $2 million over seven years to Canadian talent development.

2501 We intend to stay very close to our audience through programs such as "RantLine" in which the opinions of our audience on a variety of subjects close to their hearts will be broadcast three times a day, and "StreetTalk", a one-hour weekly talk show again dealing with the subjects of most interest to our audience.

2502 To ensure that we stay in touch with those interests, we will be recruiting community reporters from Montreal-area universities and CEGEPS to feed the stories they covered to "StreetTalk". As well, we will be relying on our community advisory board to ensure we remain relevant and responsive to our listeners.

2503 We will broadcast shows featuring performances of local and visiting musicians in our genre and interview programs showcasing Canadian artists in the field.

2504 Our news, like our music, will have a distinctive flavour. The new station will be fortunate to have at its disposal the extensive resources of Corus Quebec's two all new stations in Montreal from which to draw news and information of particular interest to our younger audiences.

2505 The station will have its own newscasters. The news will be selected and packaged in a manner that is interesting and relevant to the station's target audience.

2506 In short, what we plan is not just another radio station for Montreal. It will be hip, lively, fast-paced, fun, and highly energetic, in keeping with its distinctive musical format.

2507 MR. ARCAND: So why should the Commission approve our application? The answer, quite simply, is that it satisfies a clear need effectively and with minimal disruption to the market.

2508 More specifically, the positive attributes of the application include a sound business plan backed by Corus Quebec's operational experience in the market and well researched market and format studies.

2509 The introduction of a music format which is lacking in the market and will reflect Montreal's cultural diversity.

2510 A commitment to spend $2 million on Canadian talent development over the licence term.

2511 Spoken word programming designed to enhance the music and listeners' enjoyment of the format, run also by local radio executives with a long and successful track record in Montreal radio, and availability of the resources of Corus Quebec's existing radio station in Montreal to ensure that the new station is well launched and flourishes.

2512 Access also to the larger resources and radio expertise of Corus Radio, an improvement of the competitive balance in the English radio market between Standard Broadcasting, the dominant provider, and ourselves.

2513 The merits of the application are, therefore, exceptional in our respectful point of view. Our proposal results from careful study over the past several years and many hours of consultation, research and planning.

2514 We are extremely enthusiastic, may I say passionate, about the application and the potential that the new service has to invigorate and enrich English radio in our city. At Corus Quebec, we are proud to be Montrealers. We are proud of our existing radio operations, and we are very proud of this application.

2515 We know the service we propose will be tremendously successful. We urge your approval and thank you for this opportunity to present our application.

1600

2516 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

2517 Just a procedural issue. You may have been present some of you yesterday when one applicant filed material attached or submitted with their oral presentation which, I guess, had not been on the public record. I notice that there are two rate cards presumably of U.S. border stations.

2518 Would you make copies of these available to other applicants and intervenors?

2519 MR. ARCAND: Certainly.

2520 THE CHAIRPERSON: These stations, I don't suppose, are parties to these proceedings, but in any case it would be important if there were any objections to this information that we knew about it. Otherwise I will assume that you have done that, and if we don't hear objections we will just --

2521 MR. ARCAND: It will be done.

2522 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

2523 Madame Wylie?

2524 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

2525 Good afternoon, Mr. Cassaday and your colleagues. Bonjour.

2526 I will first look at your programming, both the spoken word and the music, in part with a view to looking at the extent to which it would add diversity to the market, and in part to clarify those parts of the application that perhaps were not clear to us.

2527 There have been a number of clarifications. Your presentation was quite substantive. So I have tried to see whether this clarified the questions I had, but I may ask you questions that were actually answered in your presentation at which time Mr. Cassaday will be sure to rap my knuckles and tell me.

2528 First, let's look at the local programming. In Schedule 17 of your application where you talk about local programming, and also in a deficiency response, you state that there will be 7.5 hours of local programming, spoken word local programming during the week. Correct?

2529 MR. SILVER: Yes, 7.5 hours of spoken word, yes.

2530 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And you have indicated that that would be local programming.

2531 MR. SILVER: Entirely local. The entire programming is all local.

2532 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: However, in a deficiency response you have indicated that you reserve the right -- this is the response that you filed on October 15th, which I think is probably the only one basically that you filed. In response to question 15A, you have stated that all programming would be locally produced, but you reserve the right to broadcast some syndicated programming should the opportunity arise.

2533 Could you tell me what this syndicated material would be?

2534 MR. SILVER: Right now there are no plans to offer any syndicated programming on the radio station. Should the opportunity arise, perhaps something like a countdown or something like that, that we would not be able to easily produce locally, that would be of interest to our audience, and we would perhaps consider doing something like that. But currently there are no plans for anything like that.

2535 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes, although when people reserve the right, they usually have thought about the fact that binding themselves to 100 per cent local would not be a good idea. So that's why I am asking what type of programming, what percentage would it be.

2536 MR. SILVER: It would be specialty programming. It would most likely be something like a countdown which might be a two or three-hour program that would air once a week, something like that. It wouldn't be anything, I don't think, in peak hours through most of the week, and it wouldn't constitute a large amount of our broadcast week.

2537 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So it could be as much as two or three hours a week.

2538 MR. SILVER: Possibly, yes.

2539 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Not occasionally, but it could be two or three hours a week.

2540 Would you consider this the type of programming that would be syndicated spoken word programming or music programs or...?

2541 MR. SILVER: It could be a combination of either spoken word or music or a magazine style. Again, this is not --

2542 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: It could be a magazine style.

2543 MR. SILVER: Yes. This is not, again, something that is in the plans currently, but should something become available --

2544 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: But you reserve the right to do it.

2545 MR. SILVER: Yes.

2546 MR. ARCAND: Mrs. Wylie, I can also tell you that it will not be at the expense of our commitment to the Montreal community and what we intend to do.

2547 We do some syndicated programming, for example, on Q92, but it's very little and sometimes we do it when we have, for example, a DJ who is a known personality. For example, we carry on Q92 Casey Kasem, who is a well-known personality. So we don't think that there is such a personality right now in the urban dance format, but there is still a possibility that it can happen. But again, this is not the plan at the present time.

2548 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: But if -- yes?

2549 MR. SILVER: If I might add, all the programming elements that we are proposing right now, including the spoken word programming and the specialty programming that we have described in Schedule 17, like the "RantLine", like "StreetTalk" and all of the others, these are all locally produced shows and we are committed to doing that.

2550 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Those would not come, for example, from the CINW.

2551 MR. SILVER: No.

2552 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Is that your talk station in Toronto?

2553 MR. SILVER: Yes.

2554 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: In Montreal. So it would not be at the expense of the -- would you be prepared to say that 7.5 hours after we remove the news portion -- which we will discuss because it's not clear to me at this time exactly how much that is -- whatever is left from that is your spoken word programming. Syndication could come from that amount.

2555 We will look at the news, but we have a possibility of 7.5 hours of spoken word programming, of which two hours and 22 minutes would be used for five hours. Somewhere else in your application, but you can clarify that for me, it's one hour and 11 minutes of news. So that would be six hours and 19 minutes of spoken word, non-news. Possibly you are saying that from that, five hours and eight minutes, anywhere up to three hours, could be syndicated from another station.

2556 MR. SILVER: Let me clarify. First of all --

2557 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You know why we are asking the question.

2558 MR. SILVER: Yes, I understand it.

2559 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: It's how much diversity will there be from this new station.

2560 MR. SILVER: First of all the news, it is two hours and 22 minutes, and we can talk about that later. I realize there is some confusion there and that was my bad math --

2561 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I take it that that is the number.

2562 MR. SILVER: Yes, that was my bad math before.

2563 In terms of what remains in spoken word, I would have to say that from my own programming experience, the likelihood on a station like this of us acquiring spoken word syndicated programming is not great. We are more likely to be looking for something that is music driven.

2564 So I don't think that any acquired programming from syndication would impact to any great extent on the spoken word content. That would --

2565 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I take it that the word "syndicated" would exclude simply taking programming from CINW.

2566 MR. SILVER: I'm thinking more in terms of what we do on Q92 where we get some special programming. We carry "Lovers and Other Strangers" which is produced by Rogers Radio. It's a Canadian syndicated program that we carry every evening between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m. I'm thinking more of that type of thing. It's a music program from another source, other than CINW or CFQR.

2567 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: What would you call a program such as "RantLine", for example, on CINW and on this new station should it be licensed? Would you call that a syndication?

2568 MR. SILVER: No, "RantLine" would be a locally produced --

2569 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: No, no. I am saying if it were produced either by CINW or the new station, but aired on both, would you call that syndication?

2570 MR. SILVER: No. I think syndication is programming that is made available to a large number of radio stations along a network or some other delivery system and that wouldn't apply to something that would be produced from CINW. Currently we are not planning on using anything from CINW or CFQR.

2571 MR. ARCAND: Mrs. Wylie, if I might add, CINW provides only news 24 hours a day. There is no talk show or any content. It's purely news every 15 minutes and it's a wheel clock that we have every hour that is being repeated. So it's really unlikely there will be nothing from Q92 either.

2572 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So then when you say that there will be news, we have ascertained that the correct number is two hours and 22 minutes as I find in your Schedule 17.

2573 MR. SILVER: Yes.

2574 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Does that amount also include surveillance material that I find in the fourth paragraph?

2575 MR. SILVER: No, it does not.

2576 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: The fourth paragraph is an addition to that. So then when you say that 50 per cent of the news will be local and 30 per cent regional, you are talking about 50 per cent of two hours and 22 minutes as local.

2577 MR. SILVER: Yes.

2578 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: We have asked everyone what is the meaning you give to "local" and how do you differentiate it from "regional"? "International" is always easy, of course. I would like you to tell me very specifically what would be local to you, to fit that 50 per cent?

2579 MR. SILVER: Anything to do with the Montreal area, be it politics or an accident or anything like that, an ice storm -- God forbid another one -- that sort of thing, anything that has to do with the Montreal area specifically within, I guess, the contour of our very small signal that we might get.

2580 Regional really has to do with the outlining regions that really have little to do with Montreal. I would think that there would be very little regional that would matter to Montrealers, and it would have to be regional stuff that does matter to Montrealers. So regional might include provincial politics, or major events that happen outside the Metropolitan area.

2581 But I think that the key to news, both on our station and on radio in general, is that the more local you are, the better it is. It has to be local and when we give you a percentage of 50 per cent, I think that we are almost underestimating it. I think that we will strive to have as much local news as possible.

2582 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Commissioner Noël will certainly know what you are talking about if I don't, but tell me what are the regional localities that you would think would be beyond what is the local market.

2583 MR. SILVER: Outside of the Montreal Metropolitan area.

2584 MR. ARCAND: There are many areas around Montreal in which you have an anglophone population. If you talk about Chomedey, around Laval, if you talk about the Hudson region, if you talk about some other areas around Montreal. Brossard, for example, is an area where the English population is growing on the South Shore of Montreal. So you have many instances around Montreal where you have what you would consider regional, but for us the definition of regional could be pretty well also regional and provincial at the same time as compared to national.

2585 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So those locations you just mentioned such as Brossard and Laval you say they are regional rather than local in that calculation?

2586 MR. ARCAND: We discussed earlier, yesterday I think, and people were saying that Montreal, the Island of Montreal, the City of Montreal, includes many of those. So Montreal is Montreal, and the rest seems to have become now more, I would say, regional like Longueuil, like Laval and these areas.

2587 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I'm sure you will understand our confusion. When somebody is trying to expand its market in Longueuil, and says that's part of Ste-Hyacinthe, there is a problem. And then when somebody wants to say they are going to be extremely local, they exclude Longueuil from Montreal. I just wanted to see what your view is.

2588 MR. ARCAND: But you have our commitment of 5.5 hours of locally produced spoken word. You have our commitment on this.

2589 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Monsieur Bureau would probably be very displeased with me now.

--- Laughter / Rires

2590 On that same Schedule 17, I quote: "All newscasts are to be locally produced by 940 News", which I guess is CINW, "and edited to the station's specifications". In answer to question 8 of the deficiency that we were looking at earlier, you identified the synergies that would flow from having this additional licence and they include the technical support, accounting, news gathering, traffic reports and human resources, and at the answer to question 15C, you say that you will not, again I quote: "The station will not employ news reporters".

2591 I notice in your presentation there is a sentence at page 8 that says that the station will have its own newscasters. So I would like to get a better understanding. Is CINW to be your sole source of news programming?

2592 MR. ARCAND: If I can answer, Mrs. Wylie. In the budget we will hire two newscasters. This is included in the programming budget.

2593 What we meant by all of this is that we won't have reporters working exclusively for the FM station. We will have two newscasters working exclusively for the FM stations and we will use the services of CINW for mainly what I call the general news stories.

2594 We will use the service of our specialized, I would say, newscasters working on a full-time basis for the FM station to produce what is of interest for the 18 to 34, which means that the newscasters will be more involved in the field of entertainment, for example, movies, whatever can talk about those kinds of things, and they will use at the same time the services of CINW for what we call general news content. If there is a crime, an accident, or things of that nature, we already have reporters that are working at CINW that are covering on a daily basis those events. So we feel that it's going to be a good combination of those two services.

2595 MR. SILVER: If I can add to what monsieur Arcand just said. The idea is that the newscasters will be working exclusively for the FM station, and their role is really two things: To be a newscaster, but also to be a news editor and a news writer. So it's their role to gather all the information that will be available to them partially through the resources available through CINW because we view that as a huge resource. Somebody once referred to it as a library.

2596 We have a computer system that allows you to have access to everything in the newsroom, what is being written by any reporter, what is coming down on any wire service, any kind of audio that might be available, and that's what the newscasters on the FM station would be doing. They would be looking for this, looking for the content that is pertinent to their audience, which may not necessarily be the same kind of stories that somebody at CINW would be using because it's a different audience.

2597 So we would be using that as a huge resource to help them find what they need, in addition to some of the other work they might be doing on their own, hunting down stories and that sort of thing on their own, on the phone, et cetera.

2598 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You now say that you will have your own newscasters. In the deficiencies at question 8 you were asked and told us that the new station would have it own independent staff and you list a general manager, program director, announcers and sales representatives.

2599 Should I add another group there called newscasters?

2600 MR. ARCAND: On the FM newscasters and announcers --

2601 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Would be the same.

2602 MR. ARCAND: Would be the same.

2603 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Now, what is intended by this phrase that: "The news will be gathered by the CINW reporters and edited to the new station's own specification". Is that what the newscasters would do?

2604 MR. ARCAND: Yes, and I think that it's important that you have on FM, Mrs. Wylie, different leads than what you have on AM. AM is targeted to an audience that we are talking about mainly men and women 35 to 54. This is what an all news station is all about.

2605 If you are talking about our project today, we are targeting an audience of 15 to 34. So probably, for example, the news editor, if there is a big movie in Montreal, that may well be the lead story, compared to CINW where they will talk more about what is happening in either the stock exchange or provincial politics or news in a more traditional way.

2606 But we feel that in a station, in an FM station like this, you absolutely need to be very present, especially, I would say, in the entertainment field because this is what the listeners like to hear more about.

2607 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Will that necessitate asking your CINW reporters or journalists to gather additional or different kind of news that they don't know? I would just like to see to what extent will the local programming add diversity to the market and you say this station will be pitched because of its format at a different audience that will be interested in different things. So will that require then the CNIW people to be interested in gathering stories or news that they wouldn't have but for the existence of your station, to supply the new station with it?

2608 MR. ARCAND: Mrs. Wylie, I think that, first of all, what is important for CINW is to create their own thing and I don't think that an FM station of that nature, news is not necessarily the primary element. It is one of the elements, but it's not the primary element.

2609 So obviously the News Director at CINW will certainly want to make sure that the news at CINW to the specific audience are gathered completely. It might happen from time to time, but I don't see that on a regular basis.

2610 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: In your supplementary brief at page 2, you state that correspondents from the community will be recruited to provide content.

2611 Would that be in effect with a view to supply this type of material that would be more targeted to your format?

2612 MR. SILVER: I think to a certain degree, yes. What we are looking to do is use either communications or journalism students who would be able to be contributors to some of our programming, most notably the talk show on Sunday mornings, "StreetTalk", with the idea that, one, they would be acquire experience and we would be able to coach them to improve and give them some level of experience that they could build on, and also from the point of view that these are the young people that we are targeting and they may be a little bit more attuned to the community that we are targeting with our overall programming.

2613 So it's an opportunity for the community, to a certain degree, to have some input into our programming.

2614 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I see in response to question 16 where you state that you will recruit these community reporters from area universities and CEGEPS and they then can supply additional material for your spoken word programming.

2615 Is that the role that you will expect of them?

2616 MR. SILVER: Yes, basically to be contributors to some of our spoken word programming.

2617 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Or even your news, if you are trying to zero in on an event or a concert of relevance for your target audience.

2618 MR. SILVER: I think that when the opportunity arises, yes, but primarily it's for the spoken word programming.

2619 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Now, the non-news local programming, at 15A of the deficiency responses, you say that -- no, it's 15C -- you will not have -- it's D, I apologize, 15D -- that with respect to spoken word you will not be providing open-line programming, but you will have this "RantLine" which appears to be an important local program for you. It's the first one you talk about in Schedule 17.

2620 What is the difference between an open line and "RantLine"?

2621 MR. SILVER: An open-line program has a moderator who will accept phone calls and people can express their views on whatever the topics happen to be on the program that particular day. The "RantLine" is something that is entirely different. There is no moderator.

2622 Essentially what it is is similar to "Speaker's Corner" which MuchMusic does, where it's an opportunity to --

2623 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: When Mr. Znaimer leaves, everybody copies.

2624 MR. SILVER: I don't know about copying, but it's one of the --

2625 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: He would be delighted.

2626 MR. SILVER: It's a form of flattery, I guess. Anyway, it was a good idea. It gives our audience an opportunity to call a designated phone line and basically leave a message. It will be a message centre where they can record their opinions on whatever matters to them, be it music, be it culture, "did you see the concert last night", "I saw an accident", whatever it is, I wouldn't vote for that guy", whatever their opinion is. What we would do is we would listen to it, edit it down to one minute and select possibly just one call, possibly two or three calls or segments of calls and broadcast that three times a day. It's one-minute feature that would broadcast three times a day and every day it would change.

2627 There is no open line, there is no moderator, there are no opinions expressed other than those of the people who call in the line.

2628 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Will you identify issues ahead of time, or it will be completely open to whatever people want to rant about?

2629 MR. SILVER: I think it could be a combination of both. I think in certain situations it's possible we might ask what your opinion is on, I don't know, the forthcoming provincial election, or something. But I think most of the time it's going to be calling in and expressing your opinion on what is on your mind, regardless of what it is.

2630 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And you will retain editorial control --

2631 MR. SILVER: Yes.

2632 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I see in your supplementary brief at page 2 that you say it will be everything from music to culture and current events.

2633 MR. SILVER: Maybe the weather.

2634 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Will you accept a condition of licence that if anybody criticizes us you won't put it on?

2635 MR. SILVER: The CRTC? Absolutely.

--- Laughter / Rires

2636 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: That's good.

2637 MR. SILVER: I don't know anyone who criticizes you now.

2638 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I hope your lawyer is satisfied with this. Ours is, I am sure.

2639 With the spoken word programming, could you again give us a general idea, after looking at the specifics, as to the extent to which the station will be different from what is available now with the spoken word programming? Because you do say that your spoken word programming, even your local news interest, may be actually pitched to a different audience, according to your --

2640 MR. SILVER: Well, I think that the same applies to the spoken word programming throughout the rest of the broadcast week. We just discussed the "RantLine". There is nothing like that available on Montreal radio today anywhere.

2641 If there are opportunities for people to express opinions on talk shows, they are not on radio stations that these young people are listening to, and they are not likely to be listening or calling in.

2642 So this is an opportunity for them to express themselves on our radio station, and that is something that they have never had before. So that's one unique thing. So we really like the idea of the "RantLine". The other program, "StreetTalk" which is kind of like -- I guess, it's a long-form version of the "RantLine" to a degree. It's not that people would be calling in there, but it would be a one-hour program specific to the issues that are of more interest to our demographic. Again, it's a young demographic, it's a young adult demographic, and it's essentially a one-hour talk show talking about the issues important to them, be it health, be it music, be it culture, school, education has to be a big thing with young people, whether tuition is going to go up, or whatever, that kind of thing. So it will be specifically targeted to that as opposed to what you get in regular talk fare on other radio stations targeted to a much older audience.

2643 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: But some older audience may actually rant in.

2644 MR. SILVER: Yes, they may.

2645 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: My assumption was that the "RantLine" would not be limited to -- presumably only those who listen to your station will know it exists.

2646 The reason for my question is about response to question 7 in your deficiency response, the third paragraph says:

2647 I understand it's going to be a music format, but one programming philosophy, I suppose, should also affect one spoken word programming the "RantLine" is just going to be. I suppose by choosing the rants you will show -- see, I am being helpful, Mr. Cassaday.

2648 Any other comment on the extent to which this will be not only different music, but different spoken word programming?

2649 MR. CASSADAY: If I could just make a comment. I think a lot it's going to be about tone and manner and this will reflect the personality of our audiences. You know, you are absolutely right. On something like the "RantLine" the editorial decision that we have is to select particular messages that reflect what we think is on the minds of our audiences as opposed to things that might be of particular interest to an older audience that is not necessarily interested in this style of music.

2650 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes?

2651 MR. KENEMY: I would just like to add that there seems to be a lifestyle associated to this music and for us to get our hands into that and to really live the life, this is how we would connect to these people in the community.

2652 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: If we look at the format diversity that you are proposing and how you arrived with Joint Communications at a choice, if we look at the MBS executive summary of their report to you -- it's not paginated the summary, but it's the second page in after the index. It talks about the value of narrow casting rather than demographic syndicates, which is quite interesting.

2653 You are speaking here about format more than spoken word or philosophy. You are speaking about the interest in urban dance music, and I gather this is what MBS was looking at, that nowadays what should be welcome if you want, a higher return on investment is precision targeting and, therefore, narrow casting, which I think I understand. I am not so sure I understand demographic syndicates.

2654 Do you have any comments?

2655 MR. ARCAND: May I ask Gloria to explain exactly what she meant by this?

2656 MS Di LOIA: Commissioner Wylie, the intent here in that segment was to indicate the industry support, and by that advertisers are very much looking for placement of their investments in media that will be a little bit more defined in terms of targeting so that 12 to 34 has an appeal to certain advertisers whereas broadcast, as in the definition of television, if you want, conventional television, usually has a much larger audience segment. So it could be 18+ or 25 to 54.

2657 When you have a broadcaster that has that large offering, it becomes very difficult to make choices from an advertising standpoint because they do have to pay for waste.

2658 So when there is a large population pool that is attentive to very few choices in the marketplace, it makes it very difficult to have a very efficient advertising campaign.

2659 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Let's take Toronto, for example. Mr. Cassaday, of course, will be very familiar. Would the fact that radio stations tend to focus on the younger demographic, is that a demographic syndicate? Is it?

2660 MS Di LOIA: If you take the example of Toronto, there are a number of stations that cater to a variety of demographics. Therefore, if you are an advertiser that caters to an 18 to 34 segment, you will have the opportunity to look at two or three broadcasters.

2661 In Montreal as it is right now clearly that is not defined that narrowly. There are few stations and they tend to cater to a very broad demographic.

2662 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: We have heard a lot about, of course, the urban band format and how it provides diversity and reaches a different demographic.

2663 In the MBS summary at page 19, and somewhere else, I think, I was also was struck by talking about, I guess it's referring to CSXJ-FM and saying you will have an urban dance station and they have an urban dance station, but yours will not be demographically limited. What is the comparison here? I am trying to understand what the urban dance format is, or your urban dance format will be.

2664 MS Di LOIA: The purpose of page 19 was not to explain a format, but to produce information to provide statistics in terms of what the projections of the audience would be, and given that the Toronto market had recently, at the time of putting this document in, had a new station that resembled the type of format that was looked at here, it made sense to review what was happening in that market.

2665 However, there are nuances apparently to this station in Montreal that will cover perhaps a slightly broader target and encompass a few more people so that the utilization of the raw data as it was in the Toronto market was inappropriate. We did some statistical extrapolation in order to provide shares.

2666 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Are you in a position to say what is this difference? It is CFXJ, is it, that is mentioned?

2667 MR. SILVER: Yes. We are going to be a little broader in scope in terms of our music, probably a little bit more of a hip-hop feel than they would have which is more of a popular music field. They are more of a roots-type of a radio station.

2668 If you want to compare and, unfortunately, I don't have anything that I can show you, but we will be closer to what CFBT, the Beat, in Vancouver is. So we will be a little bit broader in our appeal.

2669 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Now, Joint Communications was retained by you and its mandate is described by them as: "To identify available format opportunities". So this is at the third page of the summary, and certain findings that have been picked up by you and repeated in your application, that a certain number of people were not satisfied with available music formats. A certain number, 42 per cent, said, "I can't find a station playing the music I like", and then at page 7, we get to the conclusion that the largest unserved opportunity is urban dance.

2670 There is a complicated word that I have never seen before at page 18 of this same survey, that talks about a dendrogram, and presumably a finding from that that urban dance is the thing.

2671 My question is: How does one go from "I don't like what's in Montreal", "I don't find enough of what I want in Montreal" to "I want urban dance"? I have with me a sample questionnaire that you filed recently with the Commission that had not be filed with the Joint Communications. I would like you to identify which question led you to the conclusion that urban dance was what was an opportunity, but what most people wanted that they don't have.

2672 MR. KENNEDY: Thank you. I would be glad to be able to describe that for you. It's a series of procedures, basically, which all come from a design. Good research comes from good designs in the very beginning in order to be able to understand market dynamics, and the findings that we have which led to the conclusion of urban dance as the primary opportunity came from not just one question, but a series of questions that were asked.

2673 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: That's what I thought you would say that.

2674 MR. KENNEDY: I could not find any question there that says -- by the way, did you ask people questions such as -- did you play something for them? Did you say, here is core classic rock, Rolling Stones "Satisfaction", "My Generation" by Led Zeppelin, "I love it", "I like it", "It's okay", "I dislike it", "I hate it", or did they listen to it?

2675 MR. KENNEDY: They listened to it.

2676 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: They listened to it.

2677 MR. KENNEDY: Some study designs are just by artist description.

2678 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: This one was listening.

2679 MR. KENNEDY: We did it specifically with audio examples because we didn't want to have any confusion. Often there are some styles that people just don't now the artist's name. They don't know who the artist is associated with for a music genre or music style, and they may not know the song that you are describing. However, if you play it, the audio version of that is something more memorable and they will be able to rate that as "Love it" or "Like it" or "Dislike it" or "Strongly dislike that". We ended up asking that.

2680 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Because of all these under question 10, there is no urban dance as such. So that's where the dendrogram comes in, I suppose.

2681 MR. KENNNEDY: That is one of the tools that we use for analysis. We not only looked at the raw total score, combining all of the 700 respondents that we interviewed for the English market here in Montreal, we ended up ranking by mean score and the amount of people who said that they loved it or that they disliked it. But we also did other tools of analysis and cross-tabulation which formed what you are referring to as the dendrogram, that's actually a version of a tridiogram which will combine styles and the responses in the study of what fits naturally and what doesn't fit.

2682 What it's officially called is a resale distance combine cluster analysis. It's a technical term, but it's basically shows like a tree what is the root, or the main trunk of music demand in Montreal and what are the branches and how those branches relate to each other. And that's just for fit purposes.

2683 We also ended up using another technique which is Kmeans, multi-variant cluster analysis for the music demands to find natural groups of people and their common tastes. This technique is a way to describe that people have their own natural likes and dislikes in music. If it's a record store, say it's an HMV or a Virgin Records, or any other, Sam the Record Man store, and we had 700 people standing outside of that record store.

2684 If we opened up the doors and allowed them to go shopping, some people would have an interest in rock music, some would like oldies music, some would like jazz music, some would like to have urban hip-hop music and dance music, some would like country. They all have their various interests. Some people might even like to have all of those styles and they can't have enough. Our study identified these groups of people and how to organize them into a coalition of people that had a unique and common taste in music, and that strongest demand for an unserved format was urban dance.

2685 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I am sure that you won't hire me after this comment when I retire from my current job, but why didn't you play them urban dance music and asked them, "I love it", "I like it", "I don't like it", "I don't want it" or "I want more"?

2686 MR. KENNEDY: We did actually. What we did, instead of representing a format to one style which no format can be, we put together styles that we felt represented all of the possibilities in the market.

2687 We chose 24 distinct style tests and from all of the analysis we found the combination of those styles that would be of the best demand and of the strongest fit, also identifying how well that was served in the market already.

2688 By those combinations of styles, it's actually more than just one style. It's really six styles that the study defined, combining them together in variations of "Most important styles" and "Spiced styles" for flavour. That's how we ended up identifying a new opportunity called urban dance.

2689 The format itself is not just one style, but a combination of styles that create the format.

1645

2690 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So now once the format is chosen, we look at the financials and your view of the market. Interestingly, when the Commission goes into markets that are near the border, a lot of emphasis is placed on repatriation and that's the case in your case as well. It always sounds like it's a good idea to tell the Commission that you are going to get all these Canadians who listen to American stations to listen to Canadian stations.

2691 For example, you said this morning that WBTZ, or The Buzz, is the fourth more listened to English-language FM, but it's the fourth FM. There are four in Montreal, right? There are three in Montreal, so that's the fourth. So that's not too impressive right there.

2692 WBTZ is identified as having 1.4 market share by MBS at page 5 of this study. Is that correct?

--- Pause

2693 MR. ARCAND: I think that Gloria will answer that question.

2694 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes, the Chairman was pointing out that this is share of 12+.

2695 MR. ARCAND: Their share is much more important --

2696 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: In the younger audience.

2697 MR. ARCAND: Yes, definitely.

2698 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And nevertheless your core audience is 15 to 34, right, and 15 to 44. So it's not a big force.

2699 Now, if you take this page 5, I think I heard you say that there was an age share of -- was that also in the 12 to 34? An age share of American -- so the difference between the MBS chart on page 5 would be due to the fact that it's all 12+. Yes?

2700 MS LEBOEUF: If I may. There was the introduction of a new radio station from the U.S. border from that last study that you have. It's the coming of WYUL, or 94.7 Hits, and they went in just like one year -- the 12 to 34 share they got from 0.5 to 2.1, in just one year. So it doesn't show in the study that you have right now because they are new and they just like started a year ago to be really in Montreal.

2701 So it's like increasing and increasing for all the stations.

2702 MR. SILVER: If I can add to what Joanne said. Actually, they really launched and targeted Montreal as of last summer. So that gain that they had was only from the fall 2002 BBM period. They had a television campaign. They had a billboard campaign. Everywhere you go in Montreal you see their vehicles. So they have made a very concerted effort to target our market, but really only in the last six months. So that's a significant growth in a fairly short amount of time.

2703 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: WBTZ is identified as what? Soft rock?

2704 MR. SILVER: WBTZ is modern rock. WYUL is top 40, urban slanted.

2705 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And it's your belief that an urban dance format would repatriate this audience?

2706 MR. SILVER: A significant number of them, yes.

2707 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You have identified, I believe, or at least MBS has, that 0.4 share points in year 1 would be from other stations. Is that correct? Is that something you would endorse? I think it's in the study at page 21. Because I didn't find in your own application the source of your share.

2708 MS LEBOEUF: As I was saying, the market has changed since like one year. So it's like the 0.4 that we are showing could be larger than that because of what is happening.

2709 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And with regard to revenues, you gave some numbers. So the same thing would happen, I suppose, that more revenues, since this was filed, would be drawn possibly from the market.

2710 At page 24 of the MBS studies, how would you change the source of your revenues? Would you?

2711 MS LEBOEUF: If I may.

2712 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes. How would it be different from what we have on that sheet?

2713 MS LEBOEUF: What I can say about that, it's like what you are seeing right now, what you have right there at page 24, is like what I would call like the worst case scenario. I mean, I am sure that it would be --

2714 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Or the best case scenario. You know, the more revenues you get from reputation, the better presumably.

2715 MS LEBOEUF: If you see that way, yes, but what I was saying is like when we are saying that we are going to take our money from already our market, I mean the anglo stations group, maybe it will be lower for them because we are going to be getting maybe more dollars from the U.S. fill. So it would be like maybe more than $50,000 to $100,000 that could come from out of market and that's why it's like the worst case scenario for the rest of the market, the anglo market in Montreal right now.

2716 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: On that same page, can you either endorse or correct the amount of revenue, let's say in year 1 of your 1.1 million revenue, that would come from existing Canadian English stations, and Canadian French-language stations in Montreal, and more particularly your own.

2717 MS LEBOEUF: Well, you know, to launch a new station normally the advertisers will look at us a lot. We will have to do a very big launch to have a very low price to bring the advertisers on the station.

2718 So if I look here, I wouldn't change a lot. It's going to affect a little, but very little, some of our station, I mean CFQR, and maybe a little of Standard as we can show, it's like around 2.5 per cent of their revenues for the beginning, and it won't show a lot after two or three years. It won't have a very -- it won't --

2719 MR. SILVER: Have a big impact.

2720 MS LEBOEUF: Yes, it won't have a big impact.

2721 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Vous pouvez parler en français si vous voulez.

2722 Mme LEBOEUF: Ce que je peux vous dire c'est que sur les stations francophones, par exemple, si je regarde le peu que ça va changer pour eux, c'est 0,5 pour cent. C'est vraiment un demi de 1 pour cent de leurs revenus totaux. Alors ça c'est vraiment très, très minime sur les stations francophones.

2723 Sur les stations anglophones, peut-être que la première année -- c'est comme à peu près, si je peux vous mettre ça très, très facile, c'est comme si deux annonceurs, dans environ 25 à 30 occasions par semaine, décidaient de changer de station. Alors deux annonceurs sur peut-être, je ne sais pas moi combien d'annonceurs qu'ils peuvent avoir, plus d'une centaine, et puis ce 2,5 là -- n'oubliez pas aussi que la station qu'on veut avoir c'est une petite station. Ce ne sera pas une station majeure. Ça va être vraiment bien niché.

2724 Les annonceurs, c'est sûr que, oui, on veut en avoir comme de ce marché-là en ce moment, mais ça ne changera pas grand-chose dans la vie de tous les jours des stations traditionnelles, si vous voulez, du marché de Montréal.

2725 MR. ARCAND: If I might add to what Joanne just said, Gloria came up with something that I find very interesting. It's a publication that was done in the U.S. called the Duncan Report and maybe, Gloria, you can talk a bit about this.

2726 MS Di LOIA: Originally, when we submitted the information, what we were looking at was effectively one station in the market from the U.S. being fairly strong against that demographic, that younger demographic.

2727 What we have done is updated the figures and two things have happened. One is that there has been a significant increase in the number of stations that have a certain strength in the market, and secondly they have been on a larger share. So that when we originally looked at this, we were looking at a share that was probably around 5 per cent, and that's where the increment has come from now to 8 per cent.

2728 What we have done is gone into the U.S. market data called Duncan Radio Market. It is a study that provides U.S. radio broadcasters with competitive data in terms of how much revenue each station is sourcing.

2729 One of the stations, WBTZ, posted a 40 per cent gain in revenue over the last year. That station in its market is the number seven station out of ten viable stations in its geographical area. They haven't changed their format. They haven't changed their share of audience and there is no significant reason why within their own market they would have been able post-9/11 in an economy in a smaller market to have that much gain.

2730 In fact, what has been indicated to us since is that they have five sales people in the Montreal area actively seeking advertisers. So it has been demonstrated through their ability to sell and what we have heard the number of advertisers on their station. So that 40 per cent of revenue could be nearly all attributed to Canadian dollars going into that market which, converted to Canadian dollars, is close to $400,000.

2731 So that is a significant amount of money compared to what we initially estimated, and that was based on information that was limited at the time, but there are significant changes since.

2732 Mme LEBOEUF: Juste pour terminer, j'ajouterais aussi qu'il va y avoir, étant donné que cette station-là évidemment va offrir des occasions publicitaires à moindre prix, à ce moment-là ça va devenir une station que tous les petits annonceurs locaux qui n'ont jamais été capables, finalement, d'annoncer à la radio, maintenant vont peut-être pouvoir annoncer. Alors il y a aussi le « completely new business » qu'on pourrait aussi additionner à l'ensemble des revenus qu'on vous montre.

2733 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Madame Noël ne sera sans doute pas trop contente de cette question, mais voyez-vous, vous, le marché de Montréal capable de, considérant ce que vous nous dites à propos de la rapatriation, et cetera, est-ce que vous voyez le marché montréalais comme étant capable d'accepter plus d'une station en ce moment qui viserait la population anglophone, ou même une anglophone et une francophone. On vient de discuter qu'il y a 50 pour cent de la population qui est bilingue.

2734 Voyez-vous le marché de...

2735 MR. ARCAND: I think that the market can easily absorb one francophone and one anglophone station without a doubt because everybody, since the beginning of this hearing, and I agree with that and Corus agrees with that, it's a healthy market right now and both the French and the English market are in a healthy situation.

2736 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: This repatriation, would you see it as coming from francophone listeners as well? Do we know?

2737 MR. ARCAND: One of the things that we do, when we did that study, Joint Communications made a study in the English market of Montreal. At the same time they did also a study in the French market. I think a month later they did a study in the French market. We were obviously able to test if urban dance would have much of an impact in the French market and the results have shown that there is very little impact and even if there is a small impact in the French market, the first station that would be hit by such an impact would be our own station which is CKOI in Montreal.

2738 So, you know, it's --

2739 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: My question was more: Do you expect that there is also a francophone population listening to American stations that can be repatriated?

2740 MR. ARCAND: Yes.

2741 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I wasn't asking a more general question about what the Montreal market can absorb.

1700

2742 MR. ARCAND: Yes, there are some francophones listening to American stations. Even Mr. Demers this morning who was asking for a French alternative rock, talks about The Buzz as a significant -- having some kind of an impact right now in the French market.

2743 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Oh yes, that's right. I didn't realize that. I asked him, but he didn't know whether The Buzz was WBTZ because I was looking --

2744 MR. ARCAND: I can tell you that WBTZ is The Buzz.

2745 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: He referred to it as 99.9 or something.

2746 MR. ARCAND: The Buzz is at 99.9.

2747 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Ah! That's it. Yes, okay. That's just the number on the dial. Their ears must be buzzing by now. That was not very funny, was it?

--- Laughter / Rires

2748 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Canadian talent development now.

2749 THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm not going to rule on that.

--- Laughter / Rires

2750 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: It is late, Mr. Chairman. We have to keep ourselves alert.

2751 There is some confusion when we look at the material which, hopefully, you will be able to clarify.

2752 You have said in your supplementary brief that it would be $2 million over seven years and you have said that as well in response to question 11 of the deficiency letter, and you, again in your presentation today, repeated it and clarified the bid by saying that the StarFinder -- have I got that right -- would be indeed $1.5 million.

2753 Have you noticed that there is a half a million missing instead of me going through all of this?

2754 MR. ARCAND: Yes, we agree that there is right now some confusion about this and we are going to try to explain to you what it is exactly.

2755 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And the confusion, I gather, is because the production of the annual CD was at question 13 very well detailed, but only for a half a million and the question then becomes: Is it part of the StarFinder? In your presentation you said yes. What is the other $500,000, the details of the other $500,000?

2756 MR. ARCAND: In fact, there are two other $500,000.

2757 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: That's right. You are missing one million.

2758 MR. ARCAND: So there is $500,000 for the production of the CD. There is $500,000 for the promotional video because after discussing with representatives of the music industry, we realize that those new artists need also promotional videos, and also there is another $500,000 for what we call the tour. We decided that it was something that was worthwhile and this is something that the industry had requested, that we do a tour of essentially the three largest markets in Canada, which are Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. This is where the urban dance format could be more important.

2759 If you want to be known in the recording companies and in the industry in general, you have to tour those three biggest markets.

2760 So the first $500,000 are for touring expenses for a seven-year period. The second one is for the video, and the third one is for the production of the CD.

2761 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Now, the bottom line when you divide that over seven years, is what I think you said you were prepared to -- or would you be prepared to spend $2 million divided by seven per year, or is that too difficult because there will be more --

2762 MR. ARCAND: In our project we are talking about $2 million divided by seven.

2763 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Seven.

2764 MR. ARCAND: Yes.

2765 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And also a very particular amount which you corrected, if I recall, of what would go to the MUSICACTION and FACTOR, which is $71,867 a year, which is slightly different from what was here originally.

2766 Now, with regard to the production of the CD, you have provided us with a very detailed breakdown. These other two parts, would you be able --

2767 MR. ARCAND: We can provide you --

2768 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes? Would be in a position to provide that let's say before the end of this hearing -- well, I will let the Chairman or counsel decide what is sensible, but a breakdown not dissimilar to the $500,000 for the production of the annual CD.

2769 MR. ARCAND: Yes.

2770 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: We have asked all the radio broadcasters, and we will continue to, I guess, to give us some details as to how they will respond to the Commission's stated desire to have the broadcasting system be reflective of the culturally diverse communities that they provide service to.

2771 Could we hear you on how you perceive that and how you handle it, and also perhaps -- we have also asked many people what are the challenges on radio which has its limitations. How does one do it with that medium compared let's say to television?

2772 MR. ARCAND: What I could say, Madam Vice-Chairman --

2773 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Vous pouvez me parler en français si vous voulez.

2774 MR. ARCAND: It's just that the introduction, first of all, of this music format which is really, we feel, lacking in this market. We said in our presentation that it's the best format, first of all, to reflect Montreal's cultural diversity because this urban dance format, as you are well aware, is now being established and reflects very well the cultural diversity.

2775 One of the things that I wanted to say, first of all, is that in two weeks from now there will be the Canadian Music Week. At the Canadian Music Week in Toronto there are finalists for the Canadian Radio Music Awards. Among those finalists, if you look at those formats, and this is approved, obviously, by the music industry, and they are talking about CHR, they are talking about rock and they have defined urban dance rhythmic as a format on its own on the same level than rock, CHR or even AC, adult contemporary.

2776 It is reflective of what is happening in many cities where whether it's Vancouver -- I sit on the board of BBM, and one of the concerns that right now they have to collect the data is that in Vancouver, for example, nobody can speak either English or French. I think it's close to 50 per cent now of the population. So in Vancouver, in Toronto and in Montreal, there is a lot of cultural diversity.

2777 I could ask also Mr. John Cassaday to speak on behalf of Corus of our Cultural Diversity Policy.

2778 MR. CASSADAY: We have recently filed our Cultural Diversity Plan to the CRTC and are in the midst of discussing with them now the progress that we are making and the progress that we need to make. So in answer to your question, yes, we are absolutely committed to it. I think all broadcasters have work to do on that file, but our plan is with you and we await your comments.

2779 I would also say that we are in the midst of a very important piece of work right now at Corus which is the introduction of a program that we call Respect in the Workplace. We have developed a policy and over the last two weeks have visited virtually all of our locations across the country where we are holding groups of 20 to 30 people and talking about the whole issue of cultural diversity in our workforce, and also, most importantly, how we must begin to treat each other with greater respect.

2780 This applies not only to dealing with visible minorities and disabled, but also to gender issues that we have in our industry, and certainly we have at Corus as well. So it's a top corporate priority for us to improve our performance and, as I said, we await with interest the dialogue that we expect to have with the Commission on the recently filed plan.

2781 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Do you have, on the last portion of my question that is, in your spoken word programming in this particular market, on this particular proposal, do you have any comments about how you could be responsive to the stated policy views of the Commission on that score?

2782 MR. CASSADAY: I think certainly the programmers can speak to this, but it's inconceivable that a format of this nature would not in its spoken word reflect the culturally diverse audience that we are speaking to.

2783 This will attract a large black population of interest in this music format, and certainly we would need to reflect their views and have their views heard on our radio station.

2784 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You view would be some of it will come more artificially, if one can speak of artificially compared to naturally, from your policy of positive pressure to do it more and more or better, and the other would flow naturally from the format so that you would cover festivals or music situations that would be culturally diverse.

2785 With regard to technical, you just said being a small station, a new station, you were talking there about format or about your technical coverage -- yes, technical coverage because I want to hear everybody on why it is that their proposals, seeing that it's competitive in many cases, is the best use of the frequency, as opposed to the best format to serve the unserved population.

2786 MR. ARCAND: Are you talking about technical from a technical point of view?

2787 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes, we have already spoken about the format you chose and why you feel that it will add diversity and serve people who are not as well served in musical format, and possibly also the approach of the station, but what about the use of this particular frequency, 91.9, which is applied for by others? Do you have any comments about the extent to which you are using it in the most optimal way?

2788 MR. ARCAND: Yes. One of the things that -- we have a consulting engineer who can speak about it -- but one of the reasons also is that at 91.9 in Montreal, you are more in the middle of what I call an English environment. You have Q92 at 92.5, the McGill station is at 90 point something, you have CBC at 88.5. So you have all those English signals that are around this area.

2789 I can ask the engineer to speak about the optimal technical use of that frequency as well.

2790 MR. FRÉCHETTE: In fact, the 91.9 is used at its maximum parameter. So we cannot use this frequency at higher power. So we use it at its maximum possibility.

2791 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So that from the site proposed --

2792 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Mont-Royal.

2793 COMMISSIONER WYLIE:  -- your parameter contour is the best that can be achieved.

2794 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes.

2795 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: That site, of course, has a problem, the CFTB in Mount Royal site which got a Code 6. What are your views about how that will be resolved?

2796 MR. FRÉCHETTE: We found two other alternative sites which are also on Mont-Royal and these sites can be used as an option. I mean, if we cannot resolve the Code 6 issue, we can go there and we checked that.

2797 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Can you tell us how those sites would alter, if at all, your coverage? What would your coverage, hypothetical coverage look like? The site would be on Mount Royal --

2798 MR. FRÉCHETTE: It would be the same thing.

2799 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: It would be the same.

2800 MR. FRÉCHETTE: The same, same thing.

2801 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Same coverage, just a different site if Code 6 can't be resolved.

2802 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes, but I mean these sites are very close to the existing site. So it --

2803 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: So it would be the same height, the same --

2804 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes, exactly. We already did the --

2805 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: The same power.

2806 MR. FRÉCHETTE: We already did the --

2807 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You may have some customers to share the cost with because everybody seems to wound up in Code 6. Well, there are a number of people who have that problem.

2808 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes.

2809 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Mr. Chairman, those are my questions. My colleagues may have some and perhaps they want to have a chance to tell us again what a good proposal this is.

2810 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, madame Wylie.

2811 I do have a few questions, ones that flow in from your financials and the others from your presentation. Perhaps we will take it in the reverse order.

2812 You may have heard this morning there was some discussion between Commissioner Noël and representatives of Global on the size of the anglophone market, and I notice on page 5 in your comments, madame Leboeuf, you estimate that there are 700,000 anglophones 12+.

2813 What is the source for that information?

2814 MS LEBOEUF: It's radio BBM, English market 12+ because what Global took, I think, is television BBM, 2+.

2815 THE CHAIRPERSON: So the source is BBM --

2816 MS LEBOEUF: Fall --

2817 THE CHAIRPERSON: Fall of 2002.

2818 MS LEBOEUF: Yes, 2002.

2819 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

2820 MR. ARCAND: If I might add, Mr. Chairman, I could maybe ask Gloria Di Loia to answer this question about the anglophone market because she has been one of the media persons that has been buying the English market a good part of her life. So she can talk to you about how we come up with this number.

2821 THE CHAIRPERSON: By all means.

2822 MS Di LOIA: Thank you.

2823 There is a number of ways that the syndicated research that is available out there will portray the market in Montreal because of its diversity and because of the bilingual English and French milieu.

2824 However, BBM uses the same data that Stats Canada uses. So the foundation of everything that we have presented in the documents is based on that data. It is also data that is accepted widely by the industry, by all broadcasters, but fundamentally it is the statistics by which we all operate in terms of providing our currency. In other words, the advertisers will pay based on that norm that is accepted in the industry.

2825 Now, the questions are asked in a very specific way. You may answer that you are neither French or English or that you are both, and in terms of the information that you have from the Financial Post -- because I was here and I heard the information, basically, to make in very simplistic because it is complex, and although I have been working at this for 20 years I always have to go back and look at the definitions. They take half of the other and arbitrarily dump half in the English and half in French.

2826 So if you take those numbers back to its origin, you will probably get about 23 to 25 per cent and that 700,000 is about 25 per cent, 23 to 25 per cent of the total population that is reported in the radio BBMs. Everything is based on that foundation.

2827 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. That's helpful. We will take that on board. The figures we have internally, again, don't mesh perfectly with that, but everything turns on the definitions or the assumptions. So I simply wanted to get your sourcing and rationale which you have very kindly provided.

2828 My next question is one the three quarters of a million dollar that you estimate. I think it was Canadian? Yes.

2829 Ms Di Loia I heard reference to $400,000, a Canadian figure I think it was before. Again, I would ask you how you derive this figure, on the basis of what assumptions?

2830 MS LEBOEUF: I would like Gloria to answer that too.

2831 MS Di LOIA: The $400,000 was predicated on one station, the data that we had reported in the Duncan Radio. There are two other stations currently in the marketplace and what we have done is based on their share and based on the fact that they now have an office in Montreal, and they have five people employed, and have been actively with their rate cards soliciting advertisers, have estimated in terms of what.

2832 They have also purported that they are sourcing 30 to 40 per cent of their own station revenues out of the Montreal market. So as we understand the definition of having a sound business, you still need to generate somewhat of a level of revenue in order to pay five people. So we have made some assumptions and that is only on three stations. There are other smaller stations as well that appear to have an in.

2833 The other point I also want to make --

2834 THE CHAIRPERSON: So if I have you correctly, it represents the sum total of the increment that has been registered in the revenues of three U.S. stations.

2835 MS Di LOIA: That's right.

2836 THE CHAIRPERSON: Converted to Canadian dollars.

2837 MS Di LOIA: Yes, that's right.

2838 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

2839 MS Di LOIA: And if I may add too, in the data that is reported through the industry one of the things that is not reported is certainly the station's ability to go out and sell promotional airtime and also contra, which is an exchange of barter for product, and that happens quite commonly and we have seen it demonstrated in this market.

2840 THE CHAIRPERSON: If you tried to work it another way and you tried to estimate what 8 per cent of the total hours tuned in the 12 to 34 demographic multiplied by gross rating points, would you come up with a similar kind of number? If you said that's their share, a rating point is a rating point, but let's do the arithmetic.

2841 MS Di LOIA: I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question.

2842 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Kenemy mentioned that 8 per cent as the total hours in English Montreal by the 12 to 34 demographic to U.S. border stations. If you multiply that by -- I guess multiply that by some factor that you take as the gross rating point from Montreal, you come up with the same result.

2843 MS Di LOIA: Yes. In fact, what we have done is we have done the exercise in terms of the rate cards that we had and estimated a proportion of their revenues at a sell-out rate of what we used instead of a cost per point because you have to realize that some of these are very local in nature and the advertisers may not use that.

2844 So we have actually gone back to a spot cost and made some assumptions on their sell out which is not 100 per cent -- it could be 60 to 80 per cent -- and the fact that from that they might generate 30 or 40 per cent in this market, and worked it back to a very close figure of three quarters of a million dollar, and a very conservative estimate --

2845 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

2846 When they address their rate cards to Canadians, do they quote Canadian dollars or do they quote U.S. dollars?

2847 MS Di LOIA: They don't quote anything. I guess it's buyer beware.

2848 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

2849 MS Di LOIA: So the shrewder you are, obviously you will want to negotiate based on the Canadian dollar. We have the ability because we do have a solid reputation and the tools by which to operate, but I suspect that some local advertisers will not ask the question and perhaps have to pay in U.S. dollars.

2850 THE CHAIRPERSON: I should have you on a recent trip I had in the States because I couldn't get anybody to take Canadian dollars at par.

--- Laughter / Rires

2851 THE CHAIRPERSON: How do they factor in, I guess, the non-deductibility under the Income Tax Act of those advertising expenditures? Do they discount them to essentially offset the non-deductibility?

2852 MS Di LOIA: They would have you believe that they have discounted their rates sufficiently to cover that, but in reality if you are dealing with a reputable buying service, or an agency, and that you are not a local advertiser, you will know that your client will have to report that somehow and you will factor that in.

2853 However, in the method that they are approaching clients, certainly they don't have the sophistication to realize that what they have done is expose themselves and they have put themselves at a risk for Income Tax Canada. Certainly the seller is not disclosing that information for them, otherwise certainly the relationship would be costly once you have computed that ratio. It would not become significant, and therefore offers a better argument for a station in this market to compete on the same level ground.

2854 THE CHAIRPERSON: My experience in other areas has been over the years that effectively the long-standing stations, the Bellinghams, and so on, have just simply chopped their rates in half to offset it. You are suggesting it isn't quite as clear cut here in this radio market.

2855 MS Di LOIA: Because we are starting with a very low cost to begin with. The Bellingham stations have got a much larger pool and they have been in existence much longer.

2856 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

2857 MS Di LOIA: But I suspect if we don't interrupt the process, that they will be at that stage.

2858 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

2859 MR. KENEMY: Could I underline one thing?

2860 THE CHAIRPERSON: Sure.

2861 MR. KENEMY: In this conversation, we are talking about hiring five sales reps and opening an office. She is talking about one operator. There are two such operators and each probably has five. So it makes these number even more --

2862 THE CHAIRPERSON: She was mentioning three, I think. You were saying that the three quarters of a million is composed of the incremental revenue of three broadcasters --

2863 MS Di LOIA: That's correct. It's three stations, yes.

2864 THE CHAIRPERSON: And are all of these, in fact, operating in Montreal with staff and offices?

2865 MR. KENEMY: Two in particular, and I would say each one has five --

2866 THE CHAIRPERSON: The ones you mentioned in your remarks, Hits FM and Wild Country, and presumably the WBTZ.

2867 MR. KENEMY: Precisely.

2868 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. Which one did you say has just opened up?

2869 MR. KENEMY: The combination of Wild Country and Hits FM.

2870 THE CHAIRPERSON: Together.

2871 MR. KENEMY: Yes.

2872 THE CHAIRPERSON: Are they owned by the same company?

2873 MR. KENEMY: Yes.

2874 THE CHAIRPERSON: It's highly likely now in the States that --

2875 MR. KENEMY: Yes, right. It's highly likely it's Clear Channel, but it's not.

2876 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

2877 You have a follow-up questions?

2878 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Yes. When we talk about repatriation, et cetera, and the amount of money, that in a sense is the easiest part. The hard part is to say, "The person in my target group who listens to Wild Country, how will I get him or her to listen to urban dance?". I mean, it isn't a perfect equation.

2879 MR. ARCAND: I don't think that we are necessarily targeting the Wild Country listeners. We are targeting the --

2880 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: No, but we are talking about all the money that is flowing out, but if it's flowing out to Wild Country, it may or may not come into urban dance. Correct? You know, we can get carried away with how much money flows out, but if you thought that it was doing so well, you would be better to apply for Wild Country.

2881 MR. ARCAND: Yes, I agree with you, but one of the things that I have to say, the name says "Wild Country". It means again that the three stations that we have taken are all targeting an audience that is between the ages of 15 to 34 and it's clear that on Wild Country they don't play Johnny Cash. They are going to play something much wilder and, of course, it's not the same style exactly, but they target the same kind of audience.

2882 THE CHAIRPERSON: On your financial data -- I am looking at the projections. I have a few questions that struck me in trying to understanding them.

2883 The first one is on your programming. You may have heard yesterday we were discussing with one applicant the ratio of their projected programming expenditures to their revenues appeared to be double the Montreal norm. In your case it's about half.

2884 I am calculating your fifth year of programming expenses at $568,000 and dividing that into your total revenues for that year of $3.83 million at roughly 16 per cent which seems on the low side on the base of that test.

2885 Do you have any comments on that?

2886 MR. ARCAND: When we were talking yesterday, I think we were talking, first of all, of the AM side where 60 per cent of the costs are on the programming side and we were talking about the French market and one of the persons --

2887 THE CHAIRPERSON: It wasn't about the AM. It's was an FM application.

2888 MR. ARCAND: They were talking about personalities that are costing a lot of money. In our case, this is not the case. We won't hire huge personalities that are going to cost a lot of money, and also one of the main differences, probably you can see that our sales expenses are quite high. Some stations will put some promotions in the programming elements, others will put it in the sales department.

2889 So I think that the big difference, what we have in terms of expenses of programming there is pure content. There is nothing else than pure content. We might have put some promotional expenses. We have promotional expenses in this market of more than $250,000. We decided to put those expenses on the sales side.

2890 So that may explain some of the differences.

2891 THE CHAIRPERSON: And with those kinds of answers is that they kind of shift the goal posts in a way and question the categories, not that you are wrong necessarily, but it's always difficult to say that the ratios are based on putting promotion in with programming. I will check that out myself, but I suppose that even if one took the -- are you saying there is $250,000 in promotion in year 5 that is in the $2.015 million of sales advertising and promotion could just as easily be in programming? I am trying to understand the point.

2892 MR. ARCAND: I have been in many radio organizations, and some are putting the promotions in sales. Others are putting it in programming. There has not been a consistent way of doing it. In this type of format, also you need a lot of promotion. You need a lot of involvement in the community, much more than an easy listening station certainly because you need to go and get your listeners.

2893 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think my problem is it's forward looking so it's not accounting in the sense of auditing, but it's disturbing to think that the categories are employed as loosely as that from one to the other because it prevents effective comparisons. I will check that internally to see what our practice is, but that in and of itself is a little concerning, that there is that much leeway to take large chunks of expenditures and essentially -- I expect that what goes forward may come back, and if that is the case then again that's why I have concerns.

1730

2894 MR. CASSADAY: I think that in the simplest terms, the major components of a programming budget in a radio station are the Program Director, the Music Director, and the on-air talent. In this particular case, very much a music driven format, it's highly unlikely that we would have talent earning the kind of money that we would have in a very talent-centric station.

2895 We have announcers in our system making in excess of $300,000 a year. Again, targeting the very young, the likelihood is that we are going to be looking at very raw young talent on the station, anchoring our important day parts, and I that that it's not unreasonable to expect that our programming costs would be considerably lower than they are on CKOI.

2896 On CKOI also we have a huge investment in comedic talent and other program costs that have become the cost of entry in this market, and it is, quite frankly, quite different than it would on this new station.

2897 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you for that.

2898 I guess when we look at these things we have to go by the common assumptions and, Mr. Arcand, you are saying that there is a lot of leeway and flexibility and I would have hoped that that wasn't the case if one could draw effective comparisons. But, as I say, I will look into that internally, and see what is the degree of flexibility that we normally expect or entertain in these comparisons because obviously this is a comparative hearing and comparative assessments of important items like programming are one of the elements.

2899 So it's a little, as I say, disturbing when you take a huge chunk which represents 50 per cent of the amount in your programming and you say it could just as easily be there, but it happens to be in the sales and advertising.

2900 I am going to have to take it on the face of it being $567,000 in year 5, unless you want to file a correction to that so we can do apples to apples comparisons, in other words your explanation in respect of the costs of talent for this kind of station and the experience of your on-air people.

2901 Shifting to your revenues, if I may, I was trying to discern the logic of the growth curves in your projections and I am having a bit of trouble figuring out how you structured your projections both for your national and your local time sales.

2902 I know, for instance, that you project a decline in national between years 5 and 6, and in local between years 4 and 5 -- there is a small decline there.

2903 Could somebody assist me with the assumptions that went into that and the way the model was constructed and why the results appear to be a bit disconnected?

2904 MR. ARCAND: Basically, what we are trying to do is that we take for granted, first of all, that in the first of operation you start the station, you have to prove yourself. So that is the reason why we are coming up with a revenue of 1.1.

2905 We feel after that in year 2 and year 3, with the amount of promotion that we are going to put into this format, this is where we are going to have a very important growth, both in terms of ratings and generally speaking in terms of audience share. I think our maximum growth should come in year 3.

2906 After year 3, we feel that we are going to be rather consistent with the growth of the market, if there is one.

2907 The reason for the national reduction between year 5 and year 6 is national has always been something very difficult to predict because local has been in the radio stations pretty stable, but national there is always a year somewhere where you have a downfall in the market, and this has been happening in the radio market. So we choose that year between the fifth and the sixth year to see that kind of trend, but basically overall what is important is that we feel that the major growth will come in year second and in the third year.

2908 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Arcand, who prepared these projections?

2909 MR. ARCAND: It's been prepared by our comptroller along with our Sales Vice-President and myself.

2910 THE CHAIRPERSON: You have given me very general answers. Could somebody show me the math that you used, the assumptions and so on?

2911 MS LEBOEUF: If you can look at the study at page 2, we did it with looking at the five-year ad revenue trend since 1996. So we kept the proportion very near what the market is. It has always been that in the radio market the local advertisers are easier to go and see.

2912 National they always buy by the rating and the BBMs. So local it's a different kind of selling. So normally local advertisers are more easy to go and try new stations than the national side.

2913 Maybe Gloria can finish that intervention pour moi parce que...

2914 THE CHAIRPERSON: If she wishes to add something, I, of course, will take her comments, but it was indicated that you and the comptroller prepared these.

2915 Did you in effect take a year such as years 3 and 4 and provide for a full 100 per cent realization in your rating points and then discount back to account for the lower take up in earlier years? What was the methodology that you used?

2916 Mme LEBOEUF: Mais normalement après trois ans les « ratings » sont pas mal là, si vous voulez. On connaît la valeur de la station pour faire les « ratings ». Alors la partie nationale, comme elle n'augmente pas aussi vite, si vous voulez, que la partie locale, on l'a mise un peu plus stable pour ces années-là et puis on s'est dit que vraiment ça serait sur les années 4, 5 -- à partir de l'an 3, si vous voulez.

2917 Au total on a pris à peu près 10 pour cent des parts de marchés en tant que telles, mais c'est vrai que le local est toujours plus facile. Comme je vous dis, le « rating » après trois ans est vraiment à sa stabilité, à moins qu'on change beaucoup de choses, mais si on ne change pas beaucoup de choses c'est vraiment là.

2918 MR. ARCAND: And there is also in -- the agencies are using also ratios and maybe Gloria can talk about the ratio that was used because she is also a media buyer.

2919 LE PRÉSIDENT: Je vous en prie.

2920 MS Di LOIA: I think if you look at page 23 of our study --

--- Pause

2921 THE CHAIRPERSON: Which study are you referring to?

2922 MS Di LOIA: Our MBS study.

2923 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

2924 MS Di LOIA: It's appended to --

2925 THE CHAIRPERSON: I was going from your actual financials at this point. I didn't realize it would be this tough.

--- Pause

2926 THE CHAIRPERSON: Which page?

2927 MS Di LOIA: At page 23.

2928 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

2929 MS Di LOIA: In that revenue projection, what we did here is we took a number of assumptions based on a sell-out ratio, that the station would be at a very conservative sell-out ratio of 40 per cent, 50 per cent and 65 per cent over the course of the seven years.

2930 Within that, we also looked at structuring a guideline from a cost per point that was extremely conservative. Currently the market is selling as high as, depending on the station, $40. So we kept the proportion of cost per point significantly the same all the way through, not accounting for any rate increases.

2931 We also took a look at the share of available GRPs that a station would have to sell, and we made the assumption that they would only sell 77 per cent of the possible GRPs that they would have, and then took a corresponding share of those GRPs and 12+ and built various scenarios to provide a range that we thought was a conservative one in terms of deriving revenues over the course of that period.

2932 THE CHAIRPERSON: And that was plugged into which year?

2933 MS Di LOIA: If you look at the bottom of the page, we used year 1, year 2, year 3 as a range and then made some assumptions that at years 4 and 5 that there would be some stability.

2934 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. So you are going on the basis of total revenue there.

2935 MS Di LOIA: Yes, total revenue. That's correct.

2936 THE CHAIRPERSON: For reasons we have discussed, you didn't want to treat national and local differently. I mean, they are sold very differently, aren't they?

2937 MS Di LOIA: They are sold very differently and we didn't take the exercise to that level.

2938 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see.

2939 MS Di LOIA: However, we did provide the statistics at the front that would help from the industry to correspond any calculations that were deemed adequate for this market.

2940 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. So that may account for the appearance of forcing and squeezing it and the inability of getting straightline calculations from one year to the next, or at least justifying the differentials on the basis of stated assumptions.

2941 I see. The way you have worked it out you essentially picked ranges and then somehow massaged the figures. Is that a fair way of putting it?

2942 MS Di LOIA: The way a broadcaster would build up their potential revenue stream, assuming that they were sort of at year 5 or 6 in their business plan, they would know what the traditional tendency would be at a given sell-out ratio. They would have a certain knowledge, or historical knowledge or a security of business to say, "We can project our revenues based on 60 per cent of our inventory being sold out and getting $40 or $50 or $35 on a cost per point" and generate their business plan accordingly for the following year.

2943 We have started from nowhere and had to make some assumptions.

2944 THE CHAIRPERSON: That often happens. You don't have the financial projections before you, do you?

2945 MS Di LOIA: Yes, I do.

2946 THE CHAIRPERSON: If you could just look at it, you will see perhaps the difficult I am having with it. I mean, I understand now how you derive the ranges within which your total revenues should be projected. I frankly haven't had a chance to look at this before, so I can't assess it. I will.

2947 But having done that, in a sense I am not quite sure how you then plotted the numbers that are there.

2948 Do you have those financials?

2949 MS Di LOIA: Could you give me the page number, please?

2950 THE CHAIRPERSON: Unfortunately, you know --

--- Pause

2951 THE CHAIRPERSON: It's usually 3.1.

2952 MS Di LOIA: I have it.

2953 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think the numbers should correspond. So you can see what has been done to your ranges here and they are plotted roughly to fit within these.

2954 MS Di LOIA: In terms of the breakdown for the --

2955 THE CHAIRPERSON: Just in terms of the total revenue.

2956 MS Di LOIA: Right.

2957 THE CHAIRPERSON: A little often here and there, but roughly within those ranges, and then when you break down local and national, which are so different, you get the phenomenon of going from 450 in year 4 to 680 in year 5 down to 657 in year 6 and back up to 750 in year 7, and similarly in national it's hard to understand the nature of those figures.

2958 The way we look at these, or I try to look at these, is to see the underlying rationale and be able to understand why every figure, particularly when it comes to revenues and such items as programming expenditures, the logic of how they have been produced.

2959 It's hard to discern that here, I am sure you will agree.

2960 MS Di LOIA: I'm not sure what part of the question you would like me to respond to.

2961 THE CHAIRPERSON: Any of it.

2962 MS Di LOIA: Okay. It you asking me at this point to give you my comment with respect to the breakdown between national and local, and to corroborate that with the figures that we have here, I would perhaps have to have another look at this separately, if you don't mind.

2963 THE CHAIRPERSON: If you want to file something to help elaborate this, I am happy to do that. It really is an effort to try to understand --

2964 MR. CASSADAY: I think the other thing that is fair to say, Mr. Chair, is that the level of preciseness that is possible, particularly looking at year 5 through 7, is not great. I think perhaps the model would have appeared to be more coherent and cogent and if had straightlined years 5 through 7 as opposed to having this abberation.

2965 But I think the reality of it is that what we are doing here and we are looking at this thing and saying: What do we think the market is going to look like? What do we think our share is? What are our assumptions about the sell-out rate? A number gets spilled out. In this case, it looks kind of aberrant relative to year 5 and then year 7.

2966 I wouldn't give us too much credit for having been too thoughtful about why we dipped in year 6 and went back up in year 7. I think it's just the function of the modelling. What we are saying here is we think we have about a $1.5 million business in year 1 on the strength of our enthusiasm to sell it locally without any numbers. By the time we get to year 7, we think we have about a $7 million business on the strength of the ratings that we expect we will get, our assumptions about the costs per point in the market, and how effective we will be in selling our inventory.

2967 And then you look at that relative to what other people are doing in the market, and you say: Does that look reasonable? And we come away with the conclusion that, yes, it seems like a) it's a viable business; b) we are not dreaming, and c) if it was anything less than that, why did we bother to make this application?

2968 So that's sort of the logic that goes into an exercise like the one that we have presented to you today.

2969 THE CHAIRPERSON: And I have no quarrel with the logic. I guess, if instead of filing this table you had said, "Instead of filing this table here is our point" and had provided the back up, that might have been more accurate because we do take these data seriously and I have been on both sides of this, and I have always been very careful about these --

2970 MR. CASSADAY: We take it seriously too, and I think year 6 is relatively inexplicable, except that it's within the band.

2971 THE CHAIRPERSON: It's not just year 6, Mr. Cassaday. So far I can't understand -- the only part I have been able to understand is that the numbers for total revenue have been plotted roughly within t he ranges that were set up in the MBS study. That's as far as I have been able to understand. Anything else, I still haven't been able to understand.

2972 So if instead of your total revenue of 1.03, 1.30, you had said we are going from roughly -- if you had put in that last band in the MBS and said, "This is all we can tell you. All the rest of it we wouldn't have any confidence in", that might be an answer. You might have another problem with staff and the incompleteness of your table, but it would be, I think -- the story you have told me so far tracks with that. It doesn't track with what I see here so far. Now, again, I could be wrong. I just haven't hear it yet today.

2973 MR. CERAT: Those tables that are being produced are being produced based on historical values. What we do with our radio station most of the time is that we use our past history to be able to forecast our forward history. We used to forecast recession in our forecasts and we used to forecast lower level from one year to another year.

2974 In that particular case, we used the data we have from our English radio station at the moment, and we kind of massaged it for a seven-year period to give us a trend. Obviously the first number we wanted to achieve was the range that MBS was giving us, obviously, but in terms of the national and in terms of the local aspect of it, it was always based on past historical figures that we had for years.

2975 Obviously sometimes it looks strange, but we could have used 1.03 times, times, times, but we have seen over the past 10, 12, 15 years that we are doing those things, that it always fluctuates somehow. So we just didn't want to confuse anybody, but we just wanted to reflect what we already went through in our lives.

2976 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, you failed because I am confused.

2977 MR. ARCAND: And if I might add, Mr. Chairman. If you look at page 2, for example, at the MBS study, it shows -- it's rather always a bit difficult to explain -- that between 1999 and 2000, for example, national dollars in Quebec went up by 4.4 per cent and in Canada they declined by 1.5 per cent. It has been the other way around in some instances. It's one of the reasons why I was telling you that local is highly predictable. National, there is always one bad year at one point in time where you don't know exactly, for whatever reason. They just don't advertise on radio and it's a bit more difficult.

2978 We will study this more carefully, and maybe we could get back to you with some better conclusions.

2979 THE CHAIRPERSON: The whole point, we don't know the future, that's the reality. So when we do proformas it's often useful to do straightline projections because there will be up years and there will down years and what we are trying to do is chart the trendline.

2980 The problem is that when you give these, they raise so many questions and they are so hard to come to grips with that it leaves us all struggling, as we are doing now.

2981 I mean there they are, but I think that it's precisely for that reason, because nobody knows the future and because we know that it's not going to be the way anybody's proforma looks like, that we try and take the most reasonable assumptions, sitting where we are today, and look forward into a crystal ball.

2982 MR. CERAT: So what would you like to get from us?

2983 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, we have the record. I think that what I have is what -- is it Mrs. Di Orio?

2984 MS Di LOIA: It's Di Loia.

2985 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I think what I have is what Mrs. Di Loia explained to me and that part I have. I don't know what you would care to do further with the detailed numbers you have in your revenue projections, or your expenses projections from what your testimony was, if you want to revise this or not or just leave it, but I think that's where we are. So it's in your hands.

2986 MR. CERAT: Okay. Thank you.

2987 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

2988 Madame Noël?

2989 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: J'avais deux questions, mais mon président m'a battue au poteau sur la première. Alors vous allez avoir droit seulement à la deuxième.

2990 Vous n'avez pas identifié de fréquences alternatives dans votre demande. Est-ce que vous en avez examinées?

2991 M. CERAT: Oui, on en examinées. Je demanderais peut-être à M. Fréchette de vous expliquer les différentes alternatives qu'on a regardées également.

2992 M. FRÉCHETTE: Bonjour. En fait, il y a trois fréquences disponibles qui pourraient faire le travail, c'est-à-dire couvrir le territoire voulu pour la demande. C'est donc la fréquence qui a été choisie, donc le 91,9. Il y aurait le 100,1 et il y aurait aussi le 106,3. Donc ces trois fréquences-là, à notre avis, couvrent le territoire voulu, c'est-à-dire à peu près 80 pour cent et plus de l'Ile de Montréal.

2993 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Et elles sont toutes...

2994 M. FRÉCHETTE: Elles sont toutes problématiques.

2995 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Elles sont toutes problématiques.

2996 M. FRÉCHETTE: Elles sont toutes problématiques, mais elles fonctionnent. Elles reçoivent des interférences d'autres stations américaines, en particulier, mais elles fonctionnent.

2997 M. CERAT: Mais pour répondre à la question, madame Noël, je pense que notre premier choix est le 91,9 mais nous serions prêts à regarder d'autres alternatives.

2998 CONSEILLÈRE NOËL: Je vous remercie.

2999 THE CHAIRPERSON: Counsel?

3000 MS MOORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

3001 With respect to the alternative sites that you have identified, I wonder if you could provide us with further details in that regard, please.

3002 MR. FRÉCHETTE: The first option is what we call the Bell site, which is less than one kilometre from the proposed site, which is the Radio-Canada site. And the other one would be the Ville de Montréal tower, which is about the same distance on the other side of the Radio-Canada site.

3003 MS MOORE: And do you have engineering reports in respect of these sites?

3004 MR. FRÉCHETTE: What do you mean? Another brief or...?

3005 MS MOORE: Yes.

3006 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes. I have one for one site. The other one is -- you know, it's so close that it's about the same thing. The maps are the same. We just move a little bit the contour. So that's a thing we can do easily.

3007 MS MOORE: Would you be in a position to file the relevant information in respect of the alternative sites by the opening of the hearing tomorrow morning?

3008 MR. FRÉCHETTE: Yes.

3009 MS MOORE: Thank you.

3010 MR. FRÉCHETTE: If you need it.

3011 MS MOORE: With respect to the breakdown of the CTD that was discussed with you earlier with Vice-Chair Wylie, would you be in a position to file that by the opening of the hearing tomorrow?

3012 MR. ARCAND: Yes.

3013 MS MOORE: Thank you.

3014 And finally, I would ask that if you wish to file anything further in respect of your financial projections, whether it's the revisions to your numbers or a further explanation of the assumptions, that you do so by the opening of the hearing tomorrow morning, with a copy for the record and also copying the competing applicants.

3015 MR. ARCAND: Yes.

3016 MS MOORE: Thank you.

3017 Those are my questions, Mr. Chairman.

3018 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

3019 Do you want to add anything, any question that you weren't asked, or a final remark?

3020 MR. ARCAND: The only thing I can add is that it's a very exciting project for us. It is something very important for our group. We are in the Montreal English market which is a market that is important and we feel very enthusiastic about this project.

3021 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

3022 We will resume tomorrow morning at 9:30 with the next applicant.

3023 Nous reprendrons demain matin à 9 h 30.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1756, to resume

on Wednesday, February 5, 2003 at 0930 /

L'audience est ajournée à 1756 pour reprendre

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