ARCHIVED - Transcript, Hearing 13 May 2014

Volume 1, 13 May 2014

TRANSCRIPTION OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

SUBJECT:

To consider the broadcasting applications listed in Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2014-102, 2014-102-1 and 2014-102-2

HELD AT:

York Hall
Holiday Inn Toronto Yorkdale
3450 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
13 May 2014

Transcription

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.

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Transcription

To consider the broadcasting applications listed in Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2014-102, 2014-102-1 and 2014-102-2

BEFORE:

ALSO PRESENT:

HELD AT:

York Hall
Holiday Inn Toronto Yorkdale
3450 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
13 May 2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE / PARA

PHASE I

PRESENTATION BY:

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UNDERTAKINGS

PAGE / PARA

Toronto, Ontario

--- Upon commencing on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 at 0900

1   THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning, everyone, welcome.

2   Bonjour, Mesdames et Messieurs, et bienvenue à cette audience publique.

3   At this hearing the Commission will consider six radio applications for the use of frequency 102.7 FM in Scarborough and Whitchurch-Stouffville.

4   Three of the six Applicants are for the operation of new ethnic radio stations in Scarborough. The fourth application comes from Intercity which operates the commercial radio station CKFG FM in Toronto and which is seeking to install a transmitter in Scarborough. The last two applications come from existing low-power stations that are currently using frequency 102.7 FM; they are CJVF FM, an ethnic station in Scarborough, and WhiStle Community Radio, a community station in Whitchurch-Stouffville.

5   These stations wish to increase the power of their signal.

6   As with all public proceedings, the opinions of Canadians are very important in helping us fulfil our legislative responsibilities. We, therefore, wish to thank all who have agreed to participate in this hearing either by submitting comments or by appearing before us.

7   The Panel for this hearing consists of Raj Shoan, Regional Commissioner for Ontario, Steve Simpson, Regional Commissioner for British Columbia and the Yukon and myself, Peter Menzies, Vice-Chairman of Telecommunications. I will be presiding over this hearing.

8   The Commission team assisting us includes Joe Aguiar, Hearing Manager, English Radio Operations, Joshua Dougherty, Legal Counsel and Jade Roy, Hearing Secretary and Supervisor of Public Hearings.

9   I would now invite the Hearing Secretary, Jade Roy, to explain the procedures we will be following.

10   Madam Secretary...?

11   THE SECRETARY: Thank you, and good morning.

12   I would like to go over a few housekeeping matters to ensure the proper conduct of the hearing. When you are in the hearing room, we ask that you please turn off your Smartphones as they are an unwelcome distraction and they cause interference on the internal communication systems used by our translators. We would appreciate your cooperation in this regard throughout the hearing.

13   We expect the entire hearing to take three days. Participants are reminded that they must be ready to present on the day scheduled or, if necessary, the day before or after depending on the progress of the hearing.

14   Please note that we intend to start every morning at 9:00 a.m. for the rest of the hearing, but we will let you know of any schedule changes as they occur.

15   You can examine all documents on the public record of this proceeding in the Examination Room which is located in Room York South.

16   There is a verbatim transcript of this hearing being taken by the Court Reporter sitting at the table to my right. If you have any questions on how to obtain all or part of this transcript, please approach the Court Reporter during a break.

17   Just a reminder that pursuant to section 41 of the Rules of Practice and Procedures, you must not submit evidence at the hearing unless it supports statements already on the public record. If you wish to introduce new evidence as an exception to this rule, you must ask permission of the Panel of the hearing before you do so.

18   Please note that the Commission will also be Tweeting the documents during the hearing at #crtchearings, using the hashtag number sign crtc.

19   Finally, please note that if parties undertake to file information with the Commission in response to questioning by the Panel, these undertakings can be confirmed on the record through the transcript of the hearing. If necessary, parties may speak with Commission Legal Counsel at a break following their presentation to confirm the undertakings.

20   And now, Mr. Chairman, we will begin Phase 1 and Item 1 of the Agenda which is an application by 105.9 FM Ltd. to amend the broadcasting licence for a low-power commercial specialty ethnic radio station CJVF FM Scarborough, Ontario which operates at frequency 102.7 MHz.

21   Please introduce yourself and your colleagues and you will then have 20 minutes to make your presentation.

PRESENTATION

22   MR. ROGERS: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and fellow Commissioners, CRTC staff and ladies and gentlemen. I am Frank Rogers, the agent for CJVF 102.7 FM. With me to my right and your left is Mr. Stuart Hahn our engineer, and to my left your right is Mr. Sammy Appadural who is a community leader and liaison for CJVF.

23   This day has been a long time coming and as we have applied for the technical amendment under Part 1 in 2002, it turned into something different and at times very confusing.

24   I will point out to address some of the CRTC points that they were not only concerned with but noted at different times that CJVF was out of compliance.

25   When CJVF was approved on CRTC Decision 2014-29 Licence amendment and technical change from 105.9 FM to 102.7 FM, a lot of things have changed. CJVF was out of compliance for late financial returns and shortfalls of the CCD contributions. There was such a turmoil when we were on 105.9 as a low-power FM we were unprotected and when CFMS was licensed just a few months after we were, we could have packed it in. But the loyalty of the staff, the commitment of management to financially support the station, search and apply for a new frequency, everyone was determined to march on.

26   The changes we made after we received approval to 102.7 were done and I am happy to report those problems were corrected. With the new staff members we will be able to fulfill our CRTC commitment.

27   We have hired a new accountant that will complete all financial reports accurate and on time for year-end August 31st and work with a compliance officer.

28   Our new compliance officer will be the liaison to any matters regarding the CRTC and any complaints from the general public and will also be responsible to make sure that all CCD contributions will be paid out on time.

29   And our new community liaison officer who will report directly to management. His responsibility will be to have bi-monthly meetings to address any issues the community may have. He also will use this opportunity to gather suggestions from the community for new programs or new ideas that CJVF would freely accommodate to support the community.

30   Speaking of the community, I would now like to pass the microphone to Mr. Appadural.

31   MR. APPADURAL: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Panel, co-Applicants, ladies and gentlemen.

32   After considering the various factors that help to contribute to the effective and efficient utilization of resources for the high-power radio channel for four designated ethnic groups, though primarily for Canadian Tamils, CJVF will certainly serve the best interests of our great Nation Canada.

33   We are also committed to the operation of the given mandate seriously and carefully under the rules and regulations of the three levels of government in Canada and that of the CRTC and assure you that whatever shortfalls that we had in the past, we will certainly deal with them in the most appropriate manner.

34   Allow me to briefly cite the establishments and strengths of the tri-generational Canadian Tamils as a part of the other designated Asian groups. The nature of the demographic distribution of Canadian Tamils by their age, gender, generation, geographic location, and growth exhibits its potential.

35   Based on the statistics of Canada, migration and immigration, and birth and death rates, it accounts for almost 300,000 Tamils in three generations and over 70 percent of them reside in and around Scarborough.

36   One of the primary objectives of CJVF is to bridge the gap between new immigrants of designated ethnic groups and the mainstream along with exploring and exploiting the hidden talents primarily from the third generation who were born and raised in the mainstream culture in order to pave the way for their full level of participation in Canadian affairs.

37   We are very concerned about their needs and have planned and presented our programs primarily through radio and secondarily by social media such as the Internet, Facebook, community events, social gatherings by participating in Canadian affairs such as law enforcement bodies, places of worship, and sports events.

38   We have a long-term plan to cater to the needs of the respective communities and their expectations on the national level.

39   Our strength also goes beyond broadcasting on traditional radio and reaches over 7,500 listeners via social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

40   Participation in humanitarian services is one of the primary goals in our long-term objectives. Our vision aims to promote Canadian values while respecting heritage values at the same time.

41   I would not underestimate the calibre in terms of the human resources in the sectors of the performing arts, technical skills and sales and administration that we have in both the broadcasting and the administration sections. These employees have gone through the required professional and academic courses and have completed them successfully. Their professionalism, high degree of commitment and perseverance have made us successful. Over 50 percent of our performing artists have university degrees and 60 percent have over a decade of media exposure.

42   We have been able to provide full-time and part-time employment and this would be extended further.

43   We also capitalize in carefully recruiting potential trainers and train local artists in our performing department. We have seminars, workshops, professional development programs and also capitalize on their expertise, skills and experience.

44   We do consider the stability and the means of survival of our staff who have made a strong commitment and financially depend on us, and during the brief period of interruption we did not discontinue their service and absorbed their financial commitment as usual.

45   We also have the great advantage of having a well reputed team in our sister media group Tamil One with both its equipment and technical support.

46   The untapped and the existing economic resources and its generation of income and the capital investment in our communities are very substantial in terms of supporting the community media without compromising the others by having our services extended to a higher power broadcasting frequency.

47   The high growth of post-secondary education in our second and third generations allows them to have the capacity of earning higher salaries, and along with their commitment to their heritage values, will be an asset for our mass media.

48   Over 2,000 potential Tamil business enterprises are flourishing in Ontario and over 70 percent are located in and around Scarborough. Our business community has expanded its services and production beyond its own community market and has successfully penetrated into multi-ethnic zones.

49   The periodical reports from the Canadian Tamil Chamber of Commerce and other related resources reveal that the potentiality and expansion of their businesses, and the establishment of new economic enterprises are remarkable and reliable and are in need of exposure to the mass media, particularly radio broadcasting to ensure their continued success.

50   CJVF has left no stone unturned and their early morning programming is five hours in duration with two-way greetings, instant traffic reports, weather information, news and news updates, sports, settlement programs for immigrants, shows on topics such as domestic violence, elder abuse, youth issues, and job searching, along with pop songs produced by local artists and artists from India and Sri Lanka.

51   Our hourly news summary has earned a high reputation by updating national and international affairs.

52   It would not be an overstatement by saying that we believe that by having the trust and support of our community, a well experienced and successful President and CEO with a highly experienced and skillful team, having committed financial investors and the willingness and commitment to learn and process the evolving changes in the community, the nation, and worldwide CJVF will make best use of a higher frequency radio broadcasting signal not only for the good of the broadcasting audience, but for this great nation Canada.

53   Thank you.

54   MR. ROGERS: Why do we need protected status and a power increase? Well, the first is protected status. We do not want to repeat what we just went through. CJVF has spent over $150,000 on equipment and, as you will see shortly, the many accomplishments that CJVF has reached in the short time we've been on the air, and in its low-power existence.

55   Why the power increase? We have done so much for the community, the same community rallied behind us for our amendment application for the power increase. The power increase will strengthen us throughout Scarborough and surrounding area. Thousands of signed petitions, hundreds have given us telephone support and over 700 support letters from businesses and the public.

56   We are proud of our accomplishments and we would now like to show you.

--- Video presentation

57   MR. ROGERS: CJVF is growing. We know other stations have decided during the two years since we have applied for a technical amendment to pursue trying to take away our frequency which was granted through your Decision of 2014.

58   The majority are still wanting, for the most part, to serve the Tamil community. We feel we have done a good job and have served the Tamil community well and have made all the necessary changes to remain in compliance.

59   With our sister television station, Tamil One, we can reach even higher. With all due respect, we ask the Commission to approve our application that CJVF can remain on 102.7 FM with protected status and a power increase.

60   Thank you.

61   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. I have no comment at this stage, other than I know the room enjoyed your video.

62   Commissioner Shoan has some questions for you.

63   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Good morning. Thank you for being here today.

64   Mr. Rogers, as you note in the oral presentation, for you this process began with a Part 1 application, so I'm going to begin by asking some general questions in order to allow you and your colleagues to flush out your application for the public record before turning to some specific questions about your application.

65   So to begin, can you tell me why, in your view, your application represents the best use of the 102.7 MHz frequency?

66   MR. ROGERS: There are approximately 31 other signals going into the Scarborough/Markham area. We feel that, with some of the very large stations that are going in there, multicultural stations, they did not provide enough hours to one of the largest groups, which was the Tamil community.

67   Of course, the largest group is the Chinese community, but we didn't want to get into that because, as you know, there are stations that contribute to that, too.

68   So we decided that the Tamil community, which is very large in Scarborough, that we could devote more hours to it, other than what, say, CHIN Radio or any of them are doing.

69   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you.

70   Mr. Appadural, in the opening remarks you noted that you have a long-term plan to cater to the needs of the respective communities and their expectations on a national level. Could you flesh that out a little bit further, please?

71   MR. APPADURAL: Yes. Because the majority of the influx of the Tamils came in 1983, their children are growing in the Canadian mainstream environment, so we want them to participate in national affairs, as well as maintaining their heritage value. For that, we need this radio station to continue and then to expand on other areas, so that it will cater to everybody's needs in the community.

72   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Will you accomplish that through community involvement, or do you have specific programming through which you are going to advance the social position of the members of these communities?

73   MR. APPADURAL: Certainly, what we do is that, the radio stations that we have, within a short period of time, have achieved support from many corners of the community, in the sense that children, elderly people, the working class -- all of them -- want to have more access to radio, so that they will be able to participate in Canadian affairs fully.

74   So, to do that, they want a kind of two-way communication. They want their issues to be addressed and, at the same time, they want some kind of guidance and updated information for them to move on.

75   So that is the area that we are focusing on.

76   The plan we have is that we have biweekly discussions with the communities, in various sectors, and the law-enforcing bodies.

77   For example, we have been working with the Toronto Police, the 42nd and 43rd Divisions, to address many issues.

78   For example, in the Scarborough area, gold necklaces and other things were stolen by some unwanted elements, and we worked with the community leaders and the law-enforcing bodies and we have brought it down to the minimum level.

79   Likewise, we are talking with youth, trying to bring youth in a very positive way to make a positive contribution to the community, as well as to the nation.

80   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great. Thank you.

81   In your oral presentation, as well, Mr. Appadural, you mentioned that participation in humanitarian services is one of your long-term objectives. What do you mean by that?

82   MR. APPADURAL: We are planning to work with Sick Children's Hospital and other societies, trying to help in various ways.

83   For example, donations of various organs of the body and things like that. We have contacted the concerned organizations. They brought their resources to our radio, and then we had a discussion with the community, and many, many people donated their organs after having heard these kinds of programs.

84   So humanitarian services not only confined to the community, but reaching further, to include many more groups.

85   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you.

86   This question is directed to Mr. Rogers or Mr. Appadural, whoever is capable of responding to it.

87   Should you not get the approval you seek to operate CJVF-FM on 102.7 FM, with the proposed technical parameters, do you have any alternative plans?

88   MR. ROGERS: Yes, our engineer, Mr. Hahn, is here, and we were going to present new things on Friday, whereby we think that all three of us could live together in 102.7, and go into another frequency, which he can explain, and then the top one, CHOP-FM, which is a low-power FM 102.7, out of Newmarket.

89   So, on Friday, we have the map, we were going to present that as an alternative.

90   Other than that, it makes more sense -- and Mr. Hahn could probably expand on this -- it makes more sense for two radio stations to survive, and one radio station to change frequency, like we had to. Or, the deference is, if Whitchurch-Stouffville gets it, then two stations will be off the air and they will be on 102.7.

91   So, on Friday, we have the maps here that we were going to show you, and Mr. Hahn can explain it a little better than I can.

92   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Before you get into that, Mr. Hahn, just to be clear, for the record, we try to avoid adding new information to the record at this stage of the proceeding, given that new information can often amend an application, and application amendments are generally done either through the initial application phase or through the deficiency process.

93   That said, if you do wish to put on the record the fact that you have other options and discuss them generally, I don't necessarily see a problem with that.

94   I do, however, encourage Mr. Rogers or Mr. Hahn to speak with our legal counsel, Mr. Dougherty, during a break, to ensure that any information you wish to put on the record is acceptable.

95   MR. ROGERS: I have a feeling that our Whitchurch-Stouffville friends, with all due respect, will comment on that.

96   And then, on Friday, when we get a chance to reply, that is probably the way that we were going to reply, because I am very sure that they are going to talk about an alternative frequency for us.

97   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you.

98   I would like to turn our discussion to the impact on incumbent stations in the marketplace.

99   Now, you have said that the impact on the incumbent ethnic radio stations in the marketplace would not be material if your application was approved, but I note that, if your revised parameters are approved, your coverage would increase considerably, and there would, in fact, be programming overlaps with CINA, which serves six languages in total, including Hindi and Urdu; CFMS, the new station in Markham, which serves nine languages in total; and Canadian Multicultural Radio, of course, which serves 22 languages in total, including the Tamil community, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu.

100   Can you comment on your service's potential to draw incremental revenues from the marketplace, and the extent to which any additional revenues in tuning could come from incumbent ethnic radio stations?

101   And, in your reply, if you could respond specifically to the concerns raised by Mr. Bola, who owns the Market station, that there is no evidence of economic growth in the market to justify a growing pie, which means, essentially, that any growth you have would come from incumbent stations.

102   MR. ROGERS: With all respect to Mr. Bola, if you go through his application, when he originally got it -- and we were very involved because, obviously, we were going to be losing 105.9 -- at that time he had projected enormous amounts of profit -- or, I should say, revenue. I think the tune was $800,000. I can't be quoted on that, but it's pretty close. And we said at that point that the CRTC always had an open-door policy of free competition, and we made sure that we did not trample on anyone's rights, and our figures were a little bit lower than what they ended up being. But, then, as the second year came around, our revenues dropped significantly.

103   So, yes, the argument was with CMR, when we first started on 105.9, that "Oh, the sky is falling, they are going to lose a lot of revenue."

104   Well, yes, the pie -- as in anything you do, the pie got a little thinner, the slices got a little smaller, but it did not, I believe, impact any station. A lot of stations are still very, very healthy, and a lot of the stations, as you said, have different languages to go to.

105   May I also point out to Mr. Bola that he was running five hours a night, I believe --

106   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Mr. Rogers, you will have a chance to address Mr. Bola's application in Phase 2 of the proceeding.

107   MR. ROGERS: Okay. I was trying to answer your question.

108   And the short answer is, I still don't believe that we are impacting on the stations you mentioned.

109   Yes, the pie got a little smaller, but that's due to normal competition.

110   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Fair enough.

111   To your point that the pie got a little bit smaller -- and I note that it was covered off in your application form, but could you remind me, in terms of your projected revenues, what you project will be the percentage of your revenue growth that will come from incumbent stations in the marketplace?

112   MR. ROGERS: That will come from the incumbent stations or new?

113   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: The incumbent stations in the marketplace.

114   MR. ROGERS: Okay.

115   I would say right now, from what I read in all of the other ones, that probably 10 percent would come from the other stations.

116   And if you would just give me one minute to clarify that --

117   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Sure.

118   MR. ROGERS: Our sales team is second to none. I am from the old school, okay? So when they go into an advertiser, they don't say: Do you want to advertise with us?

119   No, they find out what the advertising budget is, and they say: Okay. Now, we are not going to take all of your budget. That would be foolish. We are going to take some of your budget for CJVF. We suggest that you go and phone one of the other radio stations -- you don't put all of your eggs in one basket -- and you know what, sir? We think that you should do some newspaper advertising, too.

120   So they put a whole package together and, as far as I know, we are one of the only radio stations, especially of the FM stations, that do that.

121   So we are committed to help out the advertiser by saying TV, radio, newspaper, guide books, not just advertising on CJVF. That's why I can say that I don't believe we are taking a lot away from the other stations.

122   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I see. So your argument is, because you are offering a multiplatform advertising approach, that it would only be a fraction of the dollars in the market that would actually be extracted.

123   MR. ROGERS: For us.

124   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: For you.

125   MR. ROGERS: Correct.

126   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Understood.

127   Canadian Multicultural Radio, which, as I mentioned earlier, provides programming in 22 specific languages, noted that it might not be capable of serving that large a group if the major moneymaker for the station, the Tamil group, which accounts for 70 percent of CMR's revenues, is undermined by a new station being licensed in the marketplace.

128   In this respect, CMR also indicated that its Tamil local revenues have decreased by 27 percent since 2011.

129   Can you comment on that?

130   MR. ROGERS: Yes, I can.

131   The first thing is, you have to examine apples and apples, and the number of hours that they broadcast Tamil, compared to the number of hours that we broadcast Tamil, is greatly different.

132   So, obviously, our sales are going to be higher, because we broadcast more Tamil hours than they do.

133   In a nutshell, if one company is broadcasting, say, 60 percent Tamil, and the other one is only broadcasting 15 or 20 percent Tamil, it is logical that we are going to increase our Tamil revenue compared to what they are.

134   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, that's fair.

135   That is a nice segue into my next set of questions with respect to the Broad Service Requirement.

136   If we use the example that you just used, in terms of CMR serving 22 languages, providing programming in 22 languages, and then providing -- whatever that percentage was -- 20 percent to the Tamil community, and then we have your proposed service, which provides 60 percent of its programming in the Tamil language, but only to three communities, could you say that, in fact, your proposed service is meeting the Broad Service Requirement, as required under the Ethnic Broadcasting Policy?

137   MR. ROGERS: Yes, I believe that we are.

138   As I said in my opening statement, we are constantly improving. For that year or so that we were 105.9 -- not even a year -- that really threw us for a loop. We had to, literally, start all over again.

139   Through the application, we worked with some of your senior staff members. They were great, I might add. But it was really confusing.

140   We intend through, also, our sister station, to increase. We will constantly increase.

141   With our community liaison, which I talked about, and which Mr. Sammy Appadural talked about, we are getting out into the community. If they say, "We need more Hindi. We need more --" then it is going to be. It is going to be, because we will still be under our commitment for the CRTC.

142   So if they say Punjabi, Hindi, whatever they say, except for Chinese, we are going to do that, because that's what we have.

143   So our Tamil audience -- or, not our audience, but our number of hours might fall to cover some of the others. That's what our community liaison, which we never had before, does. It is now going out to the community and having bimonthly meetings to find out exactly what we are underserving, shall we say.

144   And, remember, we don't want to step on the toes of the big boys, either. You know, some of the big radio stations.

145   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Right, okay.

146   I just want to take a step back for a second. Could you confirm the three ethnic groups and the three languages that you presently direct your programming to?

147   MR. ROGERS: Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam and Filipino.

148   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So there are four.

149   MR. ROGERS: Four.

150   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Four, which is great, because you noted in your December 2012 reply that you were negotiating to add languages to your programming, and I was going to ask, were there any developments?

151   MR. ROGERS: Yes.

152   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Apparently there were?

153   MR. ROGERS: Yes.

154   Here is the big problem, and I am sure that every Commissioner here will understand this, and definitely the staff will.

155   When you don't know if you are going to be on the air next month or not, it is pretty hard to sign contracts, or even put programs on the air, when you don't know --

156   As you know, we went off the air, and that causes great problems when trying to grow.

157   If we are successful, then, over the long term, we can now say, "Okay, we are here to stay," not, "We are here because --" you know.

158   We could then increase our languages and our programming, because there would be certainty then.

159   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I just want to jot a note down. So the four languages were Tamil, Hindi, Filipino and Malayalam.

160   I am not pronouncing that right, sorry.

161   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

162   To finish that line of thought, you mentioned that if you are approved, you will have the wherewithal and the ability to increase the number of languages served.

163   MR. ROGERS: One hundred percent, yes.

164   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So what languages would you expect to be in a position to serve going forward, in the event that your application is approved?

165   MR. ROGERS: I would like to increase -- I could turn this over to Sammy, but I would like to increase some of the underserved ones.

166   We have a fair amount of radio stations serving Punjabi, but there is a need for Hindi and there is a need for Malayalam.

167   I'm sorry, I am not pronouncing that right, I will let Sammy say that one.

168   MR. APPADURAL: We have been discussing this with those communities, and they want to have more hours with us.

169   The point is, as Frank said, they want a kind of assurance that we will continue. The interruption that we had made a very negative impact on their communities, and they said that if we could give that kind of assurance, they certainly would have more programs with us, and they want to make use of the time appropriately.

170   MR. ROGERS: I would also like to see Korean, which, I believe, is also an underserved market in the Toronto area, and there are several others that we could look at, once we get out there in the community and, as Sammy said, give them the assurance that we are here to stay.

171   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you. Let's turn to financial issues.

172   Despite a significant increase in the population encompassed in your proposed coverage, if your application is approved, your financial projection suggests no meaningful growth in the service's revenues under an approval scenario.

173   Can you explain that, please?

174   MR. ROGERS: Yes, because we are not going into Toronto. We are not a Toronto station.

175   When you are in Scarborough, you are locked into Scarborough. Maybe you could dip into Markham, a little bit south, and Mr. Hahn could tell you that our signal goes right into the lake, and a fair amount of it goes into the lake under the new Technical Brief.

176   So we are still in the boundaries of where we are. We pick up a little bit, I believe, in Ajax -- I think -- but we are still --

177   Mr. Hahn, would you like to comment on that?

178   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Mr. Hahn, I would like to hear your perspective on that, but just so I am clear, my understanding is that your .5 millivolt would increase such that the population encompassed would increase from 458,000 to just over a million, and your Tamil-language population would increase from 20,575 to 58,290.

179   What you are telling me is that you can't monetize those numbers? I have a bit of a hard time believing that.

180   MR. ROGERS: If we are going to stay in Scarborough, the number of Tamil businesses -- if we are talking about revenue --

181   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Yes.

182   MR. ROGERS: -- the number of Tamil businesses doesn't change.

183   We know that there are approximately 2,000 businesses, and if we are hitting them all, I don't think that revenue is going to change that much.

184   As I said, we are not interested in the Toronto area, because then we are stepping on other people's toes, and we don't need another fight.

185   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Please, Mr. Hahn, go ahead.

186   MR. HAHN: Serving Toronto isn't possible, in any case, because of the protection requirements for CKLH Hamilton. We have to suppress the signal in that direction in order not to interfere with them, so expanding easterly is really the only option that is available.

187   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. And I understand that.

188   I guess what I am trying to say is -- and I take your point, Mr. Rogers, that if there are only 2,000 businesses from which to derive revenue, there are only 2,000 businesses from which to derive revenue, irrespective of how many people you are encapsulating.

189   But given that the population base that you are intending to serve, in this case the Tamil-language population, would increase threefold, are you suggesting that you are not going to monetize that growth through increased rates or anything of the like?

190   MR. ROGERS: Regarding increased rates, no, because there is that competition out there, and we do not -- and I repeat for the record -- we do not want to, nor do we, undercut anybody.

191   Therefore, there is a standard, and if you got the rate cards of all of the radio stations that are serving -- let's just say the Tamil community, or the Hindi community, for now -- you are going to see that they are almost identical.

192   And whether that is our sales team, or whatever, like I said, we have a different way of selling, but we are still limited to the Scarborough area.

193   And, yes, the population grows, but the businesses do not. I mean, you might have one or two more every year, but even with the expanded coverage, the businesses stay the same.

194   And our rates stay the same. We are not going to raise our rates because of the increase in numbers, because, again, you have to look at those ethnic communities, and they cannot afford Newstalk 1010 rates, or CFTR rates. They can't afford those rates.

195   We are there to help them, and we are also there to say: Hey, put some money toward CJVF, put some money toward CMR, put some money toward the newspaper.

196   We don't want to take it all, because that only causes problems.

197   And, yes, there is going to be some impact -- you brought that up, about the 21 percent or 22 percent that CMR is claiming they have lost. But, again, when another station comes into the market, you are going to see a decrease overall.

198   I think the pie got a little bit smaller, but, again, you have to look at, apples to apples, the number of hours that we broadcast and the number of hours that they broadcast.

199   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you.

200   You made mention of a new Community Liaison Officer and a new Compliance Officer. Are they in this room today? Are they with you?

201   MR. ROGERS: Well, yes and no.

202   Mr. Appadural will definitely be the Community Liaison Officer, because he is in the communities so much.

203   At the moment, I will be taking care of all of the CRTC matters, to make sure that -- now we have the other support team that will help us, with a new accountant, a new -- other people that are working with us, to make sure that we don't make those same mistakes.

204   Get in compliance and stay in compliance. That will be part of my job.

205   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

206   So, at present, you are the Compliance Officer.

207   MR. ROGERS: At the moment, yes.

208   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

209   I understand that there was an exchange with Staff about certain regulatory non-compliance issues. I just wanted to go through them to close the loop.

210   In terms of CCD, I understand that there was a CCD shortfall of $283.

211   MR. ROGERS: Which has been corrected.

212   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Which has been corrected?

213   MR. ROGERS: Yes.

214   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

215   I am not entirely sure if I have a record. Can you tell us when that payment was made, or do you have a record of that payment that you could share with us?

216   MR. ROGERS: I could get that payment. I don't have it right in front of me.

217   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: If you could undertake to provide that information, and file it with the Commission, that would be great.

218   MR. ROGERS: Yes, I will.

219   I filed not only that with the Commission, but I also filed -- you know, there are two parts to that, there is what you pay out for concerts and new talent and things like that. I got receipts -- I know I got receipts -- and I filed those with the Commission.

220   So where it is, I don't know, but it has to be with the Commission.

Undertaking

221   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. If you could give us a bit of information as to when you filed that, we could certainly hunt that down.

222   MR. ROGERS: Yes, I will.

Undertaking

223   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you.

224   MR. ROGERS: But they have been filed, so we are up to date.

225   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great.

226   In terms of the financial statements for the 2011-2012 broadcast year and the 2012-2013 broadcast year, could you tell us when those will be filed?

227   MR. ROGERS: They were filed, and they were accepted.

228   And even last month, Brian -- I am afraid that I don't know his last name, but he --

229   Oh, here it is:

"Upon review of the submitted 2012-2013 --"

230   He had a question.

231   Oh, I'm sorry, Simon Levasseur is his name, and we answered his final question, so that brought us up to date with the financials.

232   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: That was an e-mail exchange with Commission Staff?

233   MR. ROGERS: Yes, it was.

234   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Great. Can you tell me the date of that e-mail?

235   MR. ROGERS: He required a response by Friday, May 2nd, and he got the response.

236   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: On May 2nd?

237   MR. ROGERS: Yes.

238   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

239   MR. ROGERS: He is the Economic and Financial Analyst, and that was the last information that we needed to bring our financials up to date.

240   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you. So you filed the financial statements on May 2nd and --

241   MR. ROGERS: No, no, we filed the answer to the question that he had to complete our financial statements.

242   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: On May 2nd?

243   MR. ROGERS: Yes.

244   His question was, basically, our staff total -- the remuneration increased, but the staff count went down. The staff count decreased by 15 percent, while the total remuneration increased.

245   "Please confirm the 2013 staff count and provide an explanation for the very low average yearly salary of an average full-time employee," and that we answered.

246   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you very much.

247   Can you outline the specific duties and responsibilities of both your role as Compliance Officer, as well as the bookkeepers that you have added to staff, or as contractors?

248   MR. ROGERS: Okay.

249   I think that every senior staff member -- and I see one of them sitting here right now, Mr. Joe Aguire -- has conversed with me -- I can't even count the number of times in the last two years.

250   I have been dealing with the Commission many, many times, so my job -- and, as I pointed out to the President, we are going to make the CRTC happy because we are going to show them that we can stay in compliance and get everything done.

251   But I need a team to do that, and the team was a new accountant, because part of our problem -- I am not throwing stones, but we were using bookkeepers.

252   And, as you know, with the CRTC, with that kind of information, you really need an accountant.

253   And because I know how the forms have to be filled out, working with the accountant, I can get on top of the financials that way, because I gave him a deadline. There is your year end, August 31st. I don't have time after that, because I have to do the filing.

254   So that's that, and with respect to the CCD, we are constantly doing concerts. We are constantly doing -- and I worked out a deal for the past CCD and, like you said, it was a shortfall of a couple of hundred dollars, which we paid, and I can get a copy of the cheque or get you the date when it was sent.

255   My job is to make sure that the CRTC is happy, that the CCD is happy, and that everybody is in compliance.

256   And I can't stress that enough, because if Sammy does his job, getting out in the community, we are going to add new programs, we are going to add new things.

257   We have to be there, so we don't have to worry: Oh, my God, we didn't file that on time.

258   No, we have to be in compliance.

259   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

260   I only have one more question, Mr. Chair.

261   Mr. Rogers, given the discussion we have just had -- and I take your point with respect to having to gain the in-house expertise to deal with this, through, for example, hiring an experienced Compliance Officer, and hiring bookkeepers who understand CRTC policies and requirements, but you are asking for a protected frequency and you have yet to meet the most basic of your regulatory obligations in a clean manner.

262   I guess the question is: Why should we give you a protected frequency when you can't assure us compliance, that you can meet without -- non-compliance issues with respect to CCD or annual returns?

263   MR. ROGERS: I think you are going back two years, and a lot has changed in those two years, as you see what we have done in that short period of time.

264   Also, hiring these people will get us on track and keep us in compliance.

265   If you go back the two years, when we were way out of compliance, it was sort of: Oh, okay. Here we are, we have 105.9. Now we don't have 105.9. What do we do?

266   So people were running around like crazy, and, yes, a lot of things got -- not done, let's put it that way.

267   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Right.

268   MR. ROGERS: Now that we know we are on 102.7, as of your decision, we felt that with the three or four new members of the team -- we have a very experienced engineer, a gentleman who -- I can't even tell you all of his experience -- we know that we can now get --

269   Well, we are in compliance.

270   We are not? Okay, we are late. Okay, we were late.

271   I won't say in compliance because, as you know, we weren't in compliance. But now I can assure you that we are going to be in compliance.

272   It's important to us, it's important to the CRTC, and we want to continue what you just witnessed. We want to get better and greater.

273   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great. Thank you for answering my questions, Mr. Rogers, and to your colleagues.

274   And I remind you, as well, that if you do have any information that you would like to put on the record at the reply phase, please consult with legal counsel to ensure that it is in accordance with our procedures.

275   MR. ROGERS: Thank you, gentlemen.

276   MR. APPADURAL: Thank you.

277   THE CHAIRPERSON: I have a couple of questions for you, but before we do that, I just want to clarify for you, and for the room -- and to follow up and reinforce what Commissioner Shoan said -- which is that I don't want anybody thinking that, at the end of this process -- I don't want anybody leaving here thinking that they might get an alternative frequency. This is about 102.7, period. There will be no approvals in part.

278   You can talk about it and say that you have a Plan B, but that would be a future process.

279   I just want to be clear to everybody that all of you are all in on 102.7 in this process, and that will be it, just so everybody understands.

280   I want to talk a little bit about -- you mentioned the Tamil community, in particular, in terms of the length of -- 1983 I think you mentioned was sort of the large wave.

281   In terms of third language programming, and that sort of stuff, you said that you are now into second generation, and maybe even third generation. What are the language retention rates with the second and third generations?

282   How much is the mother tongue passed along? If I am third generation Tamil, what is the likelihood that I am speaking Tamil?

283   MR. APPADURAL: We could classify it in two ways. One is literacy in Tamil, and the second is communicative language as Tamil.

284   When you come to the communicative language as Tamil, the percentage is pretty high.

285   When you come to the literacy aspect as a third language, or a second language, whatever we call it, it goes like any other community, but a little bit higher than the other communities.

286   For example, these days, around 35 percent of Tamil children are functionally literate in Tamil. But the rest of them, what they want to do is, they are focusing more on radio, so that they can listen and speak.

287   But some of them can write it. So what they want is, instead of newspapers and other things, they want to listen to radio.

288   So the percentage is growing faster as listeners, and then participating.

289   When it comes to radio participation, for example, in our radio participation, we see that the majority of them are second and third generation, because our producers are more highly qualified in modern journalism and internet facilities, and through that they are able to converse with the second and third generations.

290   So these people are, I could say, very conversant with Tamil.

291   THE CHAIRPERSON: I was reading Statistics Canada reports on the transmission of mother tongues, and Tamil has a fairly high percentage of retention.

292   I would like to know your view on why that is.

293   And by retention, I mean that of second generation and third generation, born in Canada, but of Tamil heritage, there is about a 55 or 60 percent completely fluent transmission of the language to that generation. That is much higher than other languages, and the rates of retention seem to be remaining higher.

294   So, what is it, in particular, do you think, about the Tamil community that allows for language retention? Is it existing broadcasting?

295   MR. APPADURAL: One of the reasons is that Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world, and they are proud of being Tamil.

296   The second reason is that Tamils are united by the language, not by religion or any other factor.

297   So, when it comes to Tamils from Singapore or Malaysia, or India, or Sri Lanka, or from anywhere, they are united. They are united by the language, that is why they fall in love with the language and they give more priority to the language and its own cultural values.

298   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

299   What, in particular, can you point to that you have been doing, and that you would like to do, that helps -- as you indicated in your remarks today, you want to assist people in transitioning to the mainstream community.

300   MR. APPADURAL: Yes.

301   THE CHAIRPERSON: Is there anything that you can point to, in particular, that you have done, while maintaining lots of pride and strength of heritage in the Tamil background, in being able to participate fully in Canadian society?

302   Is there anything that you can point to, or that you have done, or that you would like to do in that area?

303   MR. APPADURAL: Certainly, our goal for CJVF is, if it is a gold coin, one side of the coin is getting to mingle with the mainstream and participate in Canadian affairs; not because we are trying to help Canadian affairs, but because that will help the community, as well, in the sense that there are ways for the children to get educated and they can find jobs in various places, and all kinds of information and what they require.

304   In our radio programming, we periodically bring those children there, and then show them venues.

305   For example, we have been working with the Toronto Police very closely, and a couple of Tamil children joined the Toronto Police through our radio.

306   So what we want to say is, we don't want to have an identity forum saying that Tamils have to be Tamils. Tamils are part and parcel of the Canadian mainstream, and we educate them and tell them that your progress is part of the Canadian progress, so we shouldn't be isolated in one particular group.

307   We have been very successful in that way. We have a new program. The children come and work here and they help them.

308   So, when they want to help through some of the Canadian organizations, they are ready to do that.

309   We have a plan to generate more money for the Sick Children's Hospital, and we are working on it. Pretty soon our children will be there to do that.

310   The token contribution is something that we are continually -- the attitude has to be changed, and they have to feel that they are part and parcel of this society, while keeping their identity.

311   So we have been successful, and we have lots of plans to bring them further into our radio activities.

312   THE CHAIRPERSON: Is there something about what your application is about that is filling a particular need?

313   Toronto is very well served in terms of the percentage of radio licences in this market that already are offering ethnic programming. It is relatively high compared to other major centres.

314   Why isn't that enough? How many people living in the Scarborough area are already being well served by existing operators, SCMOs and online programming?

315   MR. ROGERS: Mr. Menzies, may I answer that question?

316   THE CHAIRPERSON: Anybody can answer that question.

317   Anybody can try to answer that question, let's put it that way.

--- Laughter

318   MR. ROGERS: As pointed out in the video, we are the only station that gets out into the community and streamlines what they want.

319   For example, if a businessperson is having a special event, we are there. We have vehicles, we have satellite services, we are there.

320   As you point out, there are over 30 frequencies going into it. The problem is, most of them don't go down to that level.

321   If there is a fire, or a murder, or whatever, in the community, yes, they will show up. But, for good things that are happening, whether it's autism, whether it is the Scarborough hospital, as you have seen, they might send a reporter and they might not.

322   We are at the real local level, and I like to say that we like to get our hands dirty, because we are right down at the bottom and we will help any person or any thing.

323   Part of our programming that Sammy was trying to point out is, we now have programs to indoctrinate new Tamils coming to Canada.

324   Where do they go? What do they do?

325   We have programs for that.

326   We are right down at that level, so, yes, we do serve that population, I believe, with no disrespect to other people, fantastically. We just get right in there, and we spend many, many hours doing it, and a lot of it is for free. That's the part that -- so what, you are having a campaign, and you need a fundraiser. Fine, if it meets the approval of the Community Liaison Officer, we get there and we either do telephone call-ins or, because we have a satellite truck, we can go and link into our television station and do a live broadcast, radio and TV.

327   THE CHAIRPERSON: One of the things that we have to decide is best use of frequency, and you have articulated an argument -- a good argument -- in favour of how you will serve ethnic communities, and we have talked a lot about the Tamil community, but this isn't a process to decide how the Tamil community will be served.

328   Just to change the subject, how will Scarborough be a better place with this licence?

329   Recognizing the strong role that these communities play within Scarborough, how will Scarborough, overall, be a better place if you are granted this licence?

330   MR. ROGERS: As the police officer said, and as the mayor and everyone will tell you, if we can serve those outlets, then Scarborough will be better served.

331   If you are serving from the hospital down, and at all of the community levels in Scarborough -- and I just don't mean Tamils, I mean if an English community group -- say they are having a run and they need our support, you know, because they know that there are some Tamils there, or Hindis, or whatever, we are there.

332   It's not just Tamils, we are there for a lot of other people.

333   As Sammy was pointing out, when the police came to us and said, "Hey, we have a problem here, and we don't know if it's Tamils, we don't know if it's English, but can you help us out," we put them on the air right away to say: Look, thefts are going crazy, and they need help. So let's rally around, open your eyes and see if we can help out our Police Department.

334   When the Scarborough hospital said, "We are lacking, we need fundraising," as he pointed out, a lot of the radio stations did not even -- Ah, well, you know, maybe we will cover it in a newscast.

335   But we were there, having their fundraisers and getting involved.

336   So, yes, Scarborough benefits from us being there.

337   THE CHAIRPERSON: In regards to your brokered programming, how can you assure us that there is good oversight over brokered programming, and that it meets a good standard?

338   MR. ROGERS: Any brokered program -- and there isn't much, I will tell you that right now -- has to go through language translation, if it's in another language, whichever one it's in. We have an oversight team that looks at the content. The producers would, in advance, give us a copy.

339   But I want to point out something. As you will hear one of our intervenors say: They lost all of their brokered programming.

340   Brokered programming is very, very difficult, and we found out, right now, that it's better to hire somebody of the different nationalities to run the programs in-house, because brokered programs -- by the time they pay you X number of dollars, and they have to raise the advertising, they are not making any money. So they say: Oh, I don't want to do this anymore.

341   So what we have been going to, and we are still studying it now, is an approach where we go right into the community. Let's say it's the Filipino community. We go to their centres and we say: Would you like a program?

342   And they say: Oh, yes, we would like a program.

343   Okay, you have to supply the announcer. Get it together, get a little committee through Community Liaison, and we will give you that program.

344   Because by the time you charge them $200 or $300 -- and I know that in our original plan, two years ago, that's what that was, but it doesn't work out, because if you charge them $200 and they can only get, say, $250 in advertising, what is the point?

345   It is better to serve them and give it to them free.

346   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Understood.

347   I will check with Legal to see if they have any questions or concerns that they wish to raise.

348   MR. LEGAL COUNSEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to confirm, for the record of this proceeding, that there are two undertakings that have been asked. One is to confirm the CCD payment that was made, and the second one would be for a copy of the final e-mail that was sent to the CRTC regarding the annual returns.

Undertaking

349   MR. ROGERS: Yes, I have those written down.

350   MR. LEGAL COUNSEL: If those could be filed with the Commission by the end of business on May 23rd, which is next Friday.

351   MR. ROGERS: Okay.

352   MR. LEGAL COUNSEL: Thank you very much.

353   MR. ROGERS: They were filed, but I will have to --

354   MR. LEGAL COUNSEL: Just filed for the record of this proceeding.

355   MR. ROGERS: Oh, yes, they were filed, I just have to get the dates.

356   I have one of them here, in case you want to look at it.

357   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for your presentation.

358   We will take a 15 or 20-minute break, I haven't really decided yet.

--- Upon recessing at 1009

--- Upon resuming at 1029

359   THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please.

360   Madam Secretary. Mr. Dougherty.

361   MR. DOUGHERTY: Thank you, Mr. -- Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a brief note. While parties are welcome to discuss alternative frequencies as part of their presentation, we will not be accepting any technical documents relating to alternative frequencies as a part of this process discussion or looking at other frequencies other than 102.7. It may be part of a future process but not a part of this one. Thank you very much.

362   THE SECRETARY: We will now proceed with item 2 on the agenda, which is an application by Multicultural Broadcasting Company Limited for a broadcasting licence to operate a commercial specialty FM ethnic radio station in Scarborough.

363   Please introduce yourself and your colleagues, and you have 20 minutes to make your presentation.

PRESENTATION

364   MR. K. SIVASOTHY: Good morning, Chairman Menzies, Commissioners Shoan and Simpson and Commission staff.

365   My name is Kandiah Sivasothy, president of the Multicultural Broadcasting Company. It is an honour to be here today to respectfully request our company to be granted a license to operate an ethnic commercial radio broadcast service at 102.7 on the FM band.

366   We believe it is time for Scarborough, Pickering, and Ajax to have a radio station that will build a bridge between those who speak Tamil, Bengali, Farsi, Gujarati, Tagalog, Sinhala and Urdu. It is time to bring the communities together on the many levels that cannot be achieved through what is available today on 102.7.

367   I have been in radio since I was 14 years old in Sri Lanka. When I was 30 I came to Canada, and in 1995 I introduced Tamil radio to Toronto when I started CTBC, the first 24-hour a day Tamil radio station in Canada.

368   Let me introduce you to the people sitting on our panel who will play an important role at our FM radio station.

369   On my right I am proud to have my son Vickrah sitting next to me. He grew up with radio and hosted shows on CTBC. As a 24 year old he has a lot of ideas about what his second generation South Asian Canadians want to hear. He will be our operations manager.

370   To Vickrah's right, Andrew Forsyth, MBC's broadcast consultant. Andrew has consulted many radio groups, such as Rogers and Corus, and headed up research projects for Nielsen, SOCAN, CAB, and the Commission.

371   To Andrew's right is Ramya Selladurai. She will produce and host a two hour French program on our FM station. Ramya is currently hosting a French show on CTBC.

372   On my left is Bala Balasingam, my partner at MBC at the -- and the company secretary and treasurer. Bala is also the president and owner of ADCO Logistics. For more about Bala and me, our bios are attached at the end of your copies of this presentation.

373   To Bala's left is Steve Kowch, MBC's news and talk radio consultant on this application. For 14 years Steve was program director of two of Canada's largest news talk radio stations, CFRB in Toronto and CJAD in Montreal.

374   To Steve's left is Andrea Albert, who will co-host a show about women's rights within the Canadian culture on our new FM station.

375   In the second row on my right is: Is our legal counsel Stephen Zolf, a partner with the law firm of Aird & Berlis.

376   To Stephen's left is Ace Alvarez, the managing editor of the Manila Media Monitor, a Filipino community newspaper, and former president of the Ethnic Media Association. Mr. Alvarez will be the associate producer responsible for Filipino programing on 102.7.

377   To Ace's left is Wajid Malik, an Urdu broadcaster and respected businessman in the Pakistani Canadian community for the past 20 years. Wajid will be the associate producer responsible for Urdu programing on 102.7.

378   To Wajid's left is Salima Bani, a Bengali writer and former broadcaster in her homeland of Bangladesh. Salima will be the associate producer responsible for Bengali programing on 102.7.

379   To Salima's left is Punch Kandiah, a CTBC broadcaster whose fresh ideas bring new direction to our programing.

380   To begin our presentation I pass things over to my son, Vickrah.

381   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Thank you.

382   The Greater Toronto Area is home to the largest population of Tamils outside Sri Lanka. Most of the 50,000 Tamils live in Scarborough. Their neighbours include members of the Bengali, Farsi, Gujarati, Filipino, Sinhala and Urdu communities.

383   Together these seven distinct and vibrant communities represent almost 40 percent of the population of this area whose mother tongue is not English. And more than half of them speak English at home according to Stats Canada.

384   We know these people very well, having two decades of experience working with these underserved communities.

385   We will reach out to Scarborough, Pickering, and Ajax with 19 hours of weekly English language programing during our morning block. This will enable us to speak to the entire community. Our service will be inclusive.

386   Guest hosts from each of the main ethnic communities on the morning show will relate their points of view, customs, and shared experiences with their neighbours in English. This is how we plan to break down the silos within the communities and find our collective common ground.

387   There is an urgent need for a change at 102.7 FM. This is obvious because of the number of applicants before you today to move this frequency to a protected status. We have the capability and knowledge to make the best use of 102.7 as a protected low power frequency to benefit this market.

388   MBC has the experience, the vision, the staff and the track record to provide programing on 102.7 FM that offers more than what is broadcasted there now. More inclusive programing, introducing more opinion, more diversity, more local news, more support for emerging artists, more Canadian content development, and more opportunity to discuss the issues of the day important to the Bengali, Farsi, Gujarati, Filipino, Sinhala, and Urdu communities in the Tri-City area.

389   We are not new to radio in the South Asian community. We are committed professionals who know what has to be done in the market based on 20 years of running a successful and profitable radio service.

390   To brief us on an ongoing basis of the important issues and events happening at the local level, we have created an advisory panel with representatives from each of our seven targeted communities. Some of the panel members are here today, sitting in the front row behind us.

391   We have a unique content strategy for each of the seven ethnic communities. As an example, during each week we will be broadcasting 107 hours in third language programing and 19 hours in English. We will hire full-time staff to create and host our programing in Tamil and English, netting MBC the highest amount of in-house produced programing than any other applicant.

392   MBC has reached out to prominent ethnic print journalists, columnists, online bloggers and broadcasters from the other languages who will provide more diverse opinions and sources of information about their communities for all of our listeners.

393   102.7 FM will be more than just a multicultural iPod, with commitments to engage the audience with 49 hours and 20 minutes of compelling spoken word a week, including six and a half hours of local news coverage.

394   We're also very proud of the initiative that we call Point of View. This represents 30 percent of our broadcast week where the communities can talk about things that really matter to them from their unique perspective. These pockets of multiculturalism offer a rich mosaic of customs, traditions, and languages.

395   MS ALBERT: Talking about topics that are often uncomfortable is often a difficult thing to do on the radio. One of the bigger issues within the South Asian community is the alignment of women's rights within Canadian culture. Our Point of View program for South Asian women will discuss issues of social integration, immigration, the family, health, and education every weekday afternoon.

396   The goal of the show I will co-host on our new FM radio station is to provide women a platform from which they can improve their situation in Canadian society.

397   As a second generation Canadian Tamil, the cultures and tradition of the Tamil diaspora were much more prevalent than the usual Canadian household, since my parents felt it important teaching me their native language. They are listeners and big fans of CTBC and I listened to the station as a child. The daily show aimed at Tamil women also played an important role in introducing the Canadian way of life to my family.

398   My mother is shy to be here today, but she did write a letter supporting this application for 102.7. I would like to read a short excerpt from her letter:

"As a Tamil female who was born and raised in a patriarchal society, it was always implied that I was to live my life a certain way. I was taught to only participate in female- oriented roles and that being confident and independent were not plausible for a proper young female. Though I left my homeland as a young individual, it was never directly taught that I no longer needed to live a life of submissive notions.
Mr. Sivasothy's talk shows often reiterated the concept of promoting Tamil women to be strong, confident and independent, and it taught women to be no longer be stuck in a patriarchal society, to be -- to aspire to be more than homemakers.
Through his countless talk shows I have learned to grow and change myself for the better -- as I continued to be assimilated into the mainstream Canadian society and lifestyle, while I was still able to stay true to my own roots."

399   Well, you know, by influencing my mother to embrace the Canadian way of life, her newfound confidence allows me to be as Canadian as I want to be, without losing any of my Tamil identity.

400   MS SELLADURAI: One of the great things about Canada is how it welcomes diversity and it supports multicultural communities.

401   Le Canada est un pays bilingue. Alors, MBC veut donner deux heures de classe française pendant les fins de semaine pour aider les écouteurs à partager les expériences canadiennes et uniques en parlant les deux langues officielles du Canada.

402   I look forward to hosting the French Show on our new FM station to help a new generation become vraiment Canadien.

403   MR. KANDIAH: As we all know, the environment is very important to all Canadians.

404   THE SECRETARY: Sorry, can you please open your mike? Oh, perfect.

405   MR. KANDIAH: Sorry.

406   As we all know, the environment is very important to all Canadians. But for many of our listeners in the ethnic communities, the environment was not top of mind before immigrating here. We will launch an on-air green initiative with the help of recycling companies to raise awareness about -- about protecting the environment.

407   When it comes to sports, cricket is to the South Asian community what hockey is to many Canadians. Forget the NHL, NBA, CFL or NFL. Cricket is the sport of choice for South Asians. MBC will provide more than just cricket scores, it will have cricket fever.

408   MR. KOWCH: Mainstream radio in Toronto, like CFRB, Talk 640, 680News or even CBC Radio One, just can't achieve the depth of coverage of all the communities in Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax.

409   But when you do hear news on the mainstream radio stations about Scarborough, it's always the bad news -- the shootings, the murders, or the muggings. Nobody in Toronto talks to either the key issues or, on the other hand, the good news stories that happen every day. But we will.

410   As an example, 13-year-old Brindtha Ramasamy of Scarborough is ranked number 1 in the under 14 category in the Rogers Junior National Tennis Championship. She is now playing at a world championship level at tournaments in Italy, Austria, and France and all over Canada, but her accomplishments have not been reflected by GTA media. We think this is a great story.

411   There are two ways we will tell those stories. The first is on the talk shows. The second is on in our newscasts. We will work with hosts to make sure they strictly understand the programing rules and regulations to ensure that our programing will be of the highest standards.

412   MBC understands that credibility of newscasts is imperative. Any stories originating through the internet or social media will be vigorously fact checked to determine if they are worthy of going on the air. MBC will have a complete set of journalist processes and procedures to ensure credible, reliable, and trustworthy newscasts.

413   MBC will broadcast six hours and 30 minutes of news a week, of which 60 percent will be local. We will hire staff to gather, write, and translate the news for our five minute top of hour newscasts in English, Tamil, Bengali, Filipino, Sinhalese, Gujarati, and Urdu. This unique system will ensure MBC retains control of the news content, all the while serving the individual communities in their mother tongue.

414   MR. FORSYTH: Inevitably the question often asked is why MBC applied for an FM license to serve Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax. There are dozens of radio signals available in the market and, yes, there is an unprotected low power FM licensed for the area, so what's the need? I asked this question to Kandiah when he first contacted me about this project. And he said, simply: I am sad and at the same time very upset because the current station is not talking to anyone and I know I serve this community so much better with my SCMO, but I feel I have one hand tied behind my back.

415   This application is all about the quality of service. We investigated various aspects of radio tuning for the Tamil community in this area. The primary question was to determine if there was a demand for a new service in Scarborough. From that data we also wanted to know the comparative level of satisfaction with the existing services offered by CJVF then at 105.9 FM and the programing originated by Kandiah's SCMO.

416   The research shows demand for a new service is overwhelming based on the level of dissatisfaction with the current service. The reason for this dissatisfaction is 98 percent of the respondents feel the station does not connect with them by not addressing the issues directly concerning their community.

417   This was Kandiah's original point, a disconnected audience is an underserved audience. It's, therefore, not surprising that almost all of the listeners to the current service indicated they would look forward to and support a new station.

418   Usage of the current service also points to issues around the best use of the frequency, time spent listening, and day part usage shows low tuning over the day parts. Comparatively, the SCMO service is able to drive higher levels of satisfaction and broader tuning over the day.

419   The research demonstrates the SCMO's higher standards of content, engagement and applied context drive more tuning, thereby adding value to the community, consumers and advertisers. Focused information relative [sic] to the target audience creates a higher level of interest, thereby adding to public value.

420   Another obvious question is if the SCMO does such a great job, why apply for FM? The respondents were very clear. They would like to have access to programing in the car and at work on FM, something that's difficult and expensive for a listener to do with an SCMO service.

421   While the focus of the research is on the Tamil community, Kandiah knows from decades of relationships with all of the ethnic communities in the area their need for quality, localized content is similar. The most effective way to provide inclusive programing is via FM.

422   MR. SIVASOTHY: Community involvement goes beyond the spoken word programing. Music plays a key role in all cultures. MBC proposes to provide a minimum of 70 percent of all music to come from the seven cultural groups in the form of Category 3, world beat music. 25 percent of the Canadian content selections will be from emerging artists representing the highest level of commitment to emerging artist airplay of all applicants.

423   The proposal is to spend 215,000 in Canadian content development over the first term of license to help all artists in the market -- is the highest CCD commitment of all ethnic applicants.

424   This will be accomplished on three tiers: new artist discovery on the Rising Star program; mentoring with the New Talent Development Seminars, and distribution by the Emerging Artist Retail online program.

425   The goal is to help talented young performers move into the mainstream of today's culture. It is MBC's promise to give value to budding young artists in the coverage area, with over half a million dollars in direct and indirect expenditures over the first term of license. MBC is doing more than just dolling out cash.

426   It's a full hands-on commitment with the station's full involvement in these important initiatives.

427   MR. FORSYTH: For two decades Kandiah has operated a well-represented SCMO service. Hundreds of letters and thousands of signatures on joint support submissions filed with the Commission speak to the integrity and impact he has had not just with Toronto's Tamils but across the City's ethnic community. His work at the SCMO and the plans tabled by MBC truly reflect the objectives of the Broadcasting Act, as laid out in section 3 of the Broadcasting Policy, which states, "The Canadian broadcasting system should serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada."

428   This application is designed to reflect Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity. The MBC proposal ticks all the boxes in section 3 (a) to (i) of the Act.

429   MBC believes it's offering diversity of programing in an inclusive and financially feasible manner, addressing the needs of the community, and proposes to do so from a position of competence, outstanding service benefitting the public, and impeccable compliance. MBC is before you today because Kandiah and Bala are committed to making this proposal the best use of a very limited public resource.

430   In this regard we wish to advise the Commission of a proposed technical solution that we would permit -- would permit both the licensing of 102.7 to Scarborough and the continued use of this frequency for the WhiStle Community Radio at its current parameters. Our solution would ensure that this frequency, a scarce public resource, is used in a manner that maximizes the benefits for the public. We would be pleased to discuss our proposal with you further during the presentation today.

431   MR. BALASINGAM: As a successful businessman, who understands the profit and loss sheet, I want to reassure we have the resources to provide the financial backing to MBC. I'm not a radio guy, but I do understand the value that local radio brings to the lives of its listeners. My participation in this experience is not as a profit-making venture. Rather, I want this radio station to profit the community.

432   If licensed, MBC will expand its charity and fundraising activities in the community that was started on CTBC. This will be outside of our Canadian content development contributions. Part of our initiative is to consider many community projects that will support -- that we will support over the next seven years. Such as, a South Asian Community Centre to be bring -- bring the community together to celebrate its heritage and to be a home base to many cultural shows and exhibitions.

433   We also want to help build a South Asian Senior Citizens home. There is a need for this across all ethnic communities in the area.

434   With the help of our advisory panel, MBC will pick a deserving student from a different ethnic community and award them a $5,000 annual scholarship at the university or college of their choice.

435   For me, this defines more than just radio. We are using the strength of radio to reach out to the community to give back to it. This is why I am involved with MBC with my partner and close friend Kandiah Sivasothy.

436   MR. K. SIVASOTHY: After everything is said and done, all we can do is live up to our promises and do the best we can do to serve the community. That is what I have always done since I started as an owner in Canadian radio in 1995. For me a promise made has always been a promise kept.

437   And now I want to give the last word to my son.

438   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: You know, I've seen what my father has done for first generation Tamils, and I can tell you there have been countless situations where listeners have actually come up to me and shared their stories on how my dad has helped them change their lives. Many of the people working at ethnic radio stations today in the Greater Toronto Area began their careers with my dad at CTBC. I've seen firsthand all the community services he has provided in terms of all the charitable fundraising, our annual park get-togethers, and the different cultural show programs. Radio has become as much a part of my life as it has for my dad.

439   But now I look forward to expanding our radio station's influence to the second and third generations so that they can embrace our culture and still take advantage of all that this great country, Canada, has to offer.

440   Everyone recognizes this country as among the most multi-- most multicultural in the world. Most people looking from the outside in would expect us to know something about each other's culture, but the sad reality is is that we all live in our own separate lives in cultural silos.

441   In conclusion, our station will be a hub connecting all members of the community, with the goal of promoting understanding and interacting between the predominant cultural groups in the service area.

442   We will, for the first time, bring truly local programing to the Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax area.

443   This application presents a solid business plan and a program schedule which will provide 126 quality hours of ethnic programing that will better reflect local needs to Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax's large ethnocultural population. In this regard the new FM station complements rather than threatens the existing ethnic and SCMO stations in the GTA.

444   It is time for us now to move our people forward and to create opportunities for one another. MBC will not follow the same blueprint as others to be just another ethnic radio station. We are poised to be the "game changers". We don't want to just provide focused programing for ethnic groups, we want to bring everyone together and be the inclusive station that Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax needs.

445   This is our mission. This is why MBC deserves the license for 102.7 FM. We believe that this application is the best use of the 102.7 FM frequency.

446   Thank you for the opportunity to appear here before you today. We will be pleased to answer your questions. In the event my father doesn't understand your question, Mr. Bala Balasingam would like to have the opportunity to repeat it to him in Tamil before he responds.

447   Thank you.

448   THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. -- Commissioner Simpson will have -- lead the questioning today, thank you.

449   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Good morning.

450   This is an inside joke, but I feel like I'm at a telecom hearing because very rarely do you see a second table set up for a radio applicant. I told you it was an inside joke.

451   I have many questions. Thank you very much, very thorough presentation. The first I've got is just a clarification for me. Our staff take all the presentations and hammer them into a form that we commissioners can understand, and we look at various grids. And where I'm going with this is your -- I need clarification with respect to your commitment to hours of ethnic programing. Everything I had been reading, and it could be wrong, not that I'm saying the staff would ever be wrong, but I was looking at a commitment originally of 107 hours and you're using the term 126 hours. Is this different from your written application or is it the same?

452   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I think Andrew can bring some clarity to this question.

453   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah, thanks.

454   MR. FORSYTH: I think there may be a misunderstanding, Commissioner Simpson, that the 107 hours referred to to third language programing --

455   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

456   MR. FORSYTH: -- as opposed to -- but all of the programing, for the record, would be produced --

457   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

458   MR. FORSYTH: -- for or by the station.

459   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. I just wanted to make absolutely clear that I understood.

460   Okay. The first question I have, continuing on the programing theme, has to do with a broad service. Your application says that your target audience is something like 18 to 64; is that correct?

461   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Sorry. Actually, it's 18 to 54 --

462   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: 18 to 54.

463   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: -- with a core audience of 18 to 34 male, even split.

464   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. Yeah, I'm looking at something, again this is a staff issue, it said 18 to 65. I -- regardless, what's a decade between friends?

465   My question is this, though. In your approach to that broad demographic, are you going to be handling the demographic in parts so that certain programing is skewed to older demographics and some programing to younger demographics, or is this an overall goal for the station in its 24 hour day?

466   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yeah, so certainly the way we've structured it, especially with our morning program, we're going to be doing that in English. So with 50 percent of the Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax area, they can speak and understand English, this would be catered more to the second and third generations. The fact that we're doing it in English, you know, it's the great unifier. It's the reason why everybody in this room from different ethnic backgrounds can communicate so well. So we will be able to speak to all communities.

467   The structure that it would take is we'd have one guest host from one of the ethnic communities. Every day we'd invite a guest host from one of the proposed ethnic communities. So it would be broadcasting features of interest to all communities within Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax. So in that sense if you're a resident from there, whatever you hear programing content-wise, it will relate to you because it's something that's going on in your neighbourhood, it's -- it's happening in your back yard. You get to learn about different cultures. So that's what we say would be the most inclusive program, it would break down those cultural silos.

468   So that English morning program, just to answer your question, is more second and third generation. The other programing is, you know, for the underserved market or unserved market and it's catering towards more that generation one, the new immigrants that are coming in from various countries.

469   MR. FORSYTH: If I might add to that, commissioner. One of the aspects of this is -- is we spoke to the group because obviously Kandiah has 20 years of experience with the SCMO and if I can just step back to that for a moment. It is the service that really does serve generation one exceptionally well. It's a -- it's a very practical service and it allows people to come to this country, gives them all sorts of advice on what to do, et cetera, et cetera. It isn't -- regardless of the technological issue, it's not necessarily terribly appealing to generation two, generation three. And part of that reason is is that the content is focused much older. They already know this stuff, they've grown up with it.

470   The intent with the FM is to blend that. It's to have the kitchen table discussion where the older audience would certainly recognize what's going on on the radio station, a certain amount of it obviously is going to be in their native tongue, and at the same point in time the discussions can be there for the second generation because they'll get it and it's more accessible to them. I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

471   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you.

472   For clarification, is it your intention to -- if successful, to close the SCMO, Mr. Sivasothy, or would it continue on or on for only a short period? What's the plan for the existing SCMO?

473   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Well, just -- just to come around on that. As -- as Andrew mentioned, the plan is to continue with the SCMO. You know, we've been successful and profitable for the last 20 years with the SCMO because of the quality of service we provide on the SCMO, due in large part to my dad. And because of that we've been able to garner a very, very loyal listenership that's been with us since day one and that's been with us on this journey for the last 20 years. And many of these listeners are outside the Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax areas. We have a lot of listeners in Orangeville, Etobicoke, Mississauga, so we can't -- you know, if we shut our SCMO down, in essence we're, you know, abandoning these listeners who have been with us for so long.

474   And there's also an economic investment they've had with us. You know, they've paid good money to purchase these receivers to listen to our -- our radio station, so we have a responsibility to still service them.

475   And going back to Andrew's point, we -- we really target -- our target audience is generation one. And of generation one, it's really those seniors. So any, like, 60 and up because that's the most -- more of a -- you know, it's known to have more of a senior audience, right?

476   And also, we cater to a lot of the newcomers that come from Sri Lanka because since 2000 the Tamil population has quadrupled. So we still have a lot of Tamil immigrants who come who don't understand the English language. So what do they do? They turn to our SCMO service to -- to better integrate into the more -- into the Canadian way of life.

477   So we refer to the SCMO service as, like, it has as much of a practicality to it. We refer to it as, you know, practical use of everyday life. It provides essential services.

478   So, for example, a couple months ago we had the Canadian Revenue Agency do an interview with my dad to speak about old age securities. You know, how seniors can, you know, file their taxes. And we do a lot of programing on helping them to integrate into the Canadian way of life.

479   So that's how we're going to be different. So the programing we'll have on the FM is going to be -- you know, there's going to be a stark difference between what the SCMO provides because it's more of the function of what the SCMO provides to the Tamil community.

480   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: It begs asking are you going to do any simultaneous programing? Or delayed programing that might be produced by the SCMO and used on the FM?

481   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: In our application I think we mentioned that we'd only do one hour --

482   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

483   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: -- that's coming from the SCMO.

484   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Oh, okay.

485   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Everything else is not.

486   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay, great.

487   And the world beat music format, which seems to be getting a lot of popularity, from what I can see, you feel is going to serve that broad audience that you spoke of by taste?

488   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Absolutely, and I want Andrea to speak to our music format in terms of world beat.

489   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. Thanks.

490   MS ALBERT: Sorry.

491   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: It's all right. I know the feeling about shuffling paper. It's --

492   MS ALBERT: Sorry. If you can give me a minute. Super sorry.

493   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Take your time, please. Take your time.

494   MS ALBERT: It was right here all along. So as you said, world beat is the genre we've chosen and it's a combination of Western pop with ethnic influences. So it's a merge of modern and traditional. And so, artists, Canadian artists, especially like Somalian Canadian K'naan and Portuguese Canadian Nelly Furtado, or Tamil Britain M.I.A., you know, the artists that we want to promote under world beat that would be defined under world beat have this ethnic-inspired music that, you know, goes with the genres of hip hop, R&B and pop. And we want to promote both Canadian and international music artists, and we really want to also involve and bring out local emerging Canadian artists who also deserve air time. And I think Ramya will talk about some of those artists in a minute, but the base of this is to incorporate, you know, these ethnic-inspired musicians who come from around the world and we connect to them.

495   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: We can talk about emerging artists, CCD and other support later because I still would like to just sort of stay on the broader section, if you don't mind, and we'll come back to it. And if I don't, remind me, please.

496   Commissioner Menzies asked a couple of interesting questions. One of the beauties of these hearings is -- is the benefit to learn more about the cultural communities that make up this country. And in my understanding, the Dravidian base of Tamil is -- is significant, but it makes me wonder and -- and ask the question what is the interrelationship between the various languages that you're proposing to -- to serve as part of your programing undertaking? Aside from linguistic differences, what is the cultural commonality between the languages that you have chosen that help complement your -- your overall programing?

497   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: There's a -- there's a lot of cultural similarities obviously other than linguistics. You know, a lot of communities we're proposing to serve share some of the same religion, the same -- we share similar cultures. A lot of the festivals that you see that come out of Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax, it's not just so inclusive to one particular ethnic group because we share some of those same -- same features.

498   Also, there's a geographic similarity between all the different ethnic groups. So, I think -- circling back on the question, I think there are a lot of cultural similarities, a lot of event stories that come out of Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax, you know, we have experienced with these communities. It's not we just picked them for -- to serve the -- serve for this application. You know, we've had experiences, we have the context, we know the community leaders. So -- so, a lot of cultural similarities there.

499   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: So it begs asking, Malayalam is not a language -- did I say that right?

500   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Malayalam. Close enough.

501   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: What he said. But that has a tie to -- to the Tamil language in some linguistic way --

502   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yeah, it does.

503   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: -- does it?

504   MR. BALASINGA: Yes, it does have. The Malayalam have a lot of -- when -- when they speak Malayalam, the pronunciation is almost close to Tamil.

505   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah.

506   MR. BALASINGA: And some of the wording was taken from the Tamil language into building into the Malayalam. It is. Yes, it is.

507   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: But that's not a language that you're going to be serving --

508   MR. BALASINGA: No. No. No.

509   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: -- in your undertaking and I was just wondering why.

510   MR. BALASINGA: No.

511   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I think we have Andrew to speak to that.

512   MR. FORSYTH: There were several languages that we felt that, you know, have the, for lack of a better term, common denominator --

513   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mm-hmm.

514   MR. FORSYTH: -- if you like, there's some sort of crossover. And that language was in there. But the feeling certainly was is we were looking at specific groups. That there were some groups where that language, because it is understood by the Tamil community, there is a lot of crossover, the Urdu community, for example, a lot of the groups out of the South Asian community do understand that language, so we felt it was perhaps best to look at -- there could be some inclusiveness there, but there's also inclusiveness with the Sinhalese community, which, I think, is a very good example of -- without getting into the long politics, but certainly the Tamils and the Sinhalese have had a lot of differences over the years. And so our idea was -- or their idea certainly was -- to -- let's put them on the same platform, let's put them in the same place and, in fact, we'll start the mornings after breakfast with the Sinhalese program because it -- there's no language issue there. And this is something we thought would bring the communities together.

515   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Hm.

516   If your application is successful, it has the potential of dealing a knockout blow to -- to CJVF, and in essence removes potentially, unless they can find an alternate solution, which we pretty much shut down in this hearing because we're not going to consider alternate frequencies, but what is going to, in effect, happen is that -- is that we'll be losing 70 hours of Tamil programing and gaining 70 hours of Tamil programing. So my question is this: With respect to best use of the available spectrum, what is your best explanation for why we should consider your programing over what is available now? We've seen the Hendershot research; we understand what it says; we understand your programing offering, but, you know, the net takeaway is that you claim that there is a 98 percent dissatisfaction. And I understand that you're attempting to deal with issues that are not being addressed now, but one more time with feeling would you explain what those issues are and how you're going to be mounting them in a way that'll serve -- better serve the community.

517   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I think Andrew will start off with the question and then -- with the answer and then I'm going to -- I'm going to chime in.

518   MR. FORSYTH: Commissioner Simpson, certainly I guess the -- the wrong answer is quantity over quality, but that's kind of where I'm going to start. The quality, we think, of the programing that certainly has been coming out of the SCMO and the -- the mindset behind it, the drive behind establishing that form of quality is -- underpins this.

519   But secondarily, the best use of the frequency is because we are going to approach more groups than the -- the incumbent, we have experience with those groups, and we have an approach which is much more inclusive. And certainly as Vickrah has already indicated, without getting into the -- the minutia of the morning show, certainly the idea there is to be able to use that as a platform to bring all of those groups together, use English as a common language, and let that roll back into the other programing later on.

520   So I think from that viewpoint we feel that we are -- we are providing a much better use of the -- of the frequency.

521   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: You know, and just to circle back, you know, we feel, you know, we have the experience. You know, we've been doing this 20 years with the SCMO. We've had involvement with the communities we're proposing to serve.

522   And also, you know, obviously you mentioned the research. What was very clear from the research was the residents of Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax, they wanted a local station to them, something that's talking to them about local issues. I mean, it's such a diverse community, there's so many stories, so many festivals, so many events coming out that's not being covered on a regular basis. So we believe we're putting forth the most comprehensive local-based application because that's the key thing here.

523   Also, you know, we have a very, very strong track record with our SCMO. And as Ste-- Andrew said, we're going to be the most inclusive station.

524   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: While we're on programing, it's customary for the Commission to seek clarity with respect to your conditions of license. And in your case, would you be willing to accept an imposition of a condition of license in your case that would represent a minimum of 100 percent ethnic programing and 85 percent third language programing in each broadcast week?

525   MR. FORSYTH: Yes, we would.

526   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. And would you be willing to adhere to these weekly levels as a condition of license, and if not, why?

527   MR. FORSYTH: Yes, they --

528   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

529   MR. FORSYTH: -- the group would.

530   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: All right. And lastly, and this is where we started, would you be prepared to accept a condition of license that a minimum of 56 percent of ethnic programing broadcasting each week would be directed with the Tamil language?

531   MR. FORSYTH: We had, in fact, mentioned that in one of our responses to intervention we would be pleased to do that. We feel that would benefit the system, yes.

532   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. So that's a yes?

533   MR. FORSYTH: That is a yes.

534   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

535   I'm going to move to news and then I'd like to talk about your advisory panel a little bit.

536   In your programing you're referring to, I think, 19 hours of English programing. And with respect to the news, I think the bulk of your morning and afternoon drive would be English news broadcasting, is that correct?

537   MR. KOWCH: My understanding, that the -- the morning show would be -- would be in English, but I -- I don't think our afternoon drive, you'll have to help me with this, the afternoon programing --

538   MR. FORSYTH: The afternoon.

539   MR. KOWCH: -- what language is it in?

540   MR. FORSYTH: Yes, the afternoon programing would be slipped between Filipino and Urdu and Tamil.

541   MR. KOWCH: But the news will be in their language.

542   MR. FORSYTH: The news will be in those languages, that's correct.

543   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: That was what I was --

544   MR. KOWCH: Yes. Yes.

545   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: -- trying to understand, yeah.

546   MR. KOWCH: Okay, I was -- I was tripped up thinking that is it in English or -- or what have you, but no.

547   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: My apologies if it came out that way.

548   MR. KOWCH: Okay.

549   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: No, I'm trying to understand the culture of the newsroom with respect to its operating language and its adaptability to be able to broadcast in -- in the various languages of the undertaking and when those broadcasts would occur in English and -- and when they would not. And I think I understood you to say that in the afternoon drive the news would be in the language of the programing block.

550   MR. KOWCH: Yes, the news would be in the language of the shows that are on the air at that time.

551   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Perfect. That's excellent. Thank you very much.

552   Will this newsroom be shared with the SCMO?

553   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes.

554   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

555   Could you explain to me what other synergies -- if there's only that one hour you spoke of, what other synergies you have envisaged from an operational standpoint and the administration and regulatory standpoint that would come from having both stations under one roof?

556   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yeah, we do anticipate operational synergies and I'll have Andrew speak in a moment as well. We -- we feel there is going to be a lot of shared back -- back offices costs. We also plan to co-locate both stations obviously. So there's a lot of shared costs involved in that respect.

557   Andrew.

558   MR. FORSYTH: Those are some of the operational synergies, but I think just to sort of step back for a moment and talk about the newsroom as an example. You know, the SC-- the SCMO has news. Currently we would add further staff to that and certainly use them as a resource. Because we're really talking about gen one, gen two, we really want to make sure that we've got some -- some mentorship in that room.

559   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mm-hmm. Thank you.

560   We seem to take at the Commission some great comfort with advisory panels. We put -- perhaps unnecessarily, but it gives us comfort, we put a lot of stock and trade in advisory panels and how they function to assist the owners and the management of the station in their programing direction and not necessarily their compliance or regulatory compliance, but here's a series of questions I've got for you.

561   When it comes to the initial advisory panel, who is going to be responsible for the determination of who those panel members are? Just the ownership group or will there be a group selected that will have some oversight beyond the management group in the initial selection?

562   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: We believe that the -- the ownership group would -- would provide the input on, you know, to answer your question, determination of -- you know, of the advisory panel members.

563   MR. FORSYTH: And, in fact, commissioner, that -- that has to the largest degree already happened. In fact, the advisory board is behind us and there are processes and procedures set up for that.

564   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. Have you set terms for the -- terms of service for how long an advisory panelist would serve or is it just at the pleasure of the management, or how does that work?

565   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, we -- we ha-- we will be setting up a set term. Obviously we still would like to make it, you know, a possibility that you could have a renewal for a term because, you know, if we have somebody who's doing an excellent, great job, we'd obviously want to invite them to come back in, do it again, right? So, yes, we will be having terms.

566   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: And going down the road, would it still be just the management committee that would select new advisory panel members or would the advisory group itself have a role?

567   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, the ownership management.

568   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yes?

569   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, the ownership management would oversee -- oversee that.

570   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: With respect to brokered programing, you went to, and we appreciate this, great lengths to give us some comfort that any brokered programing that you did take on in this undertaking would comply with the CAB regulations and there would be a code of -- I can't remember if it's the code of conduct or a code of ethics that they would have to sign, but let's say a code. Would the advisory panel have a role in the administration of this code or would it strictly be the management of the station?

571   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I'd like Andrew to just quickly speak on that.

572   MR. FORSYTH: The way we see this structured is -- is simple and that is that the advisory board, because we have -- we'd have one member from each one of the communities, would obviously be the vehicle whereby all the feedback would come from the community and they would be hopefully proactive looking for feedback.

573   If there was an issue that came up relative to one of the communities and one of the programs, the advisory board would bring it to the station management, they would discuss it with the producer and back and forth. So -- so there's -- there's an awful lot of interplay between -- between the groups.

574   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: And would this advisory panel have an ability to input -- I'm thinking about monitoring here. One of the difficulties with brokered programing is that it often comes in prepackaged, if it's pre-recorded, or you turn over the mike to an individual that's not an employee of the station. How are you going to monitor that quality that you speak of and upheld by the code? How is that going to be done on an ongoing basis?

575   MR. FORSYTH: Well, there are several parts to that. One part is that certainly the -- the news content would be provided by MBC to the third party producers and they would translate that into the appropriate language.

576   There would also be ongoing feedback from the advisory board on what the content is, what the presentation is like -- there are several tiers to that -- and -- and the feedback again from the community, not necessarily just the person on the advisory panel. And that information would go back to the operations manager.

577   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Also, Steve, if you could speak to that point as well.

578   MR. KOWCH: I can tell you when I was running CFRB or CJAD I would have loved to have had an advisory council instead of taking contest winners to be a focus group.

579   What -- what we have created here, I think, is -- is the best use of advisory panels, the best use of people who are out in the community, who know their community and have a direct line to someone like Vickrah, who is the operations manager, for example.

580   One of the things about brokered programing -- and you're so right, there are sometimes problems where they just come in and you have no idea what's going on. We have a different setup here. We have -- we have associate producers who report to -- to Vickrah. In other words, they may -- it may be brokered, but there are rules that have to be respected. And those rules don't just mean regulatory rules, those rules also deal with the community. Are you meeting the needs of the community? And the -- these advisory board people are going to be encouraged to contact the radio station and say, you know, we have this thing that's going on in the community and you're not talking about it, and I -- and -- and you need to be talking about it. And that's the beauty of being able to come to them, to come to someone like Vickrah, who has, as the operations manager, and go to the people, either the associate producer of whatever or even the morning show, and say, guys, you know, we have this -- this thing that's going on in the community and we haven't touched on it yet; we need to touch on it. So, here's what I want. I want you to -- guys, to research this, come back to me, tell me who you're going to get on the air, when you're going to do it so we can provide the feedback to the advisory council and they can then provide the feedback to the community and say, yes, they're going to look into it. That's -- that's the beauty of having these things if you allow them access to the radio station, and this whole thing was set up to be like that.

581   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Is this going to be a formal process, you know, an annual review, something that can be shared with the Commission, or is this just going to be internal with respect to the monitoring of the success of your policies?

582   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, I believe in our application we said we would be meeting three times a year. So we'd have a meeting to -- you know, we know this advisory -- the members on this panel very well and as Steve mentioned, you know, they can easily just contact us, say, hey, there's a thing going on, you know, we want to hear about this. And we'll make sure all those instances are in paper, written and filed. So now when we come to these meetings, there's a basis that we could use now to talk about in our meetings. Like, hey, guys, we incorporated this into the program, what was the feedback from the community, can we improve on it? You know, that would be the basis of our -- of our meetings.

583   MR. FORSYTH: It would certainly be not beyond us to -- if we were granted the license, to file with the Commission an annual report which summarizes the -- the meetings and what the direction is, and what the actions were taken.

584   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you very much.

585   I'm going to just touch on -- I'm going to go to some financials now and then we'll go back and deal with your emerging talent commitments and CCD and so on.

586   When you were putting together your financial projections, were you taking into account -- and this is a little unfair but I have to ask it. This goes back to the fate of our previous application that we saw this morning. Did you take in your financial considerations the fact that if you were successful the CJVF would -- would have to relinquish the frequency? Was that part of your financial plan, or is your financial plan totally separate from their -- their revenues?

587   MR. FORSYTH: The plan was always that this application would replace the existing service.

588   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: All right. And, again, this may be a staff-prepared document I was look at, but in your financial projections -- it was very heavily weighted towards local advertising obviously, but is -- is the local advertising also agency commissionable in this -- in this market for the most part?

589   MR. FORSYTH: Yes, it would be if -- if there was any in there that ...

590   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mm. The greatest percentage or -- or? I'm just trying to get an idea of how much is -- of that local advertising would be agency placed versus direct.

591   MR. FORSYTH: I would suggest that we did not plan that any of it will be locally placed by any of the agencies.

592   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

593   MR. FORSYTH: This was all strictly retail --

594   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

595   MR. FORSYTH: -- street-level retail.

596   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Great.

597   The -- in your opening statements you had mentioned a figure of 50,000 Tamils in -- in Scarborough, and we had heard previously a hundred thousand. And I'm wondering what the source of your -- your figure was from.

598   MR. FORSYTH: They're -- I -- this is a little sidebar, but I will answer your question, commissioner.

599   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Sure.

600   MR. FORSYTH: When this discussion came up and, in fact, in various other communities at other times, we always find that it's very hard to nail down the number. Generally the community will tell you there are lots, and we've just generally used -- in fact, not generally, we have specifically used Stats Can. data, period, and gone with those as our base numbers.

601   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. So the 50,000 is from Stats Can?

602   MR. FORSYTH: It is from Stats Can.

603   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

604   In -- in your financial projections, in your pre-operating costs, I presume be-- no, I won't presume. Why are your operating costs with respect to salaries and promotion so low? I was looking at a figure of $7,000 in salaries and 15,000 in -- in promotion pre-operation, and I'm curious about those figures.

605   MR. FORSYTH: The reason for that is simple. A lot of that will be -- you spoke to this point before, synergies.

606   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yes.

607   MR. FORSYTH: Because a lot of this would come out of SCMO and a lot of the -- the connections that the SCMO has both staff-wise and -- and marketing-wise prior to actually starting.

608   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mmm. Okay.

609   And in your projected cash flow statement for the seven years of the license term, in your cash outflows there was a line item, and I always love asking this question because I hear different answers, but it has a CRTC license cost of $25,000. What is that?

610   MR. FORSYTH: That was put in as actually -- yes, you're right, the line does say "CRTC licensing costs". It was -- there was the license cost. It was also for SOCAN fees. It was really a catchall for all of the operating fees that would be paid out.

611   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you.

612   Moving on to artist support, emerging artists, talent contributions and so on. In promoting your Rising Star program, you state that you will be doing promotions over and above the direct expenses and expenditures via additional on-air support. This was in your submission. Now, this additional on-air support, is this over and above the over and above commitments or is this factored into -- you know, how -- is it cost accounted in -- in your commitment to over and above CCD?

613   MR. FORSYTH: This number, to hopefully be clear because I -- that "over and above" term is always a terrible term --

614   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Oh, I know.

615   MR. FORSYTH: -- so -- so if I use the term "indirect expense", so this is indirect expenses, indirect contributions that are not calculated in any of the CCD at all. So as an example, for the Rising Star, the -- the annual contribution on that would be approximately $23,000, but that is -- comes in the form of announcements, public service announcements, if you like, PSAs, web-based material. So it's all internally generated.

616   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: But -- but it's not built in or is -- it's not built into the 210,000 commitment?

617   MR. FORSYTH: No, 215,000, no, that's correct.

618   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay.

619   MR. FORSYTH: And -- and we've tried to keep that very separate in -- in the form.

620   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: In your explanation, still on this Rising Star, you had used a term that really caught my eye and you talk about multilayered approach to supporting the ethnic music scene. Could you sort of unbundle that for me and tell me what that means.

621   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: So when we say the multilayered approach, we took a really three-pronged approach. So we'd have the discovery phase of how we discovered these artists; there's the mentorship phase, which is in our new talent development seminars, and then there is the distribution phase, where we actually, you know, get the music from these artists and distribute it through our station website. So this is music that's not widely available to the members of Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax. So that's really the -- to directly answer your question, how we came to that multilayered approach.

622   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: And in your annual talent show, how will the show be promoted? Will it be strictly on the air and on your website or will you be using other external forms of advertising and promotion? And also, how would the ticket sales be handled?

623   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: So in terms of promoting it, obviously we'd promote it on the station itself. And of course, you know, social med-- you know, as -- as a generation two myself, social media is very prevalent today. We'd be using Facebook, Twitter to really reach out to gen two, gen three, a lot of these artists who are using social media to promote themselves. So that's how we would be promoting it in that sense.

624   To answer the second part of your question, I think Andrew could speak to that point.

625   MR. FORSYTH: Certainly any of the operational expenses would be third party and would be considered part of the CCD.

626   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Sorry, I've got a tickle in my throat. The -- the reason why I'm asking about promotion and most particular ticket sales, this is not trying to be a consultant here, but there are some problems that other stations have had in the past where they've made distribution of the tickets solely to their own audience and it's been problematic, and there had to be a wider distribution base than just to the listeners of the station. So that's why I was asking the question. They have to be made more available than just through on-air promotions, for example, or contests.

627   MR. FORSYTH: And certainly, as Vickrah said, I think there's -- will be a wide use of social media to -- to get -- get the word out.

628   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Great.

629   While we're on the subject of other media, I'm just going back to a revenue question and my apologies for bouncing around. What did you mean when you -- in your financial projections you had defined that other media would be a source of revenue, accounting -- that would account for half of its -- of your totals for year two revenues. What is other -- other media?

630   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: When we refer to "other media", we're really speaking about print media.

631   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mm-hmm.

632   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: So, that's really "other media". In terms of -- just one second here -- how we'd be getting a lot of our advertising revenue, a lot of -- you know, we have -- we've been doing SCMO for 20 years. We've had customers who have been with us since day one. And, you know, we've already filed these letters with the Commission, but they've already signed on saying they would do advertising on the SCMO, as well as doing advertising on the FM station, as well as we have identified many businesses that are not currently advertising. Because we're serving these unserved communities, they're not advertising right now, and a lot of those letters from these businesses have been filed with -- with the Commission.

633   And also there is the case, you know, if licensed CJVF would be displaced, so there'd be some displaced customers in that sense and, you know, we'd hope obviously to incorporate them into our station.

634   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. In your assessment of the market and -- and viability, have you assessed and would you share with us what you feel may be the negative impact of the presence of your station on the air to the -- to the competitors? Would you be complementary? And if so, how? And if you would be intervening in a negative way to their financial -- with respect to a financial impact, have you contemplated that and to what extent would it happen?

635   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, we have -- we have looked at that and we believe we'd have minimal impact to the other ethnic stations due in large part they're serving the GTA. So the advertising pool that they're pulling from is much larger than Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax. You know, a much smaller advertising market than we're pulling from.

636   And also, of course, we've looked -- you know, we want to be complimentary to these other stations, at the end of the day, we all want to serve the community in the most adequate way possible.

637   So, for example, CJSA does their morning show in Tamil, you know, our morning show's in English. So when they're doing Tamil, we make sure that we're not, you know, having a conflicting schedule and having our Tamil hours. And a lot of the ethnic communities we're targeting are unserved or underserved communities, so they're not currently, you know, in the market today. So in that sense, we really believe it's going to be minimal impact to other ethnic stations.

638   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: With respect to your earlier comments in your opening remarks that an FM signal would serve the Tamil community because of the ability of that signal to be as mobile as they are, what percentage, in your best guess, of the Tamil community that reside in Scarborough work outside of Scarborough?

639   We always ask this question, and it's a question that constantly plagues us in Vancouver where I come from where a high percentage of the people who live in Vancouver work in the outlying communities.

640   I'm trying to assess here with this question a better understanding of the value of that ability to go mobile with an FM signal to serve your Tamil market.

641   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: So just for clarity, what percentage of the Tamil population actually work in Scarborough?

642   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: No, work outside of Scarborough. In other words, you have a core that you are serving, how mobile are they with respect to where they work in the rest of the GTA that that FM signal would help serve them by being a mobile signal to a mobile marketplace?

643   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Well, you know, we've been doing this for 20 years, so we know the Tamil community very well, you know. But many of the Tamil community, of course, work out in the Scarborough, Pickering, Ajax area. There's many Tamil people just out in Mississauga, Etobicoke, so they are all over the GTA.

644   MR. FORSYTH: I think it also goes to the point, though, Commissioner, the mobility is a huge issue, in fact, it's technologically an impossibility with the SCMO. The SCMO is a landed, you know, on-your-desk type of radio service, it is not mobile at all.

645   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: My reasoning for the question was just simply that some communities have a tendency to work in close proximity to where they live, and I was trying to better understand the importance of mobility.

646   Two more questions and I'm done, I will turn it over to the other Panel Members.

647   This is on the theme of radio convergence. You speak of an ambitious convergence concept. Why do you use the term, "ambitious"? Does that imply that it's ambitious because you are ambitious, or that it is going to be a difficult issue to be able to put a radio station around the markets that you are trying to serve?

648   I just find it's an odd term when you talk about an "ambitious convergence concept", your programming.

649   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I think Andrew can speak to that point to really give clarity to that.

650   MR. FORSYTH: I would suggest, Commissioner Simpson, it's really, again, two things. Where the ambitious is, you know, this is going to be exciting. Exciting might have been just as good a word to use as ambitious, but it is ambitious in the sense that it really is going to be trying to tie together all of these communities as opposed to one individual one at a time and that in itself is ambitious and challenging.

651   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: But achievable, not a faint hope.

652   MR. FORSYTH: Absolutely.

653   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. The last question; it's just a cleanup question, but you have a tower lease agreement that was a requisite for your Industry Canada part of this application, but I notice that it was between Melron Communication and a company called Canadian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation. Who is that?

654   MR. FORSYTH: I would have to go back in the file to answer that, Commissioner, I wasn't really involved with that.

655   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Would you --

656   MR. FORSYTH: We can respond to that.

657   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Just file it as an undertaking.

658   MR. FORSYTH: We will.

Undertaking

659   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: That's great. Thank you very much. Those are my questions.

660   THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Shoan...?

661   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Good morning. I just have a couple of questions. Firstly, this morning 105.9 FM Ltd., indicated that there are approximately, in its view, only around 2,000 retailers in Scarborough, Tamil language retailers actually engaged on a radio platform for advertising purposes.

662   Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

663   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: I think Mr. Balasinga can speak to that point.

664   MR. BALASINGA: We disagree because 2,000 business total in GTA, not in Scarborough.

665   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So, you are saying there would be fewer Tamil language businesses in Scarborough?

666   MR. BALASINGA: No, there's a lot of Tamil business in Scarborough. For example, if you look at Brampton, there are business in Brampton, there are business in Mississauga, there are business in Richmond Hill. So it's GTA. So 2,000, it's, I will say, throughout GTA, not in Scarborough, but the majority of the business in Scarborough, yes.

667   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you. My last question, and acknowledging that we have made clear and Legal Counsel has made clear that we will not be accepting any new technical evidence for the record with respect to any new frequency, Mr. Forsyth, if you'd like to discuss in general terms this technical solution that you refer to in your oral remarks, that would be fine.

668   MR. FORSYTH: Thank you, Commissioner, and we appreciate that. It created a little bit of a concern with us earlier today, but on the prerequisite that we're talking about the same frequency, we're not talking about adding another frequency in.

669   This has been a long process for everybody involved and our engineering people had a look at -- as you might recall on this file was the Vista application for Bolton and Caledon where they, too, are seeking 102.7.

670   Part of that -- and I think we all summarily agreed that there would be no interference or nothing was going to create any problems, and they're not here.

671   But in that process, our engineering people came back and said, well, you know, it's interesting when you look at how 102.7 can be used in the market, and one of our concerns from the get-go, quite frankly, was what happens with the Whitchurch-Stouffville group.

672   We had in this acknowledged they would be co-channeled, we acknowledged that we would certainly help them find another frequency or do something like that.

673   So our engineering people in advance of that said, well, you know, in fact, there is an opportunity for both of you to operate on that signal, however, they would have to apply for the application they have with you now which is the power increase that they will be speaking to later, No. 1; and No. 2, you will have to adjust your contour, your directional antenna will have to be, for lack of a better term, be void of any northern null, so you'll lose some of your northern pattern and give that to them in very round terms.

674   And so, we've looked at that and we've looked at those contours and felt that there is minimal impact, in fact, on our 3 mV power centre pattern, in fact, there's only about a 15 percent loss in coverage. And for the other portion of our full coverage, while we lose a lot of households, we don't necessarily lose a lot of the ethnic population, given where people live.

675   So we felt that this was something we had discussed with them and it's obviously going to be a discussion with the Commission, but we're just saying that there looks like there's a technical opportunity that can be explored which would allow licensing of both Applicants for that frequency.

676   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. And I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole, but if I understand what you are saying correctly, is there is an opportunity there to co-locate with the WhiStle application and have one pointed north of the directional antenna and one pointed towards Scarborough, and that way the interference would be minimized?

677   MR. FORSYTH: No, sorry. No, that was explored, but that would not be the case. It would be them locating where they're applying for now. I think there's a minor change in their location -- their current location to the one they're applying to now.

678   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

679   MR. FORSYTH: So there would be two locations.

680   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

681   MR. FORSYTH: Two separate locations, but the -- our antenna -- their antenna would not be altered and the plans they have would not be altered; our antenna would be modified to take off some of the northern null.

682   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you very much.

683   THE CHAIRPERSON: I just have a couple of questions. When you refer to Filipino, just so that we are perfectly clear, you are talking about Tagalog; right, spoken in Manila as the main language?

684   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Yes, Tagalog.

685   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. How much brokeraged programming do you do, again?

686   Anyway, that's not really the question. The question is, what are your plans around brokeraged programming to ensure that it maintains good standards?

687   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: So, we've already identified -- we made partnerships with members of each ethnic community that have some experience in the broadcast field, either radio or SCMO to be our associate producers.

688   In terms of maintaining the quality of the content, and that goes right back to our advisory council, they are going to be there to be sort of a measuring stick of making sure we're -- our programming's doing well or if it's doing poorly and we would make sure we put feedback mechanisms in place so that they can get the feedback from the community to ensure that the programming is, you know, reflective of the community needs.

689   MR. BALASINGA: Can I add a few words?

690   THE CHAIRPERSON: Sure.

691   MR. BALASINGA: When it comes to compliance, I think it's -- I'm really new to this field, but when it comes to compliance, there is always a question -- ethnic radios or in many radios, there's a question about are they are in compliance after they getting the licence?

692   One thing with MBC, we will make sure as a management anybody comes here, brokerage or you know, as program, they must follow the policies what was written on CRTC, they must stick with the policy, we will visit that every quarter.

693   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks. Do you have one more question?

694   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: M'hmm.

695   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. I just have another question and then Commissioner Simpson will have the last question.

696   I want to talk about cricket for a second.

--- Laughter

697   THE CHAIRPERSON: You said you would have cricket fever and, I mean, cricket has emerged in Canada over the last 30 years in a pretty big way. I mean, I couldn't watch cricket in Canada, you know, I couldn't have paid a million dollars and have been able to watch cricket in Canada, except on a local pitch 30 years ago.

698   But now it's pretty ubiquitous, you can watch Indian Premier League on TSN, right, it's like all over the place. So how big of a market advantage is it still for you as an identifier for the South Asian community, because I think it goes without saying that it is an identifier for the South Asian community, that what do you bring to it that all these other, you know, cricket channels and cricket sites and Indian Premier League doesn't bring right now?

699   MR. KANDIAH: Yes, it's a good question. And if you look at the cricket and we as Canadians sitting here as viewers, but Canada has stepped into cricket field slowly and they are growing the Canadian team very slowly, but MBC wants to identify localized cricket players and we want to promote them as -- for example, Toronto Board of Education have cricket team in high school, but nobody knows that their cricket team exists and there are players playing like baseball or basketball.

700   So we want to identify those players and bring them to our studio, do shows, interviews and make them stars. So that conduct will help our Canadian cricket process to identify with localized cricket sportsmen rather than be sitting and watching prepaid NFL -- I mean, World Cup Series or...

701   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

702   MR. KANDIAH: So as a multicultural country, Canada is growing with cricket, but we are still lagging because we are not utilizing the full force of localized Canadian players yet.

703   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So you are focussing your coverage on the local talent --

704   MR. KANDIAH: Yes.

705   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- in terms of that?

706   MR. KANDIAH: As well as, we will also bring the overseas and World Cup matches, everything, but combined together as a package we will have local as well as the worldwide cricket coverages, not only coverages, but there will be talk shows with the stars from abroad, like World Premier stars, things like that.

707   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Commissioner Simpson...?

708   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you. I almost forgot the most important question of them all and this is directed to the two partners.

709   Your financial projections indicate that you will be in positive territory with your PBIT by year four. My question is this, should you not be and this be a licence that is a seven-year licence, do I have your commitment that you would draw on other financial resources to assist the station until such time as it is profitable?

710   MR. BALASINGA: Can you please repeat the question?

711   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Your financial projections show that you are expecting to be in positive territory profitability wise by year four. Should you not be, would the partners apply extra financial resources to ensure that the station is able to remain functioning until it reaches profitability by the end of its licence term?

712   MR. BALASINGA: Yes, we do have financial strength. We did file our financial reports and information with the CRTC and we do have financial strength, yes.

713   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: That was not my question. I know you have the financial strength, will you apply it to any losses should you not be in profitability by year four as you project?

714   This is a question -- this is like a cash call question. Should you find yourself still financially deficient in year four, would some of those financial resources you have at your disposal go in to allow the station to keep functioning within the licence term?

715   MR. BALASINGA: Yes.

716   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay, thank you.

717   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. That concludes our questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. I will just check with Legal first to see if they have any questions.

718   MR. DOUGHERTY: Just two. One question was just that there is an American media company called Multicultural Broadcasting, it operates in the States, owns several radio stations.

719   Just for the record, can you confirm whether there is any connection between your proposed corporation and that company in the United States?

720   MR. FORSYTH: No, there is not any connection.

721   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay, thank you. And then my second one is just to confirm the undertaking that you will provide to the Commission, as part of the record of this proceeding, the company that is the lessee of the tower and that information would be provided to us by the end of business day on May 23rd, please.

722   MR. FORSYTH: That will be provided.

Undertaking

723   MR. DOUGHERTY: Thank you. That's all, Mr. Chair.

724   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. We will now adjourn and resume at 1:30.

725   MR. V. SIVASOTHY: Thank you.

726   MR. FORSYTH: Thank you very much.

--- Upon recessing at 1153

--- Upon resuming at 1330

727   THE SECRETARY: Please take your seats.

728   THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please.

729   Madam Secretary.

730   THE SECRETARY: We will now proceed with Item 3 on the Agenda which is an application by 8041393 Canada Inc., on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated, for a broadcasting licence to operate a commercial specialty FM ethnic radio station in Scarborough.

731   Please introduce yourselves and your colleagues. You will then have 20 minutes for your presentation.

732   You may begin.

PRESENTATION

733   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

734   Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, Commission staff and colleagues in the audience.

735   My name is Kumarakulasingam Nadarajah, but I am known to everyone as Raj Kumar. For ease of use please feel free to address me as Kumar or Mr. Nadarajah.

736   Before starting our presentation in chief, I would like to introduce my panel. We have provided a seating map so that you can identify each of us.

737   To my immediate right is my son, Thinesh Nadarajah. Thinesh is a graduate of the University of Toronto. He is here to help me to keep all the papers in order, and I do need the help!

738   To his right is my wife, Umadevi Kumar. She keeps the back office functioning at our SCMO service, Geethavani Tamil Radio, and would perform similar functions at East FM if we are successful.

739   To my immediate left is Suthamie Poologasingham. Suthamie has an undergraduate degree in computer science and French and a B.A. from the Schulich School of Business. She works extensively in the e-commerce and the e-retail sector with a focus on digital media and online channels.

740   She will speak to our spoken word programming as well as our involvement with new media. She is also fluent in French, English and Tamil.

741   To her left is Abeer Islam. Abeer comes from a family of musicians and started as a musician himself at a young age. He has worked as a record producer, artist manager and most recently as a developer of top tier music festivals and properties with a focus on below-the-line and mainstream EDM and urban hip-hop music.

742   Beside Abeer is Delnaz Khorshidchehr. Delnaz holds a B.A. in psychology and a diploma in career counselling. She is fluent in Farsi and has worked most recently for a professional association. She has worked with a very diverse client base. She is an avid fan of international music of all backgrounds.

743   At the far left next to Delnaz is Amid Orokzai. He is a producer of television documentaries and other video production. In 2005-2006, he worked with the Canadian military to develop an audiovisual program to help keep Afghan children and other civilians out of harm's way.

744   Of Afghani background, Amid speaks Russian, Hindi, Dari, Farsi and English.

745   At the far right is Kenny Yang. Mr. Yang is a businessman here in Toronto and is involved in the Korean community, particularly as Executive Director for Korean-Canadian Media, as well as the For You Family -- Telecare Family Services where he serves as the chair.

746   We are waiting for Hind Saq. Unfortunately she is tied up at work. She promised to come.

747   Mr. Chair, I have been providing ethnic programming in one way or another almost from the day I arrived in Canada in Montreal in 1986.

748   I have provided Tamil programs as early as 1986 on CFMB in Montreal and on various stations in Toronto since 1992. My SCMO service, Geethavani Tamil Radio, has been in operation since 1999.

749   This is my fourth appearance with applications for a new ethnic radio station to serve the GTA.

750   Most recently I appeared in 2012 with an application for a new AM ethnic station to serve Markham.

751   Over time I have learned a few lessons through my experience partnering with other Toronto ethnic broadcasters, through my 14 years of experience operating Tamil SCMO, through my appearances at the CRTC and my observations of the strengths of various applications over the years.

752   There have been many good ideas presented to you over the years but, unfortunately, there have not been sufficient frequencies or market support to licence them all.

753   I also observe that the Toronto area has a lot of ethnic programming.

754   The largest and longest established groups have multiple sources of programming. These include the Italians and Portuguese, the Chinese and Punjabis with other groups receiving reasonable amounts of programming, including the Tamil community. But two things have jumped out at me.

755   While immigration has increased the numbers of those of Chinese and Punjabi descent, there are other large groups that are just below the radar, with little or no programming available. These include Arabic and Farsi speakers, Filipinos, Koreans and others. And these groups are all projected to grow rapidly, in some cases to double in size over the next 10-15 years.

756   Most of the ethnic programming available has sought to serve the first generation arrivals, generally an older demographic group with relatively poor English-language skills. There is little for the second and third generations of the ethnic communities.

757   This has led us to make the application that is before you.

758   Why East FM? We hope the video will give an appreciation of why we chose this name.

--- Video presentation

759   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: So these second and third generations of East Toronto residents have their own cultural traditions but they also have much in common.

760   They were raised with feet in at least two cultures, their own traditions and the newer ones of mainstream Canada.

761   Their English-language skills are excellent, often better than their home language but they still speak both languages with their parents and a mix of English and home language amongst themselves.

762   They went to school and college and work with people from many, many ethnic backgrounds and they have friends of many different backgrounds.

763   In a simplified form they have an appreciation for their own culture, learned from their families; an appreciation for mainstream North American culture learned at school and work and an appreciation for mainstream radio and TV and they also have a liking for the music of other cultures.

764   We intend to serve them in a number of ways:

765   Our centerpiece will be our two daily English-language programs, aimed at a cross-cultural audience, with features and discussions on the topics that interest them from the environment to dealing with cross-cultural issues, conflict between generations or aging parents.

766   Each of the ethnic groups we aim to serve will be privy to a daily program ranging from one to three hours depending on the size of the community. The programs will be a bilingual mixture of English and their mother tongue.

767   The music will be a mixture of various world beat traditions brought together by beat and our concept of Asian re-mix. While each community will have their own music, they will also hear the best of our top hits of the week drawn from all of the popular music cultures we serve and others as well.

768   MR. ISLAM: Mr. Chair and Commissioners, modern world music or modern music for that matter, share a lot of similarities that find roots in electronic dance music (or EDM) and urban hip-hop. More than ever before, an entire generation can identify with this style of music, regardless of what country it's from or which it's in.

769   Our music programming will be a curated collection of the best world beat songs from around the world. Commissioners, there is a wealth of music out there not only from international artists but also Canadian artists as well and CanCon is certainly a big opportunity for East FM.

770   Many of the audience we want to reach are already listening to it either online or downloaded to their mobile devices. However, it is not available over the air. And even online it isn't curated in a way that we can find the best world beat music in one place.

771   Each of our programmers will be busy determining what is hot in the home countries and in other places with large expat populations and among our audience here. There is a number of techniques for this:

772   Develop a partner network of prominent radio stations in our core country group to reference what songs are making waves and demanding requests.

773   So for example our programmers will reach out to K POP radio on Seoul FM to find out what the DJs are playing or what the fans out there are demanding.

774   We'll be following the music influencers, blogs, trending YouTube videos and other social media avenues to find out what people want to listen to.

775   Feature pump it or dump it features where our audience votes on what moves up and what doesn't. In fact, there are software programs out there to help do this fairly seamlessly.

776   Then of course leveraging social media; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram as well as mobile device functionality, calling in, text messages and of course East FM website to gauge what the fans are wanting to listen to.

777   Both the influence from international radio partners and our local audience demand will funnel music into a world beat chart that will be broadcast as a top 20 countdown on the weekends celebrating the world's best modern music. This will then feed content back into the individual programs.

778   We will also consider top world music trending internationally which is not a part of our core language group. For example, if there is a song from Portuguese group, Buraka Som Sistema, for example, that's gained international acclaim, we'll look to integrate hits like that in our programming.

779   And of course we will always be on the lookout for Canadian artists. For example, if Dublin to Delhi, a Celtic-Bhangra fusion band from Vancouver has a new hit, we will certainly want to focus on that as well.

780   Each program will be different but will have some common points. For example, the Korean and Filipino programs will use our chart but then leverage a greater reliance on East Asian pop from China and Japan and from other Far East traditions.

781   The West Asian, Arabic and Farsi programs have similar influences but will draw more strongly from those traditions and languages in their own programs. But the best songs from all of the traditions will find a home in each of our shows as we're about to display in this short video exemplifying how modern music from around the world is breaking down boundaries.

--- Video presentation

782   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Now, while the focus of the station will be on music, we will also provide a full range of spoken word.

783   The English-language programs will bring in experts from a wide range of fields to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics. We will then open the phones to our audiences and engage them through texts, SMS messages, Facebook and Twitter and other social media to encourage them to share their views and experiences as well as to ask questions of the experts. In some cases the topics will be picked up in shorter excerpts during the individual language programs.

784   For example, if we are able to interview the Minister of Immigration on the English-language show, we would expect that our various program hosts will also pick up on excerpts from this show and explain the information to their communities.

785   Each program will provide its own community news and events and will have access to the day's news through our subscription to the Canadian Press for international, national, regional and local news.

786   Each programmer will also have his or her own contacts through the internet, the community and elsewhere to bring in other stories of specific interest to their community.

787   Now, I would like to provide a little more information as well on our new media strategy as it is critical to our target group. I can elaborate further on this but here are just a few examples:

788   The East FM app. We know that the signal will be spotty in parts of Toronto. Our audience is often on the go. They may live in east Toronto but they have to work, go to school, shop or attend cultural events around the city. An app on their smart devices will ensure that they never have to lose our programming.

789   Time shifting. We will record all of our programs and put them in the "vault", so to speak. Audience members will not be limited to listening just when we schedule in the morning but they can listen anytime they wish to.

790   Podcasts. We will put the best of our interviews into podcasts, such as feature interviews of the day and our audience can listen in from anywhere at any time.

791   Our website will be full of information about our shows, our personalities, links to topics discussed and to artists' websites.

792   Text, Twitter, Facebook and other social media; all of these tools will be used to keep our audience engaged and actively involved. This will be key to getting feedback on our curated content and also obtaining crowd-sourced topics and feedback as part of the programming mix. This is essential for a generation that actively participates and is vocal through new media and the online channel.

793   And of course we will have streaming.

794   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We are confident that there will be a demand for East FM among the second and third generation ethnic groups that we serve.

795   I work with a number of advertising agencies that specialize in ethnic audiences. My experience shows that there is a significant demand among advertisers to reach this demographic group, but there is also some frustration. Let me explain.

796   Advertisers in Toronto are increasingly sophisticated, with even medium-sized enterprises, knowing that they need both reach and frequency to make their investment in media effective. And my experience also tells me that advertisers want to reach the Arabic, Korean, Persian and other medium- sized ethnic groups. But either there is no over-the- air venue available or there are such small amounts of programming that they cannot get sufficient frequency for their messages.

797   The second and third generations are no longer only the operators of mom and pop corner stores or the semi-skilled cheap labour.

798   The immigrant experience is one of an emphasis on education so that their children become professionals or active in business, both within their own community and also within the broader community. This generation of young parents wants to retain contact with their roots and have the resources to buy cars, homes, groceries and other goods and services.

799   East FM will remedy this by giving them a new way of reaching the increasingly affluent audience with both reach and frequency.

800   I have 25 years' experience in ethnic radio from the purchase of airtime from existing stations in both Toronto and Montreal to 14 years of running the SCMO. And I have survived and thrived.

801   However, I am facing a difficult situation at present. Over-the-air radio stations provide a quality of signal with which I cannot compete and the arrival of CJVF-FM has had big impact on rates in the Tamil market. Over-the-air spots are being sold at rates below what I can offer on the SCMO.

802   A new FM station serving eastern Toronto will benefit from taking over the facilities and back office functions of Geethavani Radio.

803   Mr. Chair, Members of the Commission, we have made a number of commitments in our application that we wish to highlight:

804   - We will establish an advisory council before our launch. This independent group will meet regularly.

805   - We will also provide multiple opportunities for the community to feedback to us with complaints, comments and suggestions through the many ways that technology permits, from email to text messages.

806   - We will provide $120,000 over the course of the licence in spending on Canadian content development. Given the modest amount of revenue in the early years, we have phased our commitment in over the course of the licence. Our commitments are to FACTOR, Centennial College for scholarships and to multicultural music concerns.

807   - A minimum of 25 hours per week of high quality spoken word content.

808   - 10 percent Canadian content in all categories of music.

809   - Generation 2.0 and 3.0 of the communities we propose to serve is the new mainstream, particularly in Scarborough and east Toronto. At present they are either not served at all or have to be content with a few hours per week of programming aimed at their parents. That new mainstream, younger with high English-language skills and friends of many backgrounds, is reflected in the panel you see before you.

810   We hope that you will agree to give Scarborough and east Toronto a new choice in radio, not your father's ethnic radio station, a new station that brings together various cultures and provides music that is popular the world over but is only heard online, in clubs or on iPods, smartphones and other devices.

811   We thank you for your attention and are ready for your questions, please.

812   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

813   I have a number of questions for you. And there will be a spot where it gets a little technical, so sort of heads up on that. But I won't start with that.

814   In reading your written application you supplied a lot of Census data dealing with language and language transmission and retention. There was sort of full transmission, interim and partial.

815   And the numbers were quite impressive in terms of the percentage of first generation Canadian-born people in the area who still retain their parents' language. But there is a drop off, right?

816   So my question is around that, is that if you were successfully licensed as you go forward, your audience is going to be in terms of third language. Your third language is going to be less and less successful or accessible, some people would argue.

817   And I'm trying to understand how that business plan works in the long term. I can understand in the short term if you've got transmission rights of 60, 70, 80 percent. But the next generation will drop off and pretty soon you've got 50 percent less once you get to a third generation. That's what some people would argue.

818   So what's the long term plan in the evolution of a station such as East FM?

819   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Well, the younger generation still -- even though they're born here, they still connect with their culture and the language their parents speak. They enjoy the music from their parents' native land.

820   Especially my son, as an example, whenever he gets into his car he always listens to the Tamil music or the South Indian music or Indian music with the other world music at that time.

821   So we strongly believe this generation will keep on going in this way and that we are confident. Therefore, we strongly propose the application on that.

822   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thank you.

823   In part of your application you talk about targeting youth of various backgrounds for purposes of common social good, I guess, would be the best way to --

824   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

825   THE CHAIRPERSON: That's what I understood from your application, anyway.

826   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

827   THE CHAIRPERSON: So I'm kind of wondering, wouldn't that common social good be more easily achieved through more programming in English which would be accessible to everyone rather than in pillars, language pillars where people from different backgrounds wouldn't be sharing the same experience?

828   Did you give that a lot of thought when you were putting it together?

829   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I think the mainstream radio stations in Toronto, especially CBC, have been doing their part very good. I appreciate that.

830   And Scarborough and eastern Toronto is fully packed by ethnic population. In my own experience I'm living in Scarborough more than 25 years connected to many ethnic groups and leaders. Everywhere when you go Saturday/Sunday there is a culture in the different ethnic backgrounds.

831   And the younger generations participate getting into it. And then they are hungry for their music part and they create their own music with the Western music style and also they keep on doing whatever they can have to do.

832   So through this, apart from the mainstream station specter, we are proposing a pattern which is welcomed by them and it's something different from what we are having in the Toronto market.

833   I think Suthamie may add some more.

834   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Sure. If I could just add to that as well. We also have two English language programs, and so part of the structure of the English language programs is going to be looking at -- it's going to be spoken word and it's going to be looking at issues that are of importance to the communities that this station will be targeting.

835   So we will have a cross-cultural impact through that as well.

836   And I think the other point that was already mentioned, but I'll just re-emphasize, is that for the specific language programs there is a need to have specific slots for them on a daily basis because they don't have that opportunity right now, and I think what that will do is that will also feed into the English language programs as well as the top hits.

837   So I think all of that, you know, it's a total strategy and it's important for what we're trying to accomplish.

838   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I'd like to add something here.

839   THE CHAIRPERSON: Sorry?

840   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I'd like to add something?

841   THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, please.

842   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I have experience in countries like Kenya and South Africa. There's a station called Lotus FM, it's very successful, almost the same pattern of programming.

843   I was in South Africa 10 years ago and then again, I was looking at the format, it's very, very successful. Anybody can listen any type of song, any type of music and young audience and old audience.

844   So this is my impression to make this application into the Panel today.

845   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you. In your application you made reference to youth crime and gang activity --

846   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

847   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- being an issue in the community, and part of your intention --

848   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

849   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- is to have a positive impact in that area. To help me understand what you're trying to say there, is there a cross-over with this issue with ethnic identity, or is it a socioeconomic issue, or like are there youth groups who are at odds with each other based on ethnic identity that you are trying to address; or is it more a socioeconomic level?

850   MR. K. NADARAJAH: No.

851   THE CHAIRPERSON: Just so I can understand what you are trying to --

852   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

853   THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm trying to understand the problem you're articulating that you're saying you can fix.

854   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I think my son wanted to start that and then I will continue with that because he's in the age group.

855   MR. T. NADARAJAH: Well, in regards to that, I would have to say it's a bit of both definitely. You know, Scarborough, socioeconomically, they're, you know, not as high as other communities, of course, right?

856   In addition, there are several different ethnic communities and, you know, occasionally there are a conflict between them. You know, by proposing this idea of having, like a merger of all the different musics, all the different cultures, I believe it will get all the ethnic groups to appreciate other cultures and be able to identify with other cultures and sort of creating a cohesive, you know, community.

857   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So what you are trying to do is build common ground?

858   MR. T. NADARAJAH: Exactly.

859   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

860   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. I understand. Thank you.

861   Now in terms of this application, for our purposes the sort of minimum requirements are sort of 50 percent third language and 60 percent ethnic programming, which means that sometimes we have to break that down into more identifiable groups.

862   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

863   THE CHAIRPERSON: So you described your core audience as Asian. Asia is kind of a big place, right, so we need to unbundle that a little bit, unpack that and you have broken it into South Asian, East Asian and West Asian.

864   So what I need you to do, and you don't need to do it right away, you could do it in terms of an undertaking, is to unpack those very broad regional --

865   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Okay.

Undertaking

866   THE CHAIRPERSON: I mean, you referred to it in your presentation today a little bit with Persian and Arabic and that sort of stuff, so that we know specifically what sort of linguistic or ethnic groups are being served because there are obviously a lot of languages, a lot of groups within West Asia, South Asia, East Asia and that.

867   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I understand.

868   THE CHAIRPERSON: Would you be able to do that for us?

869   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will do that.

870   THE CHAIRPERSON: Break it out for us so we understood what percentage is here or there, or are you talking about something more broad?

871   MR. K. NADARAJAH: You want the table?

872   THE CHAIRPERSON: If you could tell us sort of which specific groups -- are you targeting, for instance, Lebanese, Iraqi, Iranian, Afghani; if we are talking West Asia, Armani --

873   MR. K. NADARAJAH: There's two --

874   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

875   MR. K. NADARAJAH: You're right, I understand what you mean, Mr. Commissioner.

876   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

877   MR. K. NADARAJAH: And thank you very much for the question.

878   THE CHAIRPERSON: Because that will help us know what languages are being added up in terms of ethnic?

879   MR. K. NADARAJAH: When I researched these couple of visible minority pattern from their website, they call it West Asian. I was wondering, West Asian? In every statement I can study, it's West Asian.

880   Then I went to my own research. Statistics Canada caught this group as West and Central Asian.

881   So my understanding is, West Asia is a vast area that according to Wikipedia includes Persia, Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa, the former USSR, Afghanistan, Israel, Armenia and others, you are right.

882   All of these places have their own languages and culture, but there are some commonalities. We have already decided to include a daily Arabic program and Persian program and Farsi, but there is really nothing for Afghani and other relatively newly arrived communities from the area.

883   We will broker two hours per day to a producer from these communities. We expect that the programming will be in English, Andari or Pashtu, but will also reach into the music of this whole area.

884   We have decided to broker this program block since we believe that independent producers from one or more of these communities will be more successful in drawing in advertising revenues than we could be.

885   We may well end up splitting this time block into a number of languages if there is a demand for it, West Asian, but we have only counted, it says, one language for the purpose of our condition of licence.

886   So if the Commission asks for detail, I'm willing to provide that detail in a chart.

887   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you. And you would be willing to accept those as condition of licence?

888   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

889   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. If you would have that to us by the end of business next Friday which is the 25th?

890   MR. DOUGHERTY: Twenty-third.

891   THE CHAIRPERSON: Twenty-third, Friday, May 23rd.

892   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, sir.

893   THE CHAIRPERSON: If you could break that down for us.

894   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

895   THE CHAIRPERSON: Just for the record, you would be willing to accept that as a condition of licence?

896   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

897   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. I have a couple more questions in this area, so you are offering 14 hours of programming in English; right?

898   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

899   THE CHAIRPERSON: But in your application you noted that the ethnic group you were seeking to serve is English; right?

900   I am not sure that you meant that, or if you were -- that that is just the way the application got filled out because unless, just to clarify, there is not an ethnic group called English that you are trying to serve with that, because I took from your presentation today that this is common ground that you are creating for multiple groups who are not from Great Britain originally.

901   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Do you want to take --

902   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: So, yes, you are correct, there is no ethnic group called English. I think probably what was, just to clarify, meant was that the target group that -- the group that we are targeting, mostly second and third generation, speak both languages, English and their home language.

903   But as I mentioned, there will be two English language programs --

904   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

905   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: -- aimed at all of the groups that we're targeting --

906   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

907   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: -- of various ethnicities.

908   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

909   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: English --

910   THE CHAIRPERSON: So the English programming is -- you can characterize it however you want but I'm taking that it's, I was going to say non-ethnic, but it's actually multi-ethnic.

911   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Correct.

912   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Correct.

913   THE CHAIRPERSON: So it's all groups.

914   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Right.

915   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Correct.

916   THE CHAIRPERSON: In that sense. Okay. Now, with that application, one of the things in your original application, your currently composed levels of ethnic and third language programming actually add up to, in part because you identify the English as ethnic, it adds up to a hundred percent ethnic programming and 89 percent third language each week.

917   Now, again, you can think about this and get back to us in terms of an undertaking, but if we were to ask you to lock that in as a condition of licence, you could accept that, but you would also be -- anyway, I'm just asking.

918   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

919   THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you really want to accept the hundred percent ethnic when, as you just said, that 14 hours of English isn't your intention to be ethnic; it's the intention to be designated as mono-ethnic as opposed to multi-ethnic? I told you this would get complicated.

--- Laughter

920   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will do that.

921   THE CHAIRPERSON: So, you might want to sort of refresh that when you are breaking down the West Asian, South Asian and East Asian and then put that together in terms of what you really think you want to accept as conditions of licence, you know what I mean?

922   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

923   THE CHAIRPERSON: Because we would have to, or we would want to consider your willingness to accept conditions of licence around this, and the way the current application stands you are locked in at a hundred percent ethnic and 89 percent third language.

924   And it's up to you to decide what you -- because I'm getting a sense of the way the application was filled out and what you said here is a little different; right? I mean, the same intention --

925   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

926   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- but I think it goes into the particulars of the --

927   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Go for more detail.

928   THE CHAIRPERSON: Yeah, of the exact form for that. So, again, can you do that --

929   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will.

930   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- with an undertaking or not, and you don't have to, that these would be conditions of licence by end of business day 23rd.

931   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will do that, Commissioner.

932   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you.

933   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

934   THE CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I had one more thing to go back on that. And also, in your oral presentation you indicated 25 hours a week of high quality spoken word and in your written application you referred to 40 percent or what amounts to 50.4 hours of spoken word.

935   So I'd just like to clarify whether it was the 25 we're going with in your application --

936   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Twenty-five is the correct one.

937   THE CHAIRPERSON: Twenty-five?

938   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

939   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

940   MR. K. NADARAJAH: There's a detailed chart in the application about the spoken word.

941   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

942   MR. K. NADARAJAH: That's in our spoken word section.

943   THE CHAIRPERSON: I mean, I don't care --

944   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

--- Laughter

945   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- other than --

946   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

947   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- other than what's the number. We're going with 25 hours?

948   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Twenty-five hours, yeah.

949   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

950   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Commissioner.

951   THE CHAIRPERSON: In terms of that, and you would accept that as a condition of licence as well?

952   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Mr. Commissioner.

953   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Now, on sort of your business plan, how are you going to make money serving -- and I'm taking your primary audience is between 15 and 24 years old, right. How are you going to make money serving that audience?

954   I can see you attracting that audience, but how do you sell that to advertisers, because one of the distinguishing features of 15-24 year olds anywhere is that most of them don't have a lot of money, right, and are, therefore, of less interest to advertisers, except maybe your companies in terms of advertising.

955   So how does that work from a business point of view, like where is your core advertiser for that group?

956   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I welcome this question very much. When I drafted my application I had the same question.

957   THE CHAIRPERSON: Good.

--- Laughter

958   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes. I've been discussing with many friends in the broadcasting industry, mainstream and ethnic media and a few friends of my -- you know, same area and I came up with the answer that was very, very interesting, and Suthamie, you are the one, you gave me one of the best answers I think. Can you take it?

959   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Sure. So, I think, you know, when you're looking at that target market, you're right, they have less, you know, sometimes no income or discretionary income, but they do have a lot of influence when it comes to the purchasing decisions and I think more and more in the marketing world that's being realized today.

960   So when it comes to, you know, speaking to advertisers and getting advertising revenue, what's really going to be key is letting them know, you know, who is influencing the decisions that are made at home and especially now with that generation being online and being privy to a lot of information, they're also very knowledgeable.

961   So oftentimes the first generation, they do rely on that target market for information and knowledge, and so I think that's going to be a key point.

962   THE CHAIRPERSON: So, what sort of advertising? Sell me an ad; all right. What sort of advertiser -- tell me what your audience is going to be, tell me how much money they have, tell me what sort of product?

963   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: M'hmm.

964   THE CHAIRPERSON: Pretend I run a store and I have every product you can imagine for sale, what sort of -- what should I be selling if I buy an ad on your radio station and who is it to?

965   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I'm working with many advertising agencies producing advertisements for the corporate commercials. I'm part of it, I'm an ACTRA member.

966   We do advertisements for Royal Bank, Tridel Corporation and Fido, Public Mobile and big companies, even Government of Canada and Government of Ontario.

967   Nike -- Nike, one of the best example for that. When the younger generation listen to the radios and Nike Company want to advertise with us and this generation can influence their parents to buy the product, instead of going to the regular ethnic radio station like the first generation listens.

968   I have the owner experience that -- in an SCMO. Every time when we go for commercial we are rejected by the advertiser saying that old people listening, who's going to -- they are sitting at home, senior homes, we don't want to give that advertisement, old people listening, we want to give our advertisement for a younger crowd.

969   So this is my primary group, Mr. Commissioner. I have a secondary group also which is starting from 24-49.

970   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

971   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes. So both will bring a fortune.

972   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So now this is what I sort of take from that, is you noticed with the SCMO experience that the first generation is less attractive --

973   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

974   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- the second and third generation --

975   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, very.

976   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- are more attractive to advertisers than the first --

977   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Mr. Commissioner.

978   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- because --

979   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Fourteen years as SCMO, I have the same thing.

980   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- because they are old like me, right?

981   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I am getting old too.

--- Laughter

982   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right, okay. No, I understand. I understand that now in terms of when you are --

983   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Every day we are facing that hurdle. Every day we are facing that hurdle.

984   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

985   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Every day.

986   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

987   MR. K. NADARAJAH: They reject it. Senior people, we don't want to give advertisement there, they are in a senior home, they come out and buy it? No.

988   THE CHAIRPERSON: Yeah. No, I get that.

989   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

990   THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand, thanks. Now, as you've mentioned, maybe in a different way, but the Greater Toronto Area already has a lot of ethnic radio, licensed and unlicensed, or radio aimed at ethnic audiences.

991   It would be fair to say that all of Toronto is one grand --

992   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

993   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- ethnic audience or multi-ethnic audience in that sense --

994   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

995   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- given its nature. Aren't the markets already pretty well served?

996   MR. K. NADARAJAH: No.

997   THE CHAIRPERSON: This is what's unique and nobody else is doing what you're doing?

998   MR. K. NADARAJAH: This is what we need to fill in and my observation, some of those European language is not being served. Italian is served well, Portuguese served well, Spanish served well, Greek served well, Punjabi almost served well, Tamil fairly served well, Farsi almost, and CMR 101.3 is serving Tamil and South Asian languages, CNI AM 1650 serving for South Asian.

999   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

1000   MR. K. NADARAJAH: And lots of program coming from 770 border of Niagara Falls, Youngtown get into Toronto and then CMR recently offer digital radio and that can be heard very clear all over the area where they can go and control, very clear.

1001   So they have a separate channel for Tamil, 24 hours; they have separate channel for Punjabi, 24 hours; they have Hindi, Urdu, 24 hours; and they have their own program 24 hours. So it's well served.

1002   But when you look at Toronto, you see the minority pattern, some are -- when I put my application in 2008, Mr. Commissioner, I proposed these languages, I think I may be the first one, 2008 for Markham and Scarborough: Arab, Persian, Filipino, 300,000 Filipinos; Arabs, so much, from 22 countries. They speak the same language, they entertain the same type of music and put together 300,000, 200,000; Persian, the same way. They have no program at all. Maybe half an hour a week from some other station. Some European language is not being served well.

1003   So 2008 when I put this proposal I been rejected because say that that time the recession starts, the Commission explain to me the recession time, there's no market for new station. I respect that.

1004   When I see in 2012 hearing when I went for my 1480, 1490, Mr. Chairman, you remember that full of people in the background for 200, 300 people --

1005   THE CHAIRPERSON: I do.

1006   MR. K. NADARAJAH: -- and same pattern I carry. I'm surprised to see lots of African, they have the same pattern, (indiscernible) had the same pattern, CHIN FM has the same pattern and then (indiscernible) even though it's mainly in English language but the same pattern and (indiscernible) playing same pattern for emerging artists.

1007   So it's quite interesting. So the Toronto ethnic market not being served fully. With this licence I think it will fill, but still have vacant for some European languages. That's my research.

1008   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So how would your programming, and if you can be as specific as possible, in say Tamil and Pakistani languages, how would it be different from what's currently being offered?

1009   MR. K. NADARAJAH: To full -- Abeer, do you want to take it?

1010   MR. ISLAM: Sure. I can jump in, I was actually going to jump in at the end of the last part there.

1011   You know, I think we've also communicated through our presentation as you may believe that the first generations of all multi-ethnic and all ethnic groups are pretty well served as Rajkumar just kind of alluded to, but I think the real opportunity here is in the second and third generations, guys like myself and girls like the one beside me here and I think, you know, being able to curate the type of music that they want to listen to will drive a lot of that support in that -- in those ethnic groups. So obviously I think the real opportunity is connecting with, you know, a younger generation because, again, I think we can all say that for sure. My parents have been listening to Rajkumar's radio station and they're happy with it, but, you know, what are the options for the rest of us and I think that's a really big opportunity forEast FM.

1012   THE CHAIRPERSON: So how are you going to convince Rajkumar to make sure it's not his generation's radio station and it's yours?

1013   MR. ISLAM: Well, I think the -- the plan with programing and -- and how we plan to connect with international radio stations to get what's really, really hot out there and funneled in and curated for the -- the east -- eastern Toronto market. I mean, like I said, I think some people are out there listening to it in piecemeal over the internet or however, but to have it all in one kind of place will -- would make it pretty attractive for, you know, someone like myself who loves music, who may be interested in listening to some other cultures while I'm listening to -- you know, I like EDM, for example. You can listen to a number of different, you know, language-based EDM tracks in one place.

1014   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So, that -- that will help me sort of ... Actually, I do have to ask one more specific question. How would it be specifically -- if it -- if it could be just -- actually, no, I think you just answered that question. I won't --

1015   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1016   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- I won't bother you with that one, but I will -- I do want to talk about the music a little bit --

1017   MR. ISLAM: Sure.

1018   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- in terms of what I took from your video and in terms of helping some of us in the institution understand better the nature of remix music; all right?

1019   MR. ISLAM: M'hmm.

1020   THE CHAIRPERSON: So, you've brought sort of a representative panel here --

1021   MR. ISLAM: M'hmm.

1022   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- of -- you know, as you've just pointed out, are -- you guys are the target audience, right? You guys are the generation that's looking for this radio station --

1023   MR. ISLAM: Correct.

1024   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- right? So, first of all, I mean, we assume, when we just see "remix", because -- because we're regulators, we get confused by things we don't understand --

1025   MR. ISLAM: M'hmm, m'hmm.

1026   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- sometimes that aren't categorized. So when we see "remix", we're assuming that this is a mix of -- a sort of blended languages music; right? Is that -- is that correct? So you'd be looking at music that might be done partly in Punjabi, partly in English, or something like that or --

1027   MR. ISLAM: I don't think it's entirely that.

1028   THE CHAIRPERSON: Help us understand the -- give us a definition of "remix".

1029   MR. ISLAM: Sure. No, I think -- by definition I think you're correct, "Remix" would allude to self -- allude itself to saying that it's a combination or a new iteration of -- of an original piece, but in this case I think the term "remix" is -- is another, you know, clever pet name for dance music. Because traditionally, you know, we're looking at anything that was traditional and then kind of sped up a bit and given a heavy backbeat to it, traditionally we would call that a remix and then it's, you know, forced into itself into its own, you know, mainstream genre.

1030   So for us, I think really the -- the opportunity is is looking at new music being fuelled by people of our generations and their, you know, home countries, which are all following the same format. You know, Korean pop music is very, very similar to North American pop music. Well, it's based on the same roots, it's dance music.

1031   So, you know, it would be representative of music from those nations. Not necessarily intertwined, not saying we won't do that, but the main opportunity here is to curate the best kind of top pop music from around the world and bring it here. So as if -- you know, if someone, let's say, if I was from Japan and I kind of felt homesick because I don't hear any of the famous Japan artists that I have -- I have been hearing growing up, I have now a place to listen to that.

1032   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. So what I -- in terms of the programing, would there be -- would the music from various international backgrounds then be just going on throughout the day, right, or would -- would it be segmented so this is more --

1033   MR. K. NADARAJAH: (indiscernible)

1034   MR. ISLAM: Yeah, I believe -- I believe we have alluded to --

1035   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- South Asian dance music and this is more Middle Eastern dance music, and this is more --

1036   MR. ISLAM: Correct.

1037   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- East Asian.

1038   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Correct.

1039   MR. ISLAM: I think based on the -- on the blocking charts that we've been describing here --

1040   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

1041   MR. ISLAM: -- there'll be, you know, specific kind of language blocks.

1042   THE CHAIRPERSON: So the music would be specifically --

1043   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Mr. Commissioner.

1044   MR. ISLAM: Correct.

1045   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- to those -- to those languages.

1046   MR. ISLAM: But there would also be kind of a weekend countdown of all the world's best music, so then people will have an opportunity to discover and sample something new. But otherwise, you know, that master chart will then feed down into the -- the localized more, you know, language-based programs.

1047   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So then very quickly I just need to hear from everybody on the panel who is not of Rajkumar's generation what music they would be promoting on this radio station. So we'll start --

1048   MR. ISLAM: (Indiscernible/overlapping speakers).

1049   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- over there.

1050   MR. OROKZAI: Hi, Mr. Peter [sic].

1051   I'd say we would like to share music that a lot of people haven't even heard. We have a lot of artists that we work with and they come from my country. These are the artists that they don't get support at all. So, we're trying to be the radio station that would like to support these artists. And they're young generation and they're Canadian citizens, but it's just that they sing in different languages but they use Westernized music.

1052   THE CHAIRPERSON: And what is your background?

1053   MR. OROKZAI: My background is from Afghanistan.

1054   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thank you. Next.

1055   MS KHORSHIDCHEH: I am Delnaz. And for me, I love all kinds of music. I am very cultured and I -- I enjo-- I love this city because it's so diverse. And I think for me personally, the types of music I listen to, definitely Persian music, new and old actually, as well as Arabic music. Even though I can't understand sometimes the music, I can definitely sing along to it because I love it so much. And Turkish music, Greek music, Armenian music. And I can name as many artists as possible too.

1056   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. And your background is?

1057   MS KHORSHIDCHEH: I'm Persian. Iranian.

1058   THE CHAIRPERSON: Iranian. Thank you.

1059   Go. Give us your favourite --

1060   MR. ISLAM: My background is -- is Indian, born and raised here. I've got to tell you there is an amazing hip hop movement in Korea that I think everyone would really benefit from. So that's a great example of something that's really top of mind right now. That would be awesome. That would be a great feature for this -- for this radio station.

1061   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

1062   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Sure. And my background is I am Sri Lankan and Tamil. And so -- but my, I guess, interest in music is both Tamil music, I love Arabic music, I love Hindi music. So there's a -- there's a whole mix of music that I enjoy.

1063   And, I mean, just not to add too much, but I also think of our generation there's a lot of people that study abroad. And, you know, I've studied abroad in France as well and I've loved hearing the music that was there, hearing the Arabic music that they play because it's a big part of the culture there as well. So, alluding to what Rajkumar had said about the Arabic population, you know, those are the types of music that I would tune into, but more so the newer music, not necessarily the -- the classics, right?

1064   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

1065   MR. T. NADARAJAH: My background is Sri Lankan and Tamil. In terms, like, the music that I listen to, of course Tamil music, Hindi music, Korean pop definitely, even Arabic music in Afghanistan, Afghani, Pakistani music.

1066   I find that the great thing about -- is that all -- like, if you watch the video, a lot of them have similar beats and styles. So, it's a similar style that I like enjoying listening to. It doesn't matter if I don't understand the language or not, but I can, you know, sing along, you know, nod my head to the beat and enjoy it.

1067   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thank you. I guess that completes the qualified spokespeople on that file.

--- Laughter

1068   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

1069   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chairman. Amongst you who will be in charge of the music programing?

1070   MR. ISLAM: Myself.

1071   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1072   THE CHAIRPERSON: I just wanted some quick questions on your advisory council and you referred to it in your article presentation. These -- we can -- there's a little group here but we can make them quick. Who will be responsible for selecting its members?

1073   MR. K. NADARAJAH: For the advisory commission?

1074   THE CHAIRPERSON: For the advisory council, yeah.

1075   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We will -- it's my idea as to which of the ethnic groups --

--- Off microphone

1076   MR. K. NADARAJAH: To --

1077   THE CHAIRPERSON: Maybe you can just start again, your mike wasn't on --

1078   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Sorry.

1079   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- so the ...

1080   MR. K. NADARAJAH: It's my idea to bring leaders and groups together and ask their advice to form advisory council. Even high schools around our area of contour, I will talk to the principal and I will advise them or request them to put one student or two stud-- one student (indiscernible) member of the advisory council (indiscernible). So to -- to give everybody a fair chance to give us --

1081   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. But -- but at the end of the day it'll be you who makes the final decision?

1082   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Um ... They can --

1083   THE CHAIRPERSON: There's no wrong answer to this. I just need an answer.

1084   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1085   THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Okay, good.

1086   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1087   THE CHAIRPERSON: And so will members sit for a fixed term? Would it be, like, join my advisory council for -- if -- if you were to ask me and I'd say, well, how long is my commitment, one year, two years, three years, four years, will there be a fixed term?

1088   MR. K. NADARAJAH: It's going to be a two years term.

1089   THE CHAIRPERSON: Two years. Thank you. That's good.

1090   You answered that.

1091   You set out some of these social objectives in your application.

1092   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

1093   THE CHAIRPERSON: How will you measure your success in terms of that? You're looking at, you know, sort of more cohesion. You're looking to appeal to youth, and -- and you're trying to address what you've pointed out you thought have been some social issues in that. So how will you measure your success in that area? How will you know if you're doing -- how will you know if you're winning?

1094   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Again, I'm living in this area for 25 years. I have connections with every single community. And whenever I go for some -- I do volunteer lots. When I go for my volunteer activities, I meet their leaders of ethnic groups, and they always talk about this issue and they want to have a ground, a platform they can put everybody together. And for especially when we do our English segment or our regular basic programing, often we will invite Toronto Police or some responsible people who can educate them in law enforcement, moral values, law and order, and this will happen eventually throughout the program once in a while. So with the music they get the message how --

1095   THE CHAIRPERSON: I guess -- I guess maybe let me -- let me try again on that. I'm trying to sort of -- will you have some sort of measure of success? Would you have, say, user advisory council to, for instance -- and I'm not saying you have to do this, okay, you have to be careful with this, but just as a for instance would you have your -- is there some sort of -- sort of community health monitor that takes place in Scarborough, for instance, or would you have your advisory council give you a score card, for instance, every year that said, yes, you were doing good, you know, or --

1096   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yell.

1097   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- you know, try harder or --

1098   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We will.

1099   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- you know, I don't think we're getting anywhere, we need to come up with some new plans?

1100   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We will, Mr. Commissioner.

1101   THE CHAIRPERSON: You will have some sort of --

1102   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1103   THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you willing to undertake that, that within your advisory council --

1104   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1105   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- you would -- as a condition of license you would have an annual feedback on the social good you were achieving or? We can work on language around that. That's not very --

1106   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, Mr. Commissioner.

1107   THE CHAIRPERSON: That wasn't very legal term I just threw out, so ...

1108   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will.

1109   THE CHAIRPERSON: But you could write it yourself in terms of that, but to take the condition of license that you would be willing to use and supply it to us by the end of business next Friday in terms of the accountability or the report back that that advisory council would have?

Undertaking

1110   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We will.

1111   THE CHAIRPERSON: And I'm going to -- I'm assuming, but I just want to confirm too, again, it doesn't have to be so, but that the members of the advisory council, because there's sometimes distinguished people who can bring extra, would be from the Scarborough area?

1112   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1113   THE CHAIRPERSON: They would be residents of Scarborough or the -- residents of the area your --

1114   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Purporting to serve.

1115   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- station would serve?

1116   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1117   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

1118   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1119   THE CHAIRPERSON: Would you continue the SCMO if you had an FM license?

1120   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We're not going to stop it right away. I will continue the SCMO until it's sustained, and then I will stop.

1121   THE CHAIRPERSON: So your plan is to migrate those listeners from SCMO --

1122   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Slowly, yes.

1123   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- slowly to FM? And wean them off it. And I take it that ... Now, this is a different format than your SCMO, is it, or not?

1124   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, totally. Therefore, our -- I don't want to stop it right away. So I will keep the SCMO until it's sustained.

1125   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

1126   MR. K. NADARAJAH: It's --

1127   THE CHAIRPERSON: And the SCMO is serving an older audience?

1128   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1129   THE CHAIRPERSON: Who will have to learn to dance.

--- Laughter

1130   THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. Okay, I'm good.

1131   Now, do your financial projections assume that CJVF would vacate the frequency in the market or did you make any assumptions about them -- about them at all if you were successful?

1132   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah, that would help us because we're going to draw particular amount of revenues from that area. And our projections was very minimal. We -- I'm not boasting myself or (indiscernible) myself to put a lot of numbers there. According to my experience in 25 years in broadcasting, having connections with main media members and ethnic media members, so I come up with a very reliable figure. I'm happy that we'll go over that.

1133   THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. But, yeah, you said only 2 percent of revenues would come from existing stations?

1134   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes, because what we figure out is, you know, the SCMO has particular revenue at the present time, and we intend to serve the languages not being served or served little. There's -- I am not touching anybody's market. So that's why there's no revenue from any other sources or ... It's a new source.

1135   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. I'll leave that to them.

1136   Are you doing brokered programing?

1137   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes. In -- this station will be brokered.

1138   THE CHAIRPERSON: And so the question on that is how do you ensure oversight on brokered programing to make sure it -- it is of good standard in terms of the equivalent of the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council expectations?

1139   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We have a watch on their program. Station managers will monitor their programing. And also, if they have a talk show or call-in line, we will have a delay system applied to the broadcasting panel. So --

1140   THE CHAIRPERSON: Just my question on that is a bit technical because when it comes to third language programing it's -- it's often a bit of a challenge for people who don't speak that language to be monitoring it, right? So if -- if I'm your station manager and my background is Punjabi and there's -- there's an Arabic segment on, I mean, really, right? I mean, if I don't speak Arabic, how am I -- how do I know what's going on there?

1141   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Therefore, we have advisory councils. They will feed the --

1142   THE CHAIRPERSON: Good. That's good. Thank you.

1143   One more question that ... You mentioned in your oral presentation that one of the urgencies the market is facing is that over-the-air radio spots are being sold now for less than you can afford --

1144   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1145   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- to sell on an SCMO.

1146   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Sure.

1147   THE CHAIRPERSON: And, I mean, I understand the urgency of that, but it -- it kind of makes me wonder that the market seems to be highly competitive in terms of that. So what has happened recently -- is this a recent -- because I'm taking it from the you've presented it that this is a recent phenomenon, that there is rate cutting going on in the -- in the marketplace in terms of advertising for that sort of stuff. So why -- what's the difference between ... If you're selling ads for, I don't know, $50 a spot, I'll just pick that out of the air, on an SCMO, why do you want to move into an area where people are selling them for 40? Right? I mean, if over the air -- if over the air right now they're selling for less than ads are selling for in SCMOs --

1148   MR. K. NADARAJAH: They don't have to sell that low. See, even though I'm an SCMO operator ... Last week it happened and I cannot name the agency who doesn't want to give me an ad. I quote $25 a spot for 30 seconds to advertising agency. They agreed to it, they're ready to go. Because there is an Arabian grocery chain starting in Toronto, first store. They're already in Montreal. They're starting in Toronto. They're going to start many around Toronto. I produced their commercial. They used my voice and I produced their commercial and I sold it to them. And they been in contract with me for many, many months, the cost of $25 a spot for 30 seconds.

1149   Before airing, 1st of May I supposed to air the spot, the -- the advertising agency president called me, Kumar, your rate is too high. I said this is the rate I'm selling it; this is a reasonable rate. Go to another radio station like CMR, they maintain the rate, $35 a spot or $25 a spot. And I'm a SCMO, so I may can come down a little bit but I cannot come down the way you ask me. And he named the station but -- and he said -- sorry, I shouldn't name the station -- but I'm going with somebody else they can give me for $5 a spot, $5.27. I lose all the -- all my contract, all my money.

1150   So over there a station selling this low, how we can survive as an SCMO station? How we can other stations can survive? How CMR maintaining their rates for seven years, 10 years same way?

1151   THE CHAIRPERSON: Right.

1152   MR. K. NADARAJAH: That's the way you've (indiscernible). That's the way the advertisers -- they will come. They need a place to put their advertisement.

1153   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Thanks for that.

1154   Now, I have one, I think -- I should never say one final question because people who say that usually ask two, but I intend to ask one final question and then turn it over to my colleagues. And that part of our -- what we're prescribed to do is ensure that this is the best use of frequency and that -- I mean, we're looking at a license here for Scarborough, for all of Scarborough. And I think you've sort of articulated the answer throughout your presentation, but just so I can pack it in a single answer in terms of this, why would successful application on your part ensure that this would be the best use of frequency in Scarborough and serve the entire community?

1155   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Always when we choose the frequencies -- I've been -- I've been seeing many hearings and I -- even though my application is not there, I love to sit there and watch. Sometimes I travel to Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary. I'm interested. I'm a man and this is my life. Thirty-five years I'm spending my life, this is the only thing I know. Every time when we choose a frequency of course it has to be a best use of the frequency. Especially in Toronto there is no frequency that we can identify, especially in FM. And I remember 1987 they said that's the last frequency, but this is a little spot that we get here.

1156   My answer to this is Scarborough is much more than a population of Tamils only. It homes [sic] to a large number of communities, including Urdu speakers, Koreans, Farsi speakers from Iran and other countries, and other East Asians, Arabs, Afghan growing community, Filipinos and Vietnamese. There's a lot of ethnic programing available in Toronto but little or none for many of these groups. We proposed a minimum of one hour per day each day of the week targeting each of the nine communities we will serve. Some will get as much as three hours per day. We will focus service on the second and third generation, these ethnic groups, Scarborough and rest of eastern part of Toronto.

1157   Most ethnic stations serve the older generation. We propose to serve the younger generation plus the older generation.

1158   We will (indiscernible) a wealth of world beat music that is lacking in Toronto market, I believe, from the communities we serve and there are many other styles of music that they listen to.

1159   There's a world of music out there, as Amid said earlier, including many Canadian artists and they are not being heard, emerging artists.

1160   THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. I think -- I think that summarizes it very nicely. I'll let Commissioner Shoan follow up with more questions.

1161   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1162   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

1163   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you very much. Just to follow up on a previous point the Chair made. With respect to and in your oral remarks you said that the arrival of CJVF-FM has had a big impact on the rates. You had a brief discussion on the -- the drop in rates. Can you tell me very quickly what -- if your revenue is decreased due to the addition of CJVF-FM to the marketplace, what number, what percentage of decrease would you attribute to the arrival of this station, or can you quantify that?

1164   MR. K. NADARAJAH: After the arrival of the station?

1165   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Yes.

1166   MR. K. NADARAJAH: 80 percent.

1167   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: How much, sorry?

1168   MR. K. NADARAJAH: 60 percent.

1169   THE CHAIRPERSON: 60 percent?

1170   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

1171   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1172   Also, you said you've marked with a number of advertising agencies that specialize in ethnic audiences.

1173   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1174   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Who -- can you tell me who these agencies are?

1175   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Diversity Communications --

1176   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1177   MR. K. NADARAJAH: -- a Chinese-based advertising agency in Richmond Hill. They are there more than 20 years.

1178   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1179   MR. K. NADARAJAH: They mainly served for Royal Bank, Canadian Tire, mobile companies, Fido corporations and many, many other corporate clients.

1180   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. So I'm curious -- because when I speak with ethnic broadcasters, one of the greatest laments is that they're not carried on BBM, they have difficulty quantifying their audiences and providing -- having measurement tools, in other words, so they can go to national ad agencies and say here's my audience, please invest in me in terms of advertising dollars. So how do these agencies make decisions in terms of which ethnic broadcasters to advertise with?

1181   MR. K. NADARAJAH: That's a very good question. I -- I understand there's no BBM for ethnic radio stations.

1182   I've been talking to them -- like, because I'm with them for many years. I've been talking to them. Even last month I had a comment from them. They said -- they advertised for one of the medical products, and then they said in that particular language station doesn't bring as much as response that we expected. I said how do you know? There's no B-- BBM reading. Well, we have some kind of statistics maybe that when they call and they were asked what language your -- station that you're calling from or what radio station you heard from. Or that may be the choice, but I understand there's no BBM. But they -- they -- they choose many radio stations that (indiscernible)

1183   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So they -- they have their own --

1184   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

1185   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: -- proprietary internal --

1186   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

1187   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: -- measurement tool?

1188   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yeah.

1189   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1190   MR. K. NADARAJAH: But not only that, I worked for (indiscernible). It's a big agency. Recently I start working with Span Advertising. They work with maybe 20 different cultural groups, big companies.

1191   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great.

1192   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Okay.

1193   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you for your time.

1194   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1195   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

1196   THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Simpson.

1197   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you very much.

1198   I'd like to go back to your new media strategy and ask a few more questions regarding not so much the programing but how world beat has been consumed to date. And here's where I'm going with this: Advertising has been supporting commercial radio for decades. World music has been coming through the pores of a community for at least the last 15, 20 years. You know, I've been impressed with the phenomena of -- of the take that it's had on not just ethnic communities but it seems like everybody is listening to it. And it makes me wonder about the revenue model of commercial radio and world beat because there's not a lot of world beat happening yet, particularly on stations that are of a commercial nature.

1199   So if you are not successful, is there an avenue, using apps and new media, where you can start bridging the gap between the demand for world music and the ability to make money as a broadcaster? I'm seeing -- you know, just to add a trailer to this question. I'm seeing radio revenues starting to be challenged by the move away from conventional radio and television into new media. And I'm just wondering if you're not on the tail end of so-- of a ch-- the tail end or the beginning of a change that you could take advantage of if you don't get an FM license, is there a way for you to jump that gap and commercialise through other means like the media and -- and make -- and make a go of it?

1200   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Overlying there's a choice, but it is not the best choice to bring the programing.

1201   You wanted to add to that?

1202   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Sure. So, I mean, one thing -- it's a good point. I think not just radio, all sorts of other forms of media have been challenged by new media and online, but I think, you know, what we're seeing more and more as well is there's a really key importance to having what they call omni channel marketing. So, you're not just in one channel but you're in several channels. So that's why we will be and we have to integrate online into our structure if we're going to be successful.

1203   In terms of advertising, as Rajkumar said, that won't be the main focus for advertising but it will add value because we are going to be advertising not just through the radio but we can put up the ads on our website. As I mentioned, we're looking to do an app, so there will be opportunities there.

1204   So I think all of that is going to add value. And for the advertisers, they're going to understand that that is important because they do have to be in several different channels. They can't just be in one if they're going to reach the market that --

1205   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: M'hmm.

1206   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: -- you know, that they're targeting and that we're targeting.

1207   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: M'hmm.

1208   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: So, I hope that answers the questions or?

1209   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Well, again, I'm sorry to be so esoteric about this or theoretic about it, but, you know, you -- in television, for example, you're just seeing the move away from streamed content with commercials into a -- away from appointment television into day-after television on -- on the web. And I guess what I'm asking is if you can't have an FM signal is there a day-after version of radio which is actually streamed radio with commercials? Because right now world beat music is coming through, isn't it, through internet radio and it's usually subscription and uncommercial. So I'm just wondering if you've got a B plan.

1210   MR. ISLAM: Yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot of opportunities there, especially when you're -- when you're, you know, broadcasting online versus -- versus over terrestrial radio. But I think if we're looking at -- let's take, for example, you know, our -- our planned countdown, our world countdown. Well, maybe that's a -- that's a property that can be presented by a partner. So let's, you know, maybe break down the traditional walls of saying we're going to have a commercial break or are whatnot. Maybe there's more ways to integrate brands and companies into our programing so --

1211   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mmm.

1212   MR. ISLAM: -- there's less traditional 30-second spots but, you know, our world 40 -- top 40 countdown is presented by Samsung or by Telus --

1213   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah.

1214   MR. ISLAM: -- or whatever the case is. So I think you open up a lot of new opportunities once you're online. You know, you enter the realm of video, which obviously you can't do in radio, so that's a big opportunity as well through the website, through the app. And again, building properties within our -- our programing that --

1215   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Right.

1216   MR. ISLAM: -- people can attach to.

1217   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Right. That's exactly where I was going. You know, is the online going to be a different form.

1218   MR. ISLAM: Right. And just to -- to follow up on that, as the proposed format here, obviously we'll have our major world chart and then it'll break down into --

1219   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah.

1220   MR. ISLAM: -- specific language programs. I mean, if we, you know, find, let's say, second tier advertisers like the -- the grocery store Rajkumar was referencing, you know, maybe that is specific to our Persian and Arabic hour or countdown or whatnot. So if we can find, you know, different areas where people with maybe less of a bigger budget can -- can integrate in, and then we can go for the big fish for kind of our big kind of marquee properties that we can share online.

1221   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: And if I could, sorry, just add something. I think, though, perhaps, and this is part of the question is though we will have all of these other channels that are the integrated part of it, the base is going to be the radio because there has to be a way for people to -- to come in and to find -- you know, to find us, and it's also important for being part of the community. So, yes, you know, there is online and you can do a lot with that, but it's very difficult if it was only online.

1222   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: It's hard to be found on the internet.

1223   MS POOLOGASINGHAM: Correct.

1224   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah.

1225   Yes, sir.

1226   MR. K. NADARAJAH: You mentioned in the beginning that if you failed --

1227   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: No, let's use the word "not succeed".

1228   MR. K. NADARAJAH: We strongly believe this is the new format and there is the languages not being served in Toronto, there's a gap --

1229   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah.

1230   MR. K. NADARAJAH: -- there's a market out there, and advertising agencies, they are looking for these languages to advertise.

1231   A friend of mine told me last week $50,000 offered by a company want to advertise in Korea, Arabic and Persian languages, some of the languages. They spent only $4,000. $46,000 still remaining. They couldn't find the media to advertise. I think (indiscernible).

1232   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you.

1233   One more question for you, either of you. I was really fascinated with your sister station idea, being able to cross-reference to Korean radio stations, Japanese radio stations.

1234   MR. ISLAM: Right.

1235   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: And, you know, essentially to pull in the authority along with the music and get a better understanding of what's doing well around the world. Now, could you -- I know you touched on it a bit, but could you give me a bit more of a sense of how that might go the other way as well in terms of emerging artists in Canada and how that feeds into the world system?

1236   MR. ISLAM: No, absolutely. I think, you know, CAN-CON is a really big opportunity for East FM and I think it -- I think it is -- you're right, it's a two-way relationship where, you know, we want to curate the best music from around the world, but at the same time if there is, you know, an up-and-coming ethnic artist from Canada that we would like to -- to champion, by all means. I mean, at the end of the day you're still going to have, you know, Canadian artists like Drake that's always going to be top 5 around the world no matter where you go. So, you know, you may actually pick up the phone and call SeoulFM and say, hey, what's number 1? Oh, it's Drake. Okay, never mind. What's -- what's further down the list? But I think you're right, I think it creates not only a channel for, you know, local Canadian artists to be heard in their communities but then again get that international acclaim potentially where we say, hey, we've got this great artist here, they've been charting for the last five weeks, for example --

1237   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: M'hmm.

1238   MR. ISLAM: -- really aligns with what you guys are playing. Because, again, I think the kind of bleeding of genres and -- and styles of music is -- is really applicable here because we can say, you know, maybe they don't understand English or whatever the language that it's in, but it can go both ways. I mean, everyone was dancing to Gangham Style, right?

1239   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Mmm.

1240   MR. ISLAM: I don't know, Korean, so ... I think definitely it's a two-way street that we can leverage each other's resources for that.

1241   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Okay. Thank you. I think those are my questions. Thank you very much.

1242   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

1243   Mr. Dougherty has a question for you.

1244   MR. DOUGHERTY: Thank you, Mr. Chair..

1245   Mr. Nadarajah, you mentioned in your presentation regarding the Korean language as being one of the languages that you'd like to target. However, it's not listed in your application as one of the nine languages. So I wonder was your intention to replace one of the nine languages with Korean?

1246   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I welcome that question. I want to go a little bit broad in this answer. East Asia includes many countries, including China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Mongolia. While we wish to be as inclusive as possible, we realize that there is a significant amount of Chinese programing already available in Toronto. This more or less eliminate China and Taiwan from the picture. The Japanese population in East Toronto is quite small, as is the Mongolia. This really only leaves Korean and we identify this as a language to -- which we have committed.

1247   This does mean that if we can add in some programing from these other communities when appropriate, we will do so. There is a great deal of interest in Korean pop in China and Japanese pop in Korea, for example. So while the programing will be a mix of Korean and English, the music will include a greater proportion of other East Asian countries.

1248   MR. DOUGHERTY: So just to clarify then, Korean would be one of the communities that you will be broadcasting in that lang-- in the Korean language and would that be in addition to the nine languages you mentioned in your original application or would that be --

1249   MR. K. NADARAJAH: East Asian mentioned as Korean.

1250   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay.

1251   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I -- I will give the details --

1252   MR. DOUGHERTY: So you mentioned nine languages in your application, so I'm just wondering -- you don't mention Korean in your original application.

1253   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1254   MR. DOUGHERTY: So I'm just saying are you going to be adding Korean as an additional language?

1255   MR. K. NADARAJAH: No, East Asian replacing Korean.

1256   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay. Okay.

1257   THE CHAIRPERSON: We need to go back through this again. What I had asked you to do was unpack East Asian for us, right? Because we need --

1258   MR. K. NADARAJAH: (Indiscernible)

1259   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- we need to recognize the specific nationalities and linguistic groups that you are serving; okay? So, "East Asian" doesn't cut it, right? We need it broken out into Japanese, Korean, Filipino --

1260   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Okay. Okay.

1261   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- Chi--

1262   MR. K. NADARAJAH: And Chinese.

1263   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- Chinese, whatever; okay? So we need in which language, whether it's Cantonese or Mandarin or Kaiping. I mean, we -- we just need it broken out and that's part of the undertaking that is before us. So the question was there you didn't have Korean written on your original application and you've mentioned it. And the question is are you adding Korean, yes or no; right?

1264   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Yes.

1265   THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you going to have Korean programing? There's no -- there's not a wrong answer. You don't have to serve Korean. You can play Korean music and not have any Korean-specific programing --

1266   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1267   THE CHAIRPERSON: -- but yes or no.

1268   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Korean is my language to replace "East Asian".

1269   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay. And just as a follow-up from the Chair, so then the -- what -- what -- as an undertaking then, you will be providing a breakdown of the original --

1270   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will.

1271   MR. DOUGHERTY: -- ethnicities that are targeted and -- into more narrow linguistic-oriented groups?

1272   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I will.

1273   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay.

1274   MR. K. NADARAJAH: I promise that.

Undertaking

1275   MR. DOUGHERTY: And then we'll -- there'll also be -- part of that will also be sort of proper characterization of what is currently listed as English programing, but are you going to -- as far as the revised language as to a condition of license for a hundred percent ethnic programing and 80 percent third language, we need to sort of have a -- a sense of that.

Undertaking

1276   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1277   MR. DOUGHERTY: And then finally, if you could provide language for the condition of license that you would accept with respect to the process by which the advisory panel will get the annual feedback on social good that that panel is achieving. Okay.

1278   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you. I will.

1279   MR. DOUGHERTY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Undertaking

1280   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

1281   MR. K. NADARAJAH: Thank you.

1282   Okay. Thank you very much. That's the end of this session. We will now take a 15 minute break. Thank you.

--- Upon recessing at 1505

--- Upon resuming at 1526

1283   THE CHAIRPERSON: Order, please.

1284   Madam Secretary...?

1285   THE SECRETARY: We will now proceed with Item 4 on the Agenda which is an application by WorldBand Media, on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated, for a broadcasting licence to operate a commercial specialty FM ethnic radio station in Scarborough.

1286   Please introduce yourself and your colleagues and you will then have 20 minutes to make your presentation.

1287   Thank you.

PRESENTATION

1288   MR. SHEA: Good Afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners and Commission staff.

1289   My name is Kevin Shea and I am Chairman of the Board of Directors of WorldBand Media Inc.

1290   I would like to introduce the team that will be presenting the application to you today.

1291   Sitting in the front row in the center is Prabha Selvadurai, President of WorldBand Media.

1292   To his left is Mark Lewis of Lewis Birnberg Hanet, LLP, our regulatory counsel.

1293   To his left is Ann Ariyadasa.

1294   To Prabha's right is Alyssa Schwartz, Chief Content Officer.

1295   And to Alyssa's right is Dr. Gerry Wall, our strategic advisor.

1296   We are also joined today on my right by Israt Ahmed and Brian Thomas on my left.

1297   Now, Ann in the front is a journalist and will be directly involved in the newsgathering, news reporting and community out-reach.

1298   Israt works as a Senior Planner for a research and policy organization and as a Scarborough resident an active member of Bangladeshi community, and an immigrant. Israt offers her experiential knowledge to inform her professional work in addressing emerging issues in diverse communities in Scarborough and beyond.

1299   Brian Thomas has agreed to serve as a member of our advisory board. Mr. Thomas has had a very distinguished career in broadcast journalism, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area. Our objective is to have Mr. Thomas work with our producers, in order to ensure that our reporters and producers adopt best journalistic practices.

1300   Now, before we start our presentation, I wanted to tell you about my own connection to Scarborough. I was the first fulltime program director when I was a kid at Scarborough Cable (CUC) in 1975. I was in charge of the community programming channels at a time when there were at least a dozen different cable companies serving what is now known as the GTA.

1301   There were very, very few off-air television program choices at the time. So community programming played a major role as a source of local information.

1302   Scarborough was a standalone community back then with a very distinct ethnic diversity and remains even more so today.

1303   We now begin our presentation. And I must say I am very proud of my association over the past four years with this exciting and innovative company.

1304   I have watched this young telecom engineer-cum-entrepreneur, Prabha, shape and execute an exciting media vision for WorldBand.

1305   From its head office right here in Toronto, this company is now operating radio stations in a growing number of U.S. markets.

1306   Now, Prabha would like to tell you about our company, WorldBand Media.

1307   Prabha...?

1308   MR. SELVADURAI: The company has been internationally recognized for its innovative approach to radio programming.

1309   WorldBand is led by a team of mainstream and ethnic media entrepreneurs. We launched the first HD South Asian radio network for the U.S.' nationwide market under the brand name HumDesi Radio.

1310   WorldBand produced FIFA 201O World Cup coverage for multicultural radio stations in partnership with ESPN and the games were broadcast in seven languages.

1311   Under the name Inspírate! WorldBand launched a nationwide one-of-a-kind Spanish-language talk channel on Sirius XM targeting the large North-American Hispanic market.

1312   WorldBand also created Radio Cadena Americana: which is a Spanish content (radio) syndication network.

1313   Based on comprehensive research and community interviews WorldBand proposes a multi-ethnic radio station servicing the 20 most underserved cultural groups residing in Scarborough, Ajax and Pickering, providing programming in 12 languages.

1314   In our presentation, we will discuss the basis of our application and how we got there:

1315   - Research of the Scarborough market.

1316   - Step 2. Is Scarborough's ethnic market adequately serviced by radio? Is there a gap?

1317   - Is there a demand from Scarborough's residents and businesses for a local ethnic radio service?

1318   - Within Scarborough's ethnic market who is underserved by radio?

1319   - How do we best serve our target market's radio needs?

1320   Step 1. As you will see from this slide, Scarborough has a population that makes it one of the largest Canadian cities, each of whom have multiple local radio services. Scarborough's extended population is approximately 820,000 and is growing.

1321   The major ethnic population includes South Asian, Chinese and Filipino. There is a high use of mother tongue in the home.

1322   In short, Scarborough is more ethnic than Toronto as a whole. Scarborough is a diverse, community-focused market.

1323   Gerry...?

1324   MR. WALL: Thank you, Prabha.

1325   Based on the 2011 Census, Scarborough has a population about the size of Winnipeg but it is the same size as Edmonton when Ajax and Pickering are added in.

1326   In the next slide, WorldBand compared the population of other Canadian cities to the number of radio stations that are licensed for those communities.

1327   To examine the demand for our service we asked and researched three questions:

1328   Are Scarborough residents using ethnic media?

1329   What are Scarborough residents saying about their current radio choices? We asked InCanada to conduct a Consumer Demand Study to look at that question.

1330   And finally what are Scarborough businesses saying? To answer that question we asked Strategic Inc. to conduct a business demand study.

1331   The Strategic Inc. and InCanada studies were filed with the Commission as part of the application along with additional evidence that has also been filed. But what did we find?

1332   With respect to the question of whether Scarborough residents have an interest in ethnic media, we were confident that the very sizable ethnic makeup of Scarborough would result in extensive use of ethnic media.

1333   In fact, there are dozens of ethnic newspapers, directories, and related media targeting residents of Scarborough that are advertising supported. But radio, as it turns out, is not providing a satisfactory media outlet for ethnic audiences or businesses.

1334   The InCanada study, which is the consumer study of Scarborough consumers concluded a number of things:

1335   59 percent would listen to radio more if targeted programming were available;

1336   72 percent are not "very satisfied" with their radio choices;

1337   And most importantly, 70 percent of foreign-language speakers at the home want a third-language radio service.

1338   The need for an ethnic radio station is clearly demonstrated by the findings of the InCanada study:

1339   77 percent of those polled, think a Scarborough-focused third-language cultural radio station would be a positive addition.

1340   Scarborough does not currently have a radio station focused specifically on its unique ethnic make-up.

1341   Scarborough business owners are equally unsatisfied with the present radio landscape.

1342   Strategic Inc. found that only 3 percent of business surveys use radio as a means of advertising.

1343   Current GTA stations are simply not focused on Scarborough as a market.

1344   75 percent of their consumers are "non-mainstream" consumers. Typically they are ethnic.

1345   75 percent of businesses surveyed are dissatisfied with their ability to reach ethnic consumers.

1346   87 percent of Scarborough residents shop locally.

1347   And finally, 69 percent of businesses surveyed are interested in a new multilingual radio station.

1348   What we confirmed is that Scarborough ethnic consumers and businesses are hungry for a new radio station that is focused on their unique local circumstances and needs and they will support it.

1349   We spoke to businesses in Scarborough, Ajax and Pickering and we're going to see what they have to say.

1350   Mark...?

--- Video presentation

1351   MR. SELVADURAI: The next slide "Step 4" illustrates --

1352   THE SECRETARY: Sorry, please open your mike. Thank you.

1353   MR. SELVADURAI: Sorry. Sorry.

1354   The next slide "Step 4" illustrates how we determined which ethnic groups are underserved in Scarborough and addressed the question "Who Do We Serve?"

1355   We created a radio index that is based on ethnic population and the number of weekly hours of programming on GTA stations whose market area encompasses Scarborough.

1356   We also identified those language groups who are currently super-served by existing radio stations. Those include Cantonese, Punjabi and Hindi-speaking residents.

1357   We determined that those three groups -- they are not underserved. You will see on the table in the right-hand column marked in "green" the 12 languages that will be provided by WorldBand.

1358   MS SCHWARTZ: In Step 5, we asked the question, "How do we best serve our target market's radio needs?"

1359   We will do this by providing quality, targeted programming and through a commitment to the community.

1360   With respect to targeted programming, we have come forward with a proposal which differentiates WorldBand's radio service from other ethnic radio programming.

1361   The next slide provides a comparison of the WorldBand programming schedule, relative to two stations that target Scarborough radio listeners. You will see that there is no overlap of programming in key time slots.

1362   We also have a realistic production strategy because we understand the economics of radio relative to the smallest population groups who we will serve.

1363   Employing our expertise, WorldBand's in-house production staff will provide weekly programming in six languages and provide a framework for independent producers.

1364   The independent producers will follow station guidelines in production, quality and using our programming clocks in order to have a consistent sound across all of the time slots.

1365   The station will provide services to the producers including newsgathering, scripting, commercial production, sound engineering and technical assistance.

1366   The quality independent producer format allows for financial stability, diversity of voices and is a true reflection of the community.

1367   We have identified four editorial pillars or guiding themes which reflect the needs and goals of our target audience, regardless of which ethnic group they belong to.

1368   The first one is pride in the unique places our listeners come from and where they are now. It's about programming that reflects their cultural heritage and achievements as new Canadians. This means things like music whether from their homeland or from emerging Canadian artists and segments recognizing the achievement of members of the community.

1369   The second is empowerment, which refers to the inspiration and tools these groups can use to help them live successful lives here in Canada, whether that's call-in segments with local doctors to lifestyle or business experts who will help listeners live their best lives.

1370   Our next theme is community, a focus on the things that bring our listeners together, as members of their own ethnic community and as Scarborough residents; events, hyper-local news and interviews with local figures and politicians.

1371   Lastly, Scarborough One is about navigating Canada, giving our listeners an understanding of things like community resources that are available to them, how to sign their kids up for Toronto Parks and Rec summer camp, for example, or fun segments that make sense of Canadian pastimes and traditions that might seem unfamiliar to new-comers, told in a language they understand.

1372   As you will see from the next slide, the programming itself will also be targeted, featuring music, talk and news which fits community needs and interests.

1373   If you turned on Scarborough One today, here are some examples of the programming you would hear:

1374   Cutting Chai, which means Brisk Morning Tea, is a daily morning drive show which will share the rich culture and heritage of Scarborough's Urdu community and allow community members to express their views and be heard.

1375   Produced by Dev Sagar, who himself has been a part of Scarborough's Urdu-speaking community for more than 12 years, this programming will be centred on the music of Bollywood, Pakistani folk songs, modern fusion music and other cultural programming we know to be attractive to the 44 percent of Urdu-speaking South Asian community members who are under the age of 35.

1376   While Scarborough One's talk programming will not shy away from the more serious issues that face our target communities, we will address these through programming that is inspiring, empowering and actionable.

1377   In partnership with local doctors, Rx Scarborough will be a call-in show in each of our core languages where listeners can learn how to better navigate the healthcare system.

1378   For example, they might learn how to find a GP or explore issues such as vaccination and flu shots and also talk about the very specific health issues which uniquely affect ethnic communities and how they can take a preventative approach towards illness.

1379   Heroes, also in our core languages, will allow community members to nominate and vote on someone local who has had an impact on their life, whether that's a teacher, a business leader or even their own grandmother. Shows will explore the lives of these everyday local heroes as seen by the community members they have touched.

1380   In this slide, we will show you a sample format "clock". From our international programming experience we know ethnic radio listeners are sophisticated and they look for consistency and quality in their radio programming. They expect no less in terms of program production values than they do from English-language programming.

1381   We will strive for a consistency of presentation throughout our in-house produced programming and through the programs produced by independent producers.

1382   MS ARIYADASA: This brings us to the question, "What will be the impact of WorldBand's Scarborough One radio service on existing radio stations?"

1383   WorldBand will not disturb existing broadcast licensees.

1384   The 3 millivolt-per-metre market area does not intrude into Malton or Mississauga where other smaller ethnic broadcasters are licensed, who provide some similar ethnic programming. The 3mV-per metre market area encompasses only Scarborough, representing less than 12 percent of the GTA population.

1385   On our station there will be no Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi or Punjabi language programming as these groups are super served by incumbent stations. We will only target the underserved markets in Scarborough.

1386   WorldBand will repatriate listeners from WTOR to our Udu and Gujarati programming. WorldBand will serve the current Tamil listeners to 102.7

1387   In the next few slides, we will focus on regulatory policy requirements. WorldBand has made a significant commitment as an ethnic licensee to the development of Canadian talent. We have pledged to spend $210,000 over and above funding over seven years.

1388   The first recipient is the Community Radio Fund of Canada. We will also endow a scholarship fund in partnership with the University of Toronto. We will also fund paid internships, money will be paid directly to the University of Toronto.

1389   WorldBand's proposal exceeds the requirements of the Ethnic Broadcasting Policy by a wide margin. One hundred percent will be ethnic programming and 98 percent will be third language programming.

1390   WorldBand also meets the broad service requirements of the Policy. The following chart was compiled from the most recent renewals of area ethnic radio stations. WorldBand ranks very high relative to incumbent stations by providing weekly programming in 12 languages to 20 cultural groups.

1391   Furthermore, as shown in Slide 14, the number of hours allocated to each language is balanced and provides a true diversity of voices to the local community.

1392   MR. SELVADURAI: There is then the question as to why WorldBand would make the best use of a valuable public resource, 102.7 MHz that may be the last viable FM frequency in the GTA.

1393   We believe that the Commission's Diversity of Voices Policy provides some guidance in that regard.

1394   Licensing WorldBand will add to the number of independent editorial voices in a market that is dominated by vertically integrated companies.

1395   Licensing WorldBand will increase radio ownership by members of visible minorities who are underrepresented in Canadian broadcast ownership and management.

1396   This will also contribute to rebalancing media ownership in a market that has seen further massive media consolidation of TV and radio services in 2013.

1397   WorldBand will add significantly to the diversity of radio programming available to the listeners.

1398   WorldBand will provide a new local radio service based in Scarborough, providing a voice for local ethnic independent producers.

1399   In summary, there is a market and need for more ethnic programming dedicated to listeners in Scarborough. Some cultural groups are super served, others are not served at all, or chronically underserved.

1400   Our proposal best meets the underserved market's radio needs. We are experienced ethnic radio owners/broadcasters. We already have extensive community support for our proposal. We have a sound business case backed by two market research studies. We are committed to exceed CRTC's CCD and Ethnic Broadcast Policy regulatory requirements. We are committed to the Scarborough community.

1401   We will be pleased to take your questions. I will act as a quarterback along with Mr. Lewis. We will direct your questions to members of our team.

1402   Thank you.

1403   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Commissioner Shoan has questions for you.

1404   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you very much for being here today. I must say, I find your application to be very comprehensive and very clear, so thank you for that. There is a lot of great information in there and it certainly was a lot to think about and to chew on, so thanks for that.

1405   I want to start off my question with asking you about, in your view, the rationale as to why your proposal is the best use of the 102.7 MHz frequency. Based on your application, I have a few follow-on questions, but I thought I would give you an opportunity to say at the outset why you feel your application is the best one vis-à-vis the others.

1406   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, we have provided an extensive market research and a proper analysis of what is the most underserved market in Scarborough and we are serving the most underserved target populations in Scarborough.

1407   And we have the best -- we have the experience and we have clearly crafted a business plan with needed resources and financial capacity and we also have the experienced management as well.

1408   And also, finally, as a personal note, I mean, if you look at my investment structure there is a lot of -- many investors who own businesses or live in Scarborough, including my wife, she owns a cleaning and my sister owns a cleaning; we know Scarborough. We think we can better serve Scarborough.

1409   It's all about Scarborough's diversity community and we think we can provide the best voices for the underserved Tamil community in Scarborough.

1410   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you. I want to touch upon the broadcasting experience you just referenced. And in your presentation today and in your application there was extensive information with respect to some of your holdings and some of your undertakings in other markets.

1411   How would that broadcasting experience feed into this proposed station in terms of, what will it bring to the market that will be new and novel and different; how will it differentiate this proposed service from the other ones that are currently in place in the marketplace?

1412   MR. SELVADURAI: I think the first is identifying the audience first and who are the most underserved. For example, I participated in a competitive process for Sirius XM channels. When they merged, FCC asked them to provide a full percentage of their capacity for the underserved market and there were many mainstream, big companies, like they have hundreds of stations, for example, Entravision also applied.

1413   Why we wanted, we identified the right need in terms of the programming format providing an inspirational talk station. And we launched many stations in major markets, so we know exactly what is the most underserved.

1414   So that's one of the things that we are -- we know that our proposal is the one most underserved.

1415   Secondly, and I have experience launching station here with the radio and TV.

1416   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1417   MR. SELVADURAI: I have gained more experience in the last 10 years talking to various high professional broadcasters, I gained a lot of experience and if I launch my station, which I launched 10 years ago, it will be totally different in terms of the quality, how we maintain the independent producers' quality, how we provide the blocks and the stations.

1418   The ethnic audiences, they want good quality. They just won't, because I have an FM station I can do anything and I can talk, they want some quality material in their radio and I think we can provide that.

1419   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1420   MR. SELVADURAI: Just from our experience.

1421   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great. So, I just want to drill down a little deeper with respect to that. In your presentation today, you noted that your in-house production would provide or assist with providing programming to 6 of the 12 languages that you've committed to broadcast for; is that correct?

1422   NR. SELVADURAI: That's right.

1423   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Does that mean the other remaining six languages will consist of brokered programming; and, if so, will that brokered programming come from your various undertakings that operate internationally?

1424   MR. SELVADURAI: No. I mean, all the programming will be originated from Scarborough locally and there won't be any programming from U.S. And with respect to -- does that your question, or...?

1425   With respect to how we come up with the idea about how many languages we do and how many languages are we extending to the ethnic producers, and core language is Tamil, I know, I mean we can provide that well. And the other languages, the other five languages we selected, it's very small languages in Scarborough.

1426   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1427   MR. SELVADURAI: It might be not economically possible to find outside providers who can provide the program, but they need that service.

1428   So we are willing to cross-subsidize those programming. And in order to make a financial viable service, we partnering with ethnic -- I mean, outside independent producers.

1429   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Right.

1430   MR. SELVADURAI: And it is not just we are providing the hours and then giving the key, and it's a collaboration effect. What we are providing is the platform for them and also an experienced -- and what's our broadcasting experience and then stations, resources and all those things.

1431   And as pointed out in the programming, and I'll ask Alyssa to expand on that, they are bringing the community root and the entrepreneur straight in the community, they know how to market to their community in a narrow -- I mean, in a niche way and they understand community more than us.

1432   So it's collaboration effect. Alyssa, you want to comment on that?

1433   MS SCHWARTZ: Yes. To Prabha's point, when we divided up the languages and figured out which we would produce in-house and which we would go to third party producers --

1434   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1435   MS SCHWARTZ: -- part of that was based on looking at the producers who are out there in the community and who we felt were really -- who could bring really strong programming within our framework.

1436   You know, all of the producers who we've spoken to are currently involved in other programming. Our Arabic producer, for example, is producing a show on OMNI. So these are producers who we trust. Again, that doesn't mean we're handing the keys over to them, but these are producers who we feel can really extend our programming and really strengthen it overall.

1437   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, that's great. And just to continue on that line of discussion, so when you say that you will be working closely with them, it was the distinction I was looking for in the answer because when you say you are not handing over the keys to them, that means it is not classic brokered programming, in the sense that you are providing the space and people are coming in; you are saying that your in-house production crew will actually work with these independent producers as well to ensure that there is a level on quality of programming on the station?

1438   MS SCHWARTZ: That's correct. So we're not handing over the keys, it will be a collaboration. I mean, you'll notice that our programming costs are relatively high, considering the number of brokered programs that we will have within our schedule.

1439   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1440   MS SCHWARTZ: And that's because we're doing a huge amount of the heavy lifting.

1441   Our news gathering team will be working on news gathering with them, we'll be providing sound, engineering, commercial production, and that's really so that we can across the board, whatever time you turn on, whatever language it is, you know, the degree of quality, both in terms of the sound and in terms of the content itself that you'll be receiving.

1442   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Can I ask what the size of your sales staff will be?

1443   MR. SELVADURAI: So the sales staff, there will be three full-time people. They will be targeting the Tamil market as they are, the producers we will be hiring for the smaller languages, they will also, most probably our sales staff for that languages as well.

1444   And in relation to the sales staff, so probably five producers to produce those five languages, they will also act as a community sales liaison and also with these three people.

1445   And on top of that, every independent producer, they have their own sales staff.

1446   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. That's interesting.

1447   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes.

1448   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So there will be three full-time sales staff, and you mentioned there would be a community liaison person too?

1449   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes. For the programming, we have a full-time community liaison person.

1450   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1451   MR. SELVADURAI: But what I meant to say is let's say the smaller languages we are targeting, let's say Korean, the -- the producer we are hiring, he will be also a community salesperson for that language group.

1452   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1453   MR. SELVADURAI: Okay? And that's -- that's the one person. And on top of that our independent producers who are providing daily shows, like Urdu, Gujarati, Arabic, they will have their own sales team as well.

1454   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. I understand.

1455   Do -- I'm jumping ahead of my questions here, so I don't want to do that, but will this community liaison person also sit on the advisory board?

1456   MR. SELVADURAI: No, he's -- he or she -- I mean, actually our community liaison person is Ann.

1457   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1458   MR. SELVADURAI: She's our full time our staff.

1459   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Great. Thank you.

1460   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1461   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: You've proposed a minimum of a hundred percent ethnic programing, 90 percent third language programing each broadcast week. Would you be willing to adhere to these -- these weekly levels as a condition of license?

1462   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes.

1463   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1464   Would you -- would you be prepared to accept a condition of license that a minimum of 28 percent or 35 hours of all ethnic programing broadcast weekly would be in the Tamil language?

1465   MR. SELVADURAI: Repeat the question, commissioner.

1466   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: The commitment you've made to the Tamil language, which I believe is 28 percent of your weekly programing, would you be willing to accept that as a condition of license?

1467   MR. SELVADURAI: As a minimum?

1468   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: As a minimum, yes.

1469   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes.

1470   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great. Thank you.

1471   So let's turn to the advisory board. So as you know, in the Commission's ethnic broadcasting policy it's the primary responsibility of ethnic broadcasters to -- to serve and reflect their communities and their local programing. You -- I notice in your application your plans to establish an advisory committee consisting of 12 people, but I'd like to flesh that out a little bit further. Can you review for us the role and mandate of this proposed advisory committee?

1472   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah. I mean, their mandate is to give us feedback and advice as to how our programing are serving their community by acting as an independent council, but I will transfer it to Brian Thomas to expand on their mandate and how he intends to do that.

1473   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Great.

1474   MR. THOMAS: Well, one of the key roles, Mr. Commissioner, is that we want to make sure that the programing on this radio station, especially news and in all other independent productions or in-house productions follows the guidelines set in the codes of ethics by RTDNA --

1475   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Mm-hmm.

1476   MR. THOMAS: -- and also the CAB. And especially since, in my case, I am a professor of ethics in radio and television broadcast journalism at Seneca College and York University, so this is an area that I work with all the time.

1477   So I'll be working as sort of a chair of this council or committee working with the other members from the community to make sure that we have input regularly from them on the kind of programing we're providing, any particular things that they would like to see that we're not doing. So there will be regular input directed by myself to the committee and then reporting directly to the senior management. So, it's a full responsibility that I take very seriously.

1478   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, Mr. Thomas, and -- and you've sort of segued nicely into my next question about if you could elaborate upon the composition of this committee. You'll be chairing it?

1479   MR. THOMAS: Yes, I will.

1480   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: And in terms of the other 11 individuals?

1481   MR. THOMAS: I'll turn that back to Prabha, who will probably be selecting those members.

1482   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1483   MR. SELVADURAI: So, I mean, we proposed in our application 12 people from our language groups. So, in fact, actually we will have 12-plus. Mr. Brian [sic] almost will be as a chairman on that committee. And we will be selecting the people who knows what's important for the committee, who has -- have a lot of experience in terms of various aspects of the committee. For example, we have provided two bios in our appendix for the committees we already selected. One of them is --

1484   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1485   MR. SELVADURAI: -- is Dr. Israt [sic]. I will ask her to comment on her -- as to how -- what role she will be playing and why she is interested in playing.

1486   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Great.

1487   MS AHMAD: Thank you.

1488   So, I'm a foreign-trained professional immigrant. I was born in Bangladesh and educated in England, and made Scarborough my home.

1489   And in my day-to-day work, what I do, I identify different trends and, you know, all -- I do needs assessment, environmental scan, and I identify what are the needs in the community. So that's my expertise, but at the same time there are so many emerging issues that -- that, you know, I can provide advice on.

1490   So, one of the things that that's -- that has been happening in Scarborough -- you have to understand the huge diversity that we have. At the same time we are also -- also struggling with economic -- slow economic growth for many reasons, and the -- and the issue of regional connectivity, with especially adjusting municipalities.

1491   So, we -- we have to take into consideration everything that is impacting communities. So for me, I'll be able to provide all those information.

1492   At the same time, there are so many cultural nuances that a lot of people who don't understand. One -- one very quick example would be, you know, when India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were separated based on religion. And there are tensions between India -- Pakistan and Bangladesh, and as a result of that in 1970 Bangladesh became an independent country. So, there are historical issues that we really need to watch, make sure that people don't make any -- any judgment --

1493   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1494   MS AHMAD: -- calls. So -- so, these are some examples that I'll -- you know, as an insider I'll be able to provide.

1495   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great.

1496   Could you tell me what percentage of the composition of this advisory committee will represent the Tamil-speaking population of Scarborough?

1497   MR. SELVADURAI: We intend to select one from each communities.

1498   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: One from each community? Okay.

1499   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1500   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: One from each community for the language served?

1501   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes.

1502   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, thank you. That's great.

1503   And in terms of evaluating the potential success or effectiveness of this committee, how will you go about doing that?

1504   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, at the end of the day the success will come how less we have the complaint from the -- the audiences. So --

1505   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1506   MR. SELVADURAI: -- I mean, that's -- that's the end result, but we will have a feedback and a regular meeting. The advisory committee will meet -- for the first year they will meet every month, and -- and then after that they will meet every quarter. And, I mean, we'll have some online feedback. We'll have listeners listening, and then they will be able to send the e-mails and everything directly to the advisory committee if there is any complaint. So they will be on top of this, of what's happening in the station and all those things. And if there is a specific complaint comes in, they will directly involve and discuss with us and then provide the guidance.

1507   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1508   I had a question about your programing grid that was contained in your supplementary brief. You -- and it's at page 23 of your brief, just in case you wanted to take a look at it. There was a statement there that I found curious and I was hoping you could explain it to me. What it said was, "After we figure out the hours of service for each language group, we formulated the program grid such that Scarborough One doesn't overlap with any other station's program in those languages." (As read).

1509   So from a competitive impact perspective, I can see how that would minimize the potential competitive impact. But I thought, when reading that particular portion, certainly the stations that are operating in the market at present, the incumbent broadcasters probably have established a schedule based on the times of the day that their target communities would prefer to watch that programing. So in a sense, by formulating a grid to not conflict with their programing grid, are you not perhaps targeting programing or broadcasting programing at a time when communities potentially don't want to watch it?

1510   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, that's a good question, but, for exam-- but if you look at it, it's -- almost all of these languages, other than Tamil and Urdu, don't have a daily program or at least major programing in other language -- in other stations, for example. And if you look at Urdu and, yes, other people are providing programing, but Urdu, we are putting -- we also consider the business angle two ways. And Urdu, we are -- are adding in the morning show. So, it's a huge Pakistani population, so the morning show will be very successful. And also, if you look at --

1511   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, so let's -- let's continue on that -- that line right there. So, Urdu right now is -- is in your programing grid from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m.

1512   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes.

1513   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So, the rationale for putting in a morning show in the Urdu language then was? Surely it wasn't because no one else is doing it. Was there -- was there a reason?

1514   MR. SELVADURAI: The -- first -- first rationale was we don't want to compete with other people --

1515   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1516   MR. SELVADURAI: -- because that will business-wise hinder us too. I mean, we don't want to hinder their business. At the same time we're going to share the audience. If there is two programing happening at the same time, somehow we're going to share the resources as well. So --

1517   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I understand. So you're trying not to split the audience.

1518   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, there is no audience split, as well as both for -- both of us. And also, we put in Urdu in the morning show, so that will be successful. And Tamil is a major language, it'll be successful as well. And all the other languages, there is only two drive shows, either morning or evening. So they had --

1519   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Right.

1520   MR. SELVADURAI: -- to fit into other languages. And then we talked to a lot of people. I mean, for example, Filipino people. There's a lot of Filipino people they listen to the radios, when I talked to them, at home.

1521   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Mm-hmm.

1522   MR. SELVADURAI: So, putting them on the -- on the non-driving time, we still can attract that audiences as well.

1523   So it's -- it's a combination of what is available as a time for us and also what is available out there. So, that's -- that's the way we decided that.

1524   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1525   Can you tell me a little bit about your target demographics? We've heard from some applicants throughout the day some of them are clearly targeting a younger demographic, second or third generation. Can you talk a bit about the demographic you're seeking?

1526   MR. SELVADURAI: I think our target audience is 18 to 54.

1527   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: 18 to 54?

1528   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1529   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Is there a particular focus on any generation or age group?

1530   MR. SELVADURAI: I'm -- our -- I mean, I'll ask Mr. Gerry to -- I don't mind to answer, but the majority of the audience we're seeing is first -- first generation.

1531   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1532   MR. SELVADURAI: But -- and the listeners' ethnic -- I mean, if you look at the minority listeners, and it's a family-oriented listeningship [sic]. I mean, they listen in the car together, they listen in the home together --

1533   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Mm-hmm.

1534   MR. SELVADURAI: -- but what unite them is the music; okay?

1535   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1536   MR. SELVADURAI: So we will play the music such that all genre can listen at the same time. So there will be a little -- music for the mother and the father and the son or daughter. So that's how we will select our music around that; okay? But our target audience is kind of a family. Because we can't just have 18 to 24 and 24 to 48 in the mainstream because we don't have that many choices in the channels as well. And --

1537   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1538   MR. SELVADURAI: -- we don't have that many audience size as well.

1539   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1540   MR. SELVADURAI: So we had to somehow come up with an idea where we cater to everybody.

1541   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, I understand.

1542   Mr. Wall.

1543   MR. WALL: Yes, thank you. And so the -- I -- I think the explanation is what I would respond as well. We split it between 12 languages. So that's a large diverse number of language groups that you're trying to serve. If you try and slice it further than that, then you very quickly lose the scale that you needed to have to serve those populations.

1544   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1545   MR. WALL: So it's really the language that's the common link.

1546   If you look at the population of Scarborough, 620,000 is the official number that we're using from the 2011 survey --

1547   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1548   MR. WALL: -- and then break it out into the ethnic groups -- or the language groups that are being served, there's been a bit of a Tamil-centric focus, I think, to this point in time. And they're a large portion of the population, 45,000 of roughly 130,000 that we would serve in total of all the languages, but that leaves another 85-, 90,000 unserved. So you've got to split that between programing for 11 other languages plus Tamil. So given that constraint, I think the category 18 to 54 is where you have to end up.

1549   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1550   I'd like to turn now to financial projections. And I wanted to discuss the -- the financial projections you have provided in your application. And I was hoping you could explain why the sum of the revenues provided in your projections don't correspond to the amounts in the "Total revenues" line. If you could explain that, that would be great.

1551   MR. SELVADURAI: There was a, how do you call it, embarrassing calcu-- I mean the Excel error. And, Mr. Lewis, you wanted to explain how we intend to file the corrected one.

1552   MR. LEWIS: Yes. We -- we have brought with us corrected pages. So, we can file those.

1553   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. That would be great. Thank you very much.

1554   MR. LEWIS: It was an adding error, yeah.

1555   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Thank you.

1556   MR. LEWIS: But the totals are --

1557   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I had a whole series of questions about this mystery money and where it was coming from.

1558   MR. LEWIS: The totals are correct.

1559   MR. WALL: The totals are --

1560   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Oh, the totals are correct.

1561   MR. LEWIS: The adding error is, if I could tell you, in the "local" and "other income" lines, those numbers are slightly off. But if you look to total revenue, the "total revenue" line is correct. What we will file is the -- the revised sheet that gives you the same total revenue number but the -- the split is correctly calculated.

1562   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Amongst the national, local, and other?

1563   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1564   MR. LEWIS: Exactly.

1565   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, that would be great.

Undertaking

1566   MR. SELVADURAI: So -- but just to add on that, commissioner, the first year is right. And first year add-- addition is right. So based on the first year, the incremental is the one we made some Excel error. They are in the -- in the individual lines, but the total is right. So you're not going to see bottom line changes.

1567   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: That's great.

1568   MR. SELVADURAI: And -- yeah.

1569   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. As long as the bottom line doesn't change.

1570   MR. SELVADURAI: It doesn't change at all.

1571   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: It's just --

1572   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1573   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: -- an Excel error, that's fine.

1574   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes, it's just --

1575   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, great.

1576   MR. SELVADURAI: -- yeah.

1577   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: So, do your financial projections assume that CJVF-FM would -- would vacate 102.7 FM and cease operations?

1578   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes, that's right.

1579   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Okay. That's fine then.

1580   And you've clarified the other issue, that's great.

1581   Can you comment on -- can you comment on why you believe that only 5 percent of a fairly modest proportion of your revenues would come from existing stations?

1582   MR. SELVADURAI: This is the second year numbers --

1583   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Right.

1584   MR. SELVADURAI: -- (indiscernible). So we are -- we are assuming when CJVF goes air [sic], most of the Tamil revenue will come to either us or CMR. So, that'll give a big chunk of the Tamil revenue, that's what the existing station is. And all the other languages we are providing, there is no daily services available. So, they are not going to come from the existing stations. They are going to come from either other medias or it's going to be a new advertisement. As it says in our market research, only 3 percent in Scarborough population using radio as an advertisement. And also, ethnic businesses won't (indiscernible) other statistics there I can read as well.

1585   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Yeah, okay.

1586   MR. LEWIS: If I could just add one other thing and it's rather interesting. The Commission, of course, has heard the story for many years of WTOR in Surrey. You heard about the border broadcasters --

1587   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1588   MR. LEWIS: -- there. And we have actually letters of intent from at least one producer who would move over to Scarborough One. And so, those dollars are, I guess, technically in the radio market, they're going to -- you know, they're -- it's a U.S. station that those dollars are on. We're not counting that in the 5 percent. We're just -- we're just assuming a direct repatriation of that producer, the independent producer, with that existing client base coming to -- to our station.

1589   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Understood. Thank you for that clarification.

1590   If I could just go back to the financial projections for a moment. There -- there were three lines there for revenues: national, local and other. The "other" line is fairly substantial in every year of the projection. Was that also an error or is there a particular source of revenue there that's -- that's not local or national?

1591   MR. SELVADURAI: So, the national and local is the division of what the station produce. So if you are doing Tamil languages 35 hours and 13 languages, smaller languages --

1592   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1593   MR. SELVADURAI: -- the total revenue is then divided how much we're going to get national out of that and then how much we are going to get local out of that. So that translates to the first two lines, the national (indiscernible). So that's only for our Tamil language 35 hours and 13 hours --

1594   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: That --

1595   MR. SELVADURAI: -- 48 hours programing we do locally. The others is representing --

1596   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: The in-house -- the in-house production, is that what you mean?

1597   MR. SELVADURAI: In-house production, yes.

1598   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1599   MR. SELVADURAI: The first two lines is --

1600   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: The first two lines are in-house production?

1601   MR. SELVADURAI: In-house production revenue.

1602   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Local and national or the in-house produced program?

1603   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes, that's right.

1604   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Understood. Okay.

1605   MR. SELVADURAI: And the third line is for the independent producers payment for -- for the air time. So, that's a big chunk of it as well.

1606   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay, I understand.

1607   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1608   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: And so -- okay. And so -- well, that's quite interesting then because the other line is obviously quite substantial throughout your projections. And -- and just to -- and obviously I would like to hear more about you on that particular point, but if I follow the rationale you gave earlier, it's because you're using your in-house production staff to supplement, to assist communities that don't necessarily have the expertise to create their own programing, so they're [sic] not necessarily have the ability to drive revenues. Whereas for the other line, you're soliciting or contracting out independent producers who have the ability to bring in that revenue fairly readily?

1609   MR. SELVADURAI: That's right. That's right.

1610   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1611   MR. SELVADURAI: That's right. But if you look at the percentage of the air time allocated in house and the out -- I mean independent producers, it's in line with the revenue split as well. So --

1612   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: And so what -- what is the percentage breakdown?

1613   MR. SELVADURAI: It's the thir-- I think -- I have the exact number, commissioner, just give me a second.

1614   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Yeah, no problem.

1615   MR. SELVADURAI: So it's -- I believe it's about ... Yeah. The revenue is 35 percentage [sic] in house --

1616   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: M'hmm.

1617   MR. SELVADURAI: -- and 65 percentage independent producers. And if you look at the number of hours, it's very close, 38 hours in-house production.

1618   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1619   MR. SELVADURAI: Because we are doing 48 hours inside and then 78 hours independent producers. So, 38 percentage station produced revenue, and then independent producers, 62 hours. So in line with the hours we are allocating as well.

1620   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. And irrespective of whether the programing is in house or independently produced, the -- as the applicant you commit that the programing will adhere to either the RTNDA -- RTNDA code of ethics or (coughs) -- pardon me -- the CAB code of ethics?

1621   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes, that's right. I mean, as we said, I mean, they will have a very comprehensive agreement. We will outline all of the station policies and all these regulatory policies. They had to abide by this. And, I mean, the revenues coming from there, as we said earlier, I just want to stress that point, we are doing most of the heavy weight for them to provide good quality programing. We allocated a heavy budget on the -- our programing to provide them various services, like news gathering, station image, producing commercial production, sound engineering, and these things makes listeners happy and then time to listen are higher. In return it brings more revenue for them as well.

1622   MR. WALL: And just to add to the answer and Brian will say that it's not just simply saying you have to adhere to these rules and regulations. There will be a coaching or teaching function, educational, starting with Brian and establishing these things, flowing through the staff that are in house that are going to help ensure that the independent producers understand what they need to do, what -- what are the requirements, what are the constraints. So it's -- it's a flow through all the way through.

1623   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Mr. Thomas, would you like to add something to that as well?

1624   MR. THOMAS: Yes. (Clears throat) Sorry. It's a matter of coaching and in some cases doing a little extra training, perhaps monitoring. Monitoring is especially important in a station like this, that there's somebody listening and somebody commenting, and that we get input from -- from the other members of our council. So that we can discuss anything at the moment that it occurs so that we can then make recommendations if changes need to be made.

1625   So, quality assurance is the key issue here and making sure that somebody is listening to what's going on and has some input into what goes on before it goes on.

1626   MR. SELVADURAI: Okay. I mean, it -- everything starts from who are the people going to be the independent producers. And as of now we have agreement with four producers out of our six independent producers which cater to 76 percentage of our air time outside (indiscernible). And all four of them we can -- we have the agreement and we have the profile, they are professional broadcasters. They -- three of them had programing here with any other over the air, whether over the TV or radio. We looked at their history. They have no complaints at all.

1627   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Great. Thank you.

1628   So finally in terms of the financials, can you comment on your willingness and capacity to finance unexpected financial losses should you fail to generate the level of revenues you expect, especially in the first few years of operations?

1629   MR. SELVADURAI: Yes, we will and but on top of that I just want to add and we are fairly confident about our business model. As we are standing here, we have 92 percentage of the independent producer line, the third line revenue confirmed through agreement. So our business projection is very realistic and --

1630   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Sorry, you have what percentage of confirmation?

1631   MR. SELVADURAI: 92 percentage of revenue from independent producers we have signed agreement as of now.

1632   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Oh, wow. Okay.

1633   MR. SELVADURAI: Yeah.

1634   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: That's great. Thank you.

1635   So, I just want to end with some questions about ownership. Now, there were some exchanges on the record between yourselves and an intervener with respect to some ownership concerns. I am not going to go into great detail, I don't want to have a he said, she said discussion, but I would like some confirmation about a few facts, if that's all right.

1636   So, Mr. -- Mr. Selvadurai, can you confirm that when you were CEO of CMR that you never filed false information with the Commission?

1637   MR. SELVADURAI: I never failed false information.

1638   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay.

1639   With respect to the owners specified in Appendix 2A of the application, can you confirm that they're beneficial owners of the shares? In other words, are any of these shares held in trust for another party?

1640   MR. SELVADURAI: They are all beneficial owners. They are owners for many years in my company.

1641   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1642   In terms of the financing provided by Mr. Devendra, if he was or -- if he was just to decide not to finance the station, would you have financing alternatives available?

1643   MR. SELVADURAI: I have family members ready to finance.

1644   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. Thank you.

1645   Would Mr. Devendra have the ability to force WorldBand -- pardon me, WorldBand to buy back his preferred shares? And if so, under what conditions?

1646   MR. SELVADURAI: There is no such conditions. He is investing as preferred equity shares and then I have provided the sample subscription agreement. There is no such clause there.

1647   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: Okay. I just have one more question, Mr. Chairman.

1648   Do you have any financing agreements with a third party other than Mr. Devendra?

1649   MR. SELVADURAI: For the investment?

1650   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: For this. For this service.

1651   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean -- I mean, I didn't anticipate we need any -- any -- any such things, but I did have a discussion with my sister. She has a dental clinic and she is willing to provide any additional funds, and she can be here and then give you the assurance if you want.

1652   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: No, but you don't have a signed agreement with her? It's just been a discussion with your sister?

1653   MR. SELVADURAI: Discussion and then -- I mean, I can provide the agreement by tomorrow if you want.

1654   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: I'll let legal decide whether that's necessary, but --

1655   MR. SELVADURAI: Okay.

1656   COMMISSIONER SHOAN: -- those are my questions. Thank you very much.

1657   MR. SELVADURAI: Thank you.

1658   THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Simpson has a question or two for you.

1659   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yes. In your oral presentation you indicated -- this is the only question I have, by the way. But with respect to programing, your -- the largest percentage of your programing will be in Tamil and -- and I believe second is Urdu.

1660   Why Urdu for the morning drive show when morning drive would arguably be the most profitable part of a broadcast day?

1661   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, in Urdu programming it's for the community largely from Pakistani communities, and if you look at the Toronto statistics and Scarborough statistics, there's a large population -- Urdu population. And they're uniquely different from other Indian communities.

1662   And there's an established other medias as well, so they can sustain daily programming as well. And by talking to various people and we know there's a need for it as well.

1663   And as how the Tamil community established -- I mean, benefited from continuous daily programming in terms of retaining their culture and social issues and other issues or how the Punjabi communities benefited, I think we have to give equal prominence to Urdu community as well. They are the largest-growing, uniquely identifiable group amongst South Asians.

1664   MR. LEWIS: Commissioner, one of the other temptations, of course, is that there is an incumbent on the frequency who has a great deal of Tamil programming. And the philosophy of the company is to provide more balance and, therefore, the Urdu programming in a prime listening period, knowing that there SCMOs and there are other sources of Tamil programming, this does provide a balance. And that's what the company is about.

1665   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Yeah, go ahead.

1666   MR. SELVADURAI: And just one more question. I mean, when we plan it, I also, while I'm putting this programming figure, I also talked to various ethnic producers who might be interested. And one of the producers I first talk is Dave Sauger(ph), and then he said he want to do some more of the programming with one of his Pakistani partners. And he -- the reason he said he wanted an FM station to do programming, he couldn't get air time for that amount, and then he's doing programming currently in CMR radio.

1667   And they want expand their market reach and they want the morning shows to target the Urdu community in Scarborough.

1668   So it's not about getting in somebody else's. It's an expanding market for the Urdu community.

1669   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: So just to be absolutely clear, are you saying that it was as much a preference for management decision -- I heard what you said earlier in that you were trying to tread lightly on the competition because the Tamil market is not quite super-served, but it is well served right now, in your opinion.

1670   But did I hear you say that it was a preference or an investor choice to better serve the Urdu community?

1671   I'm not sure I heard you correctly.

1672   MR. SELVADURAI: Sorry. I mean, we looked at several angles, too, when we align our program schedule.

1673   First and foremost is, are we going to compete with the existing programming in that time slot. That's a key decision factor. And how else we are going to do it, it's the interest of the producers and interest -- and then the market sustainability for that particular time and also the key elements, we looked at it.

1674   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: And respecting your point about trying to not to disturb the market too much, but if you're successful, ostensibly the largest program producer of Tamil programming would go off the air as you go on, and so there's a removal, a removal of some 70 hours of Tamil programming. And to that, the other alternative is an SCMO where there's no mobility in drive time.

1675   So I'm just wondering -- I'm having trouble accepting the argument that you're -- I accept totally the argument that Urdu is an under-served linguistic minority, but I don't understand how you can just walk away from the revenue opportunities when the biggest competitor in the Tamil programming would go off the air if you're successful.

1676   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, we are not walking away from Tamil and we are providing service 35 hours in the prime time so --

1677   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: The revenue, not the community.

1678   MR. SELVADURAI: So I --

1679   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Prime real estate here.

1680   MR. SELVADURAI: Could you please repeat the question, Commissioner, please?

1681   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: My question was why Urdu in the morning? It's prime real estate for sales in a commercial radio station and, if you were successful, it would be at the expense of another competitive broadcaster going off the air who is currently occupying the spectrum that you're going after.

1682   So you know, would there not be a gaping hole in the service to that Tamil community given that the present incumbent broadcaster would go off the air and the only alternative they have is an NSCMO?

1683   MR. SELVADURAI: I mean, we only have limited hours, and so we had to be careful as to how to be -- and first of all, we want to provide the balance of coverage for all the audiences, so we have a choice whether we should do morning hours for Tamil or evening hours for Tamil.

1684   So if you give the morning hours for Tamil, we'll be competing directly with CMR and then take away their revenue, so we want to provide enough hours every day -- five hours is a good time of programming for Tamil, so they will have adequate services in Tamil.

1685   And that's the reason. And if you want to know why Urdu on the morning show, I can explain that as well.

1686   MR. WALL: Maybe just to add in --

1687   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: More -- sorry. Go ahead.

1688   MR. WALL: Because you're focused on the revenue side, and I understand that, when you look at the demographics, there's evidence there that helps you understand why Urdu and Bengali and Tagalog are the growing businesses. That's where the revenue is being generated today in Scarborough.

1689   Now, the Tamil community came primarily in the early eighties through up to the nineties. And again, there were a large number that were refugee status.

1690   Now, you know the immigration system has changed last year. There were changes in the Act. And as a consequence, you have to have certain investment capability when you come to the country.

1691   And again, this is information I've got from Israt, who's been telling me because she lives in that neighbourhood, that those communities, those ethnic communities, are coming with a different focus to this immigrant recipient city of Scarborough.

1692   So they come with the intent to invest, to generate business, and that's -- I think that's a fundamental reason why the focus has been shifted to these other language programs.

1693   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: So your answer is that you're recognizing emerging markets, and my question was, what happens to the existing market. And it was nothing more than that. But it was a revenue question, not a service question.

1694   MR. WALL: But -- right. But where else is -- I mean, if there's Tamil language revenue to be generated and spent on radio advertising, then as one gets the licence --

1695   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: So you'll get it anyway.

1696   MR. WALL: Well, not all of it, certainly. But certainly as Prabha explained, CMR will get some and maybe others. But yes, it's -- certainly that's -- we're counting on that, yeah.

1697   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: Thank you.

1698   MR. SELVADURAI: If -- just one more point on that.

1699   If we are licensed, I mean, I -- I have more numbers projected. I mean, currently there is two different rate card in the Tamil market. CMR has anywhere from $25 to $30, and the other CJBF, they are about, for 30 seconds, some people are confusing with 15 seconds is $5, it's actually 15 seconds is 5.75, so 30 seconds is $11.50, $12 and sometimes they charge more for the different ad they are mentioning and everything.

1700   So we expect that number of hours will go from currently 96 or even more or at least 90 to 35, so the number of hours will go by at least 50 percent, so the rate will go, so the market will be healthier.

1701   COMMISSIONER SIMPSON: That's it. Thank you.

1702   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

1703   I believe Mr. Dougherty has a question for you.

1704   MR. DOUGHERTY: Yes. This is just a clarification.

1705   In your presentation on page 13, you mentioned that you pledged to spend $210,000 for your CCD commitment, and you characterized that as over and above funding, over seven years.

1706   However, in your document, you -- it's characterized somewhat differently as $196,000 over and above, and $30,000 as the basic CCD.

1707   So is that a change or is that just simply a --

1708   MR. LEWIS: I've got to check the original reference. I appreciate that you're -- you caught it, and it would be 196.

1709   MR. DOUGHERTY: It would be --

1710   MR. LEWIS: But I'll check it in case we've transposed a number somewhere.

1711   MR. DOUGHERTY: Okay.

1712   MR. LEWIS: May I get back to you as an undertaking?

1713   MR. DOUGHERTY: Sure. Do is as an undertaking. Just provide it by May 23rd.

1714   MR. LEWIS: Absolutely.

Undertaking

1715   MR. DOUGHERTY: And then there was one other undertaking that was requested, which is the --

1716   MR. LEWIS: The corrected revenue.

1717   MR. DOUGHERTY: Yeah, the financial corrected revenue. Thank you very much.

Undertaking

1718   MR. DOUGHERTY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

1719   THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, everyone. That concludes our questions, and concludes our proceedings for the day.

1720   Thank everybody for participating. Safe travels home. And we will resume at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

1721   Thank you.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1634, to resume on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at 0900

REPORTERS
Kristin Johansson
Beverley Dillabough
Monique Mahoney
Jean Desaulniers
Karen Paré

Date modified:

2014-05-13