ARCHIVÉ -  Transcription

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE

             THE CANADIAN RADIO‑TELEVISION AND

               TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

 

 

 

 

             TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES AVANT

                CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION

           ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES

 

 

                          SUBJECT:

 

 

 

VARIOUS BROADCAST APPLICATIONS /

PLUSIEURS DEMANDES EN RADIODIFFUSION

 

 

 

 

 

HELD AT:                              TENUE À:

 

Delta Regina                          Delta Regina

1919 Saskatchewan Drive               1919, promenade Saskatchewan

Regina, Saskatchewan                  Regina, Saskatchewan

 

October 30, 2006                      le 30 octobre 2006

 

 

 

 

 

Transcripts

 

In order to meet the requirements of the Official Languages

Act, transcripts of proceedings before the Commission will be

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

and staff attending the public hearings, and the Table of

Contents.

 

However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded

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

either of the official languages, depending on the language

spoken by the participant at the public hearing.

 

 

 

 

Transcription

 

Afin de rencontrer les exigences de la Loi sur les langues

officielles, les procès‑verbaux pour le Conseil seront

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

membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience

publique ainsi que la table des matières.

 

Toutefois, la publication susmentionnée est un compte rendu

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

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

officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le

participant à l'audience publique.

               Canadian Radio‑television and

               Telecommunications Commission

 

            Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des

               télécommunications canadiennes

 

 

                 Transcript / Transcription

 

 

                             

              VARIOUS BROADCAST APPLICATIONS /

            PLUSIEURS DEMANDES EN RADIODIFFUSION

                             

 

 

 

 

BEFORE / DEVANT:

 

Barbara Cram                      Chairperson / Présidente

Michel Arpin                      Vice-Chair, Broadcasting / Vice‑président, radiodiffusion

Rita Cugini                       Commissioner / Conseillère

Ronald Williams                   Commissioner / Conseiller

Joan Pennefather                  Commissioner / Conseillère

 

 

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:

 

Chantal Boulet                    Secretary / Secrétaire

Leanne Bennett                    Legal Counsel /

Conseillère juridique

Lyne Cape                         Hearing Manager /

Gérante de l'audience

 

 

HELD AT:                          TENUE À:

 

Delta Regina                      Delta Regina

1919 Saskatchewan Drive           1919, promenade Saskatchewan

Regina, Saskatchewan              Regina, Saskatchewan

 

October 30, 2006                  le 30 octobre 2006

- iv -

 

           TABLE DES MATIÈRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

                                                 PAGE / PARA

 

PHASE I

 

 

PRESENTATION BY / PRÉSENTATION PAR:

 

Newcap Inc.                                         7 /   35

 

Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited                    81 /  340

 

Golden West Broadcasting Ltd.                     115 /  551

 

Radio CJVR Ltd.                                   151 /  764

 

1182743 Alberta Ltd.                              209 / 1076

 

Vista Radio Ltd.                                  256 / 1291

 

Harvard Broadcasting Inc.                         300 / 1489

         Regina, Saskatchewan / Regina (Saskatchewan)

‑‑‑ Upon commencing on Monday, October 30, 2006

    at 0930 / L'audience débute le lundi

    30 octobre 2006 à 0930

1                THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.  À l'ordre, s'il vous plaît.

2                Bonjours mesdames et messieurs.

3                Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Regina.  My name is Barbara Cram and I'm the Regional Commissioner for Manitoba and Saskatchewan for the CRTC.  I will be presiding over this hearing.

4                Joining me on the panel are my colleagues Michel Arpin, Vice‑Chair of Broadcasting; Rita Cugini, to my right, Regional Commissioner for Ontario; Ronald Williams, Regional Commissioner for Alberta, to Commissioner Cugini's right ‑‑ Alberta and the Northwest Territories; and Joan Pennefather, National Commissioner, on my far left.

5                The Commission team assisting us includes the Manager of Radio Applications and Policy Lyne Cape, who is also acting as Hearing Manager; Leanne Bennett, Legal Counsel; and Hearing Secretary Chantal Boulet.

6                Please speak with Ms Boulet if you have any questions with regard to the hearing procedures.

7                At this hearing we will study eight applications to operate a new English language commercial FM radio station in the Medicine Hat, Alberta, market.  We will also hear an application to change the frequency and authorized contours of radio station CJLT‑FM Medicine Hat.

8                The panel will then consider five applications to operate a new English language commercial FM radio station, and one application to operate a new English and Aboriginal language Native type B FM radio station in the Regina market.  As well, we will examine an application to amend the licence of the Native radio station, CJLR‑FM La Ronge, in order to add an FM transmitter in Regina.

9                Finally, we will consider eight applications to operate a new English language commercial FM radio station, and one application to operate a new English and Aboriginal language Native type B FM radio station in the Saskatoon market.

10               Some applications are competing technically for the same frequencies in the Medicine Hat, Regina, and Saskatoon markets.

11               We will study the proposals in light of the cultural, economic and social objectives defined in The Broadcasting Act, and regulations flowing from it.

12               The panel will base its decision on several criteria, including the state of the competition and the diversity of editorial voices in each market, as well as the quality of the applications.  It will look at the ability of the markets to support new radio stations, the financial resources of each applicant, and proposed initiatives for the development of Canadian talent.

13               Le comité fondera sa décision sur plusieurs critères, dont l'état de la concurrence et la diversité des voix éditoriales dans chaque marché ainsi que la qualité des demandes. Il examinera également la capacité des marchés à soutenir de nouvelles stations de radio, les ressources financières de chaque requérante et les initiatives proposées pour le développement des talents canadiens.

14               We will then look at the applications to renew Aboriginal Voices Radio's licence for its radio undertakings at Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa.  The Commission will discuss a number of issues with the licencee, including its programming commitments and its apparent non‑compliance with certain sections of the Radio Regulations 1986, and conditions of licence.

15               I will now invite the hearing secretary, Ms Boulet, to explain the procedures we will be following.

16               Ms Boulet...?

17               THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

18               Good morning, everyone.  Before beginning I would like to go over a few housekeeping matters to ensure the proper conduct of this hearing.

19               When you are in the hearing room we would ask that you please turn off your cell phones, beepers and black berries, as they are an unwelcome distractions to participants and commissioners, and they may cause interference on the internal communication system.  We would appreciate your cooperation with respect to this throughout the hearing.

20               We expect the hearing to take approximately one week.  We will begin each morning, starting tomorrow, at 8:30, and finish around 7:30.  We will take one hour for lunch and a 15‑minute break in the morning and afternoon.  We will let you know of any schedule changes that may occur.

21               The Tuscany Room, just outside on your right, will serve as the examination room, where you can examine the public files of the applications being considered at this hearing.  As indicated in the agenda, you may reach the examination room by calling 306‑790‑4735.

22               There is a transcript, a verbatim transcript of this hearing being taken by the court reporter sitting at the table in front of me.  If you have any questions on how to obtain all or part of this transcript, please approach the reporter during a break.  Please note that the full transcript will be made available on the Commission's website shortly after the conclusion of the hearing.

23               Simultaneous translation is also available during the hearing.  You can obtain a translation receiver from the technician sitting at the back of the room.  The English interpretation is on channel 1 and the French is on channel 2.

24               Finally, we will proceed at this hearing with a four‑phase process as follows:  First, we will hear each applicant in the agenda order, and each applicant will be granted 20 minutes to make his presentation.  Questions from the Commission will follow each presentation.

25               Phase II is where applicants reappear in the same order to intervene if they wish on the competing applications.  Ten minutes are allowed for this purpose.  And again, questions from the Commission may follow.

26               In Phase III other parties will appear in the order set out in the agenda to present their appearing intervention, and ten minutes will be allowed for each presentation.  Again, questions may follow.

27               Phase IV, finally, provides an opportunity for each applicant to reply to all the interventions submitted on their application.  Applicants appear in reverse order and ten minutes are allowed for this reply.  And again, questions may follow.

28               For the record, I would like to indicate that the letter dated October 4, 2006, regarding the use of frequency 102.9 megahertz from the applicant carrying on business as Northwestern Radio Partnership, has been added to the public record of this application.

29               Also e‑mails dated October 23 and 24, 2006, from the applicant Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc., as well as the Commission's response dated October 27, 2006, clarifying the calculation of CKAV‑FM's spoken word programming, were also added to the public record of AVR's application 2006 0872‑1.

30               These documents are all available for your review in the public examination room.

31               And we're now ready to proceed to item 1 on the agenda, which is an application by Newcap Inc. for a licence to operate an English language commercial FM radio programming undertaking in Medicine Hat.

32               The new station would operate on frequency 105.3 megahertz (channel 287C) with an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts (non‑directional antenna/antenna height of 214.4 metres).

33               Appearing for the applicant is Mr. Robert Steele, who will introduce his colleagues.  You will then have 20 minutes for your presentation.

34               Mr. Steele...?

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

35               MR. STEELE:  Thank you.

36               Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Commission, Commission Staff.  I'm Rob Steele, president and chief executive officer of Newcap Radio.

37               Before we begin our presentation I'd like to introduce our team.  Seated in the front row to my immediate right is David Murray, recently named chief operating officer for Newcap Radio.

38               Beside Dave is Ron Thompson who heads up our Southern Alberta group.  Ron has over 40 years in radio, with the last 25 years in Red Deer.

39               Next to Ron is Sue Stevenson, news director of our Southern Alberta group of stations, including KG Country and Z 99 Red Deer.  Sue has over 25 years of news experience in radio, with 20 of it in the newsroom in Red Deer.  At Newcap we are particularly proud of the quality of the news we provide in Alberta, and early this year, KG Country won the RTNDA award for best national newscast in the market category.

40               Next to Sue is Mark Maheu, executive vice‑president and chief strategist for Newcap Radio.

41               Beside Mark is Glenda Spenrath, assistant GM of Newcap's Alberta Radio Group East, based in Lloydminster.  And rounding out our panel is Brad Boechler, our VP of sales.

42               In this application we are looking to extend our news programming and community service to an additional market in Alberta.  Medicine Hat is really a good news story, and to give you some of the economic background I will ask Glenda Spenrath to elaborate.

43               Glenda...?

44               MS SPENRATH:  Thank you, Rob.

45               Medicine Hat has a growing and diversified economy, with strengths in oil and gas, information technology, machinery and food processing.  Its economy is broad‑based and well positioned for solid long‑term growth.  Medicine Hat shares in Alberta's economic good fortune.  Medicine Hat's population grew over seven percent between 2001 and 2006, and FP Markets projects another five percent growth between now and 2011.

46               Similarly, retail sales are projected to grow in Medicine Hat by 35 percent over the next five years; whereas, the corresponding rate for Canada is 28 percent.

47               These economic statistics paint a very positive picture, and an even more tangible example of economic growth, from January to May of this year housing starts in Medicine Hat were up a robust 32 percent.

48               In Medicine Hat a new entrant will be facing a strong entrenched competitor in Pattison.  Its two FM stations are well positioned in an AC format that draws two‑thirds of the listeners in the market at least once a week, and a heritage country station that draws 37 percent of the market during each week with high satisfaction ratings according to our research.

49               Their radio stations share facilities with their television stations and enjoy the economies of scale that accompany this kind of operation.

50               To be successful in this market a new entrant will have to provide high quality programming.  We have a track record of providing excellent programming in all the markets that we serve.  The synergies we bring in the back office, as well as the added value of our Alberta news group, mean that we can devote the resources necessary to make the station a success.

51               We must be willing to be patient for profits to come.  Our business plan does not envisage showing operating profits until the third year of operations, and pre‑tax profits do not happen until year five.  All the other applicants foresee profits at the latest in year three, and some in the first year.

52               We will maximize synergies to increase sales and generate incremental radio advertising revenues.

53               And we will direct the savings from back office and other administrative efficiencies to on‑air programming for listeners.

54               To tell you a bit more about our Alberta Radio Group and our Southern Alberta stations, here is Ron Thompson.

55               MR. THOMPSON:  Thanks Glenda.  Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Commission.

56               When Newcap purchased the Telemedia stations in Alberta, it was decided that to provide high quality service in the many small markets served, capital investment and programming improvements were needed to make markets viable.  The research and capital investment of Newcap is over $5 million put into many small markets we serve in Alberta.  They've resulted in more jobs, more local service and better local reflection.

57               Newcap also created three subdivisions to further group stations regionally that have even more similarities.  The three groups are based in Lloydminster, Edson, and Red Deer.  The Red Deer stations anchor the Southern Alberta Group of seven stations in Red Deer, Blairmore, Brooks, Stettler, and Drumheller.  These stations have a great deal of political, social, economic and cultural characteristics in common.  With mixed economies based upon both the resource industries and agriculture, among others.

58               Adding Medicine Hat to this group would benefit all the other markets in the Southern Alberta Group, providing coverage of southeast Alberta while allowing us to provide a higher quality programming focus in that market.

59               A the same time, Medicine Hat's size means that we can invest in a strong local team, with all of the programming decisions being made in that market.  We expect that we will be live and local at least 120 hours per broadcast week with occasional features from one of the larger markets.

60               For example, if Nickelback is playing in Edmonton or Red Deer, our local rock stations in those markets can interview the band and provide interview clips that our Medicine Hat rock station would not otherwise enjoy.

61               To talk a bit about the news approach, I'd like to introduce Sue Stevenson our Red Deer news director.

62               MS STEVENSON:  Thanks, Ron, and good morning.

63               In a radio environment that has increasing music choices from satellites, the Internet and iPods, we realize that to compete we have two strategic advantages.  We are local and we are live.  For this reason, you may have noticed in all three of the applications on this hearing we increased our commitment to news over the course of the written process to five hours and 45 minutes per week, and at least 75 percent of this weekly total will be local news.

64               Newcap Radio strongly believes that local news is the key to success in markets like Medicine Hat.  For example, in many smaller Alberta markets we have significantly increased our local news content.  The feedback from listeners and our clients has been very positive, to say the least.

65               Newcap has introduced a news access system that allows Red Deer and our other southern Alberta stations to instantly share stories through what's called a wire relay system.  It has greatly increased news content of local interest on all stations.

66               Newcap has instituted a protocol to share stories and interviews as well with our other centres right across the province for both news and agriculture.

67               The agriculture sector is an important part of Medicine Hat's economy, and as such, will receive extensive coverage on our station.  Newcap stations in Red Deer, Camrose and Lloydminster have dedicated agricultural reporters who routinely share information.  It has proven to be a good asset and is an area that we are aggressively trying to grow.  Medicine Hat radio will benefit from our established expertise in this agricultural area.

68               In Red Deer we have operated mobile community studios for some time.  We use our two vehicles to broadcast live from locations around our service area.  This summer CKGY‑FM and CIZZ‑FM in Red Deer were appointed the official voice of the 2006 Alberta Summer Games, and we put our mobile studios at the disposal of the games to provide live coverage at the various venues.  We combined this with our Newcap Alberta synergies to provide our stations with exclusive coverage of the games, which resulted in their communities getting realtime information on how their area athletes were doing.  We intend to have a mobile studio in Medicine Hat as well.

69               We are proposing to provide five‑minute newscasts each day of the week through morning drive, at noon, and in afternoon drive in Medicine Hat, and that includes weekends.  This will be supplemented during the weekday by shorter updates on the half hour in the morning drive.

70               Our three full time and one half time reporters will be supported by regional news information from our 12 reporters in other southern Alberta markets.  And around the province we currently have over 50 dedicated reporters and journalists.

71               We will also provide a range of other local information features, including 35 weekly community event updates, 35 weekly public affairs reports, which we plan to call The Hat Today, and a one‑hour weekly public affairs program The Hat This Week.  We see the news department following various Medicine Hat events through the week in the community updates, while local issues might be tracked on our public affairs updates.  On the weekend the top local news events and public affairs topics will be developed into the hour‑long show.  Some weeks this might track one particularly hot issue like the municipal elections race.  Other weeks might see more diverse topics covered.

72               We will also seek out our listeners' opinions on issues of the day with our listener pole, The Hat Line.  We hope to make this the coffee shop topic by asking for opinions throughout the week and then airing the feedback later in the week as a feature of our morning show.

73               Of course, our spoken word will include our announcers' talk about the music they are playing, about the events around Medicine Hat, as well as humour and other entertainment.

74               And now to talk to you about our format choice and the sound of the station, here is Mark Maheu.

75               MR. MAHEU:  Thank you, Sue.  Good morning.

76               It's fairly clear when you review all the research presented at this hearing that what is most missing in Medicine Hat is a rock radio station.  Most of the applicants for a new station who tested multiple formats found that rock tested the highest in Medicine Hat.  The question for an applicant, and maybe for the Commission, I suppose, as well, is what kind of rock should that be?

77               The research that we commissioned showed two clear market voids, classic rock and classic hits.  The research found that 44 percent would listen to classic rock most of the time or all the time, and 39 percent for classic hits.  The strongest demand for classic rock was among men aged 18 to 49, while the stronger demand for classic hits was with women, particularly those aged 35 to 54.  At the same time, there was still strong interest among men for classic hits and among women, particularly those 35 to 54, for classic rock.  So they would both work together.

78               After we asked about the perceptions and the availability of the formats among those who liked them the most, we calculated the percentage of format void.  These two formats ranked the highest again at 24 percent for classic hits ‑‑ or classic rock/classic hits, and 23 percent for classic rock.

79               Our conclusion after looking at all the research was to blend the most common elements of each format into one single format proposition.  Our format choice of a classic rock and classic hits hybrid is called The Rock.  The Rock combines the very best of mainstream classic rock from artists like The Who, Tragically Hip and Led Zeppelin, and it mixes it in with the classic hits sound of artists like Foreigner, Elton John and Brian Adams.

80               The station will sound like a rock station, but a mainstream adult‑targeted version.  Since there are presently no stations playing rock in Medicine Hat, The Rock will also play some new music from Canadian artists like Sam Roberts, Mobile and Arcade Fire.

81               We'll also provide compelling music features to keep our listeners interested and involved.

82               One of those programs will be called The Way Back Machine and it's a Friday night show, it's a bit of a rock'n'roll house party, where from eight to ten The Rock rolls the best classic rock from the late‑'60s and the early‑'70s.

83               We'll also be featuring a program called Saturday Night in Concert where we will have live performance material from the legends of classic rock.  From seven until 8:00 at night listeners enjoy front‑row seats as The Rock rolls the live cuts, and we'll do that commercial free.

84               Far West Rock will feature the new music makers from Western Canada week nights at 6 p.m.

85               And Sunday's at 6, we fire up the MP3 player to feature the newest and unreleased tracks from Canadian music makers participating in Newcap's making of the band initiatives taking place in Calgary and in Ottawa.

86               We will solicit Medicine Hat bands' participation in entering our soon to be announced Calgary Canadian Talent Development program.  You may remember that we've proposed to devote half of our $7 million in CTD in Calgary to a program called Making of the Band.  This program is designed to find and showcase upcoming new Alberta artists, and we propose to use all of our Alberta radio stations to promote this initiative.

87               Given the format we propose in Medicine Hat, it will be a natural extension of this initiative to the benefit of aspiring Medicine Hat performers.  Entries from Medicine Hat will be featured and showcased in regular rotation on the proposed station The Rock.

88               Our Medicine Hat spending on Canadian talent development will target two areas.  The newest musicians in the system, students, and the national initiatives designed to support and showcase our emerging stars.  We will contribute $100,000 each year to the development of Canadian talent.

89               We will provide the Medicine Hat School Boards with $40,000 each year in total to help students develop musical literacy.  Four programs will each receive $10,000.

90               Instruments for deserving and needy students, music scholarships for the most promising students, support for their music festivals and support for their musical curriculum.

91               On the national level, we will provide $40,000 each year to the Radio Starmaker Fund to support their efforts for emerging artists.  We will also ask them to target this to Alberta artists to the extent that they are able.

92               And we will also provide an annual contribution of $20,000 to Canada Music Week with a view to financing an Alberta Music showcase at their annual Toronto event.  We have already spoken with CMW and they support this initiative.

93               Our local and national Medicine Hat initiatives combined with our on‑air support for our national Making of the Band initiatives, will provide support to emerging talents at many levels of their development.

94               Madam Chair, Members of the Commission, Newcap is before you this morning looking to provide a new service for the listeners of Medicine Hat.  Our proposal for a new rock formatted station goes well beyond a format choice for the market.  Our proposal is focused on delivering a truly local radio station for listeners of Medicine Hat.  A radio station leaning heavily on spoken word, local news and service to the community.

95               The radio listener's world is changing rapidly.  Every day there are new listening choices popping up.  Conventional radio is challenged to find new ways to keep people coming back to local radio.  At Newcap we believe a big part of the solution to maintaining and building audiences is to create a broadcast content that is not easily duplicated.  This is why we believe our proposal for Medicine Hat will be successful.  An iPod, satellite radio or internet radio station never did spot news coverage from an accident, a fire or a flood.  Being live and being local can and will be the difference, and we believe our proposal for Medicine Hat will make a difference.  We'll be a new editorial voice in the market, along with providing new listening choices to the market in a format that it indicates it would enjoy the most.

96               Medicine Hat, as you may well know, is enjoying excellent economic growth right now, which bodes very well for new entrants into the radio market.  Our financial projections for Medicine Hat are modest, achievable, and they will likely cause little or no material impact on incumbent broadcasters.

97               Newcap Radio has an excellent track record in Alberta, and we truly want to be part of the Medicine Hat community.  We see it as an important community, and we would be very proud to serve it.

98               To that end, we have proposed significant benefits, including a Canadian Talent Development package totalling $700,000 over the first seven years of a licence.  This, combined with our strong local programming proposals, we believe makes Newcap the best choice to be licenced in Medicine Hat.

99               We thank you for your time and attention this morning.  We'd be pleased to answer any questions you have about our proposal.

100              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Steele and panel.

101              Commissioner Pennefather...?

102              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

103              Good morning, Mr. Steele.  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

104              I'll direct my questions to you, Mr. Steele, but if you would indicate to whom we ‑‑ you would pass on the answers, that would be great.

105              MR. STEELE:  You can direct your questions to Mr. Maheu, if you wouldn't mind, and he will pass them on if it's ‑‑

106              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I shall.  Mr. Maheu, we'll start with the programming with the music component.  And your presentation this morning on that point and others actually has provided quite a bit of clarification, but I think it is important to go through the points and get a clear understanding of where you're positioning your approach to music.

107              In the Supplementary Brief and again this morning, you discuss, I think, what is a mix of classic hits and classic rock, and a mix which brings in both the male and female audiences.  Let's ‑‑ I'd like to understand a little bit better how that works and why then you've decided to brand the proposed station as rock?  In fact, in your Supplementary Brief I think you call it The Rock 99.1, but I think you might mean Rock 105.3.

108              Why have you ‑‑ if we can break that down this way.  On the classic hits component of this mix, can you elaborate on how that's going to work?  Is it a selection that's leaning more to the AOR variety or more to the top 40 variety, and can you give us some examples to demonstrate how the classic hits component will be heard by the audience?

109              MR. MAHEU:  Sure, I'd be very happy to, Commissioner Pennefather.  It's just to help you clarify and understand really what we're going to sound like and where these components come from.

110              As we discussed in our Supplementary Brief and again in our remarks this morning, it's a little bit unique, our approach in Medicine Hat, from what you might find in other markets.  Not very often would you combine two formats like this to hybrid it and make it one.  If I could, just before I explain the elements of that, I'd like to fill you in on why we're even doing it and looking at it that way, because obviously when you look at the research, there are two pretty significant opportunities here, one in classic rock and one in classic hits.  The first question is, well, why not one or the other because there's a pretty significant opportunity.

111              And the reason for that is in a market the size of Medicine Hat, it is on the smaller size of a medium‑sized market.  There are only 67,000 people in Medicine Hat.  So ‑‑ and there are only two existing radio stations in the market today, an AC and a country.  And to be very narrow in a market that small would, in a way, be doing a disservice to the market because we'd only be serving a very, you know, limited number of people, those who like classic rock or, say, classic hits.  But what's unique about these two formats, classic rock and classic hits, is they're rather complementary, and they do overlap quite well.  And they are also two formats that unlike, say, trying to mix top 40 and country together, you would find when you research both of those constituencies that there's very little overlap there.  People who love top 40 aren't really country fans, and vice versa.  But when you look at classic hits and classic rock, there is a lot of commonality between these two groups of people, and some of the music universe inside of those two formats is shared.

112              So when we looked at the opportunity in Medicine Hat, and the research came back and said, well, classic hits is a good opportunity and so is classic rock, we looked at it a little bit deeper and we found that with men, classic rock was certainly their first choice, and with women classic hits was their first choice.  But when you go down to second choices it was vice versa, where women who enjoyed classic hits also enjoyed some classic rock, and many who liked classic rock also enjoyed some classic hits.  So it brought us to the point where we had to figure out a way to be wide enough in a market as small as Medicine Hat to have an offering that would be listenable to the most number of people.  And we were fortunate because classic hits and classic rock are very complementary.

113              To answer your question specifically about what genre of classic hits would work with classic rock, there are a number of different flavours across Canada right now and in the United States of classic hits.  There is one flavour which is very much based in the pop top 40 sound from the '80s and '90s with a sprinkling of '70s and a little bit of today.

114              There are other classic hit stations that lean a little bit more to the rock side of classic hits, where there is some top 40 in the mix, but it's more on the songs that charted on the rock charts from the '80s and '90s.

115              What we're proposing in Medicine Hat is to take the real core of classic rock, the super stars of classic rock from the late‑'70s, the '80s and the '90s, and combine it with the classic ‑‑ the classic hits version that is a little more rock leaning.  So there's going to be less top 40 or pop sound in the classic hits component of this hybrid format.  So that plays a little better to the rock sensibilities on the classic rock side, and certainly makes sense for the classic hits people.

116              Where some classic hits stations you might be hearing songs by Hewey Louis and the News or Madonna from the '80s and the '90s, you would not hear that on our proposal for The Rock.  You would be hearing songs from Foreigner and Elton John and people like that on the classic hits side, blended in with classic rock.

117              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I think that's helpful, because if we look at the research that you've included in your Supplementary Brief, I don't believe that you submitted a separate research report.  You included it with your Supplementary Brief, so I'm using that.

118              It would appear that the classic hits component came out though a little ahead from page 7 of your Supplementary Brief of classic rock.  In your statement today, you say that the station will sound like a rock station ‑‑ will sound like a rock station, but a mainstream adult‑targeted version.  Can you really do both?

119              MR. MAHEU:  We believe you can, and you make a good point on classic hits where it did come out ‑‑

120              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Yes.

121              MR. MAHEU:  ‑‑ just a hair above classic rock.  Part of our consideration when we were putting our proposal together to make it a rock station rather than a hits station, was the fact that there is a ‑‑ somewhat of a mainstream AC radio station in the marketplace already.  We know from our experience and the research that we've done, if you put a more classic hits based format on, it's going to steal much more from AC radio, or mainstream AC, and we felt there was just much more room for us to carve out our own audience and our own constituency of listeners as a rock leaning hybrid rather than a classic hits leaning hybrid.

122              So we felt that:  A) we'd be able to generate an audience that is not being served right now at all, and we needed to position that radio station to be different; and B) it would infringe less on the existing AC that is in the marketplace today.

123              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Well, I think that's the last ‑‑ the latter part of your comment, was part of my point, that the AC served in the community today is skewed to females at, I think, what is your target demographic.  So again, they would appear to be well served in the market.  One would have assumed then that you would lean more towards the rock component.  To help us understand then, there are three components to your hybrid, if you will.  Can you have a hybrid of three?  Tribrid?

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

124              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  The classic rock, the classic hits and the newer rock, can you give us a sense of the proportions, the percentage more or less, of the play list and if each component will be broadcast throughout the broadcast day, or will there be particular components of the broadcast day which will be ‑‑ in which you will carry one or other of the three components of your rock?

125              MR. MAHEU:  Sure.  First of all, just on the components of what part of the broadcast day they might air, just so members of the Commission have a ‑‑ as clear an understanding as possible.  We're not really proposing or anticipating to do any day parting on the radio station.  So we're not going to be a little more rocky or a little more current at night and a little more gold based and familiar during the day.  The idea here is to really focus the radio station with a consistent sound on a 24/7 basis, so very little day parting.

126              As to your question about the percentages or components of new music versus ‑‑ on your tribrid approach of how much current music, how much classic rock and how much classic hits.  Under normal circumstances, and this really is a bit unique, because in virtually any other market that has more signals in it, we would not try to do as much in terms of the combination of different music styles.  We wouldn't try to do as much in a larger market.

127              The competition likely would not let you get away with it if there were four or five or six radio stations in a market.  But looking at the size of this market and the minimal amount of service it has right now, we can be a little broader than we normally would be in trying to please a few more people than we would normally try to please.

128              The current component of the radio station we anticipate to really be 10 percent or less.  And to be forthright, the current component is really in there to give us an opportunity to play some of the new Canadian releases that are out there right now, for two reasons.  Number one, there is a lot of good new Canadian music out there right now in the rock genre.  And secondly, a little more self‑serving reason, it allows us to lean a little less heavily on some of the Canadian gold that ‑‑ from the '70s, '80s and '90s that is approaching the critical burn out level.  So that's why we introduced a slightly small percentage of current music to the sound.  So about 10 percent of the music that you're going to hear on the radio station will be new or newer, released in the last couple of years, and a large percentage of that is going to be Canadian.

129              The radio station, for the most part, is going to be firmly based in rock.  In terms of classic rock, and ‑‑ and rock based classic hits songs, it's virtually the rest of the ‑‑ of the music sound of the radio station.

130              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So the rest 90.  And of the classic rock and classic hits, is there ‑‑

131              MR. MAHEU:  It's probably 60/30 classic rocks, 30 percent classic hits.  The funny part about that, it's kind of hard to describe.  Between classic rock and classic hits, the 60 and the 30, there are songs that could fall into either side of that category as you might appreciate, so ‑‑ but just to give you an idea, 60 percent would be that traditional classic rock that you would think of, you know, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, The Who, and bands, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Springstein.  And then on that 30 percent part, you're going to have more pop/rock oriented top 40 chart type of hit songs from people like Elton John, Genesis, Phil Collins and folks like that, but finding the best songs that work with both constituencies.

132              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Speaking of both constituencies though in terms of being precise, which I'm sure is an exercise you've gone through in terms of the advertising issue looking at it.  Your Supplementary Brief refers to ‑‑ on page 7 to the audience will be predominantly male, 35 to 44 men.  And you've suggested as well that men aged 18 to 24 would be attracted to your format due to the 10 percent active rock component.  So just to be clear for the record, what is the general and core audience you would serve with your rock/classic rock blend, just to clarify?

133              MR. MAHEU:  Sure.  The ‑‑ you know, in a market this small we can look at a broader target audience than we would in a large market where you're really narrowing it down to a certain demographic group.  But the broad target audience for the radio station is adults 25 to 54, with a skew more men than women.  The real tight targeting of the radio station is 35 to 49 year olds, more men than women.

134              At the end of the day, in terms of cumulative audience, our experience has been that you're going to have slightly more men in terms of total numbers, cumulative audience, slightly more men than women listening to the radio station.  And in terms of hours tuned, we're anticipating probably 60 percent of the hours tuned to 62 percent will be male, and 38 to 40 percent will be female hours tuned.  Although the cumulative hours will be rather close.

135              And in terms of, if I can, on the younger part of the audience, the 18 to 24 men coming to the radio station, it will be partly because a little bit of the new music we play, but to be quite honest, we're not going to play enough new music for young 18 to 24‑year‑old guys to love this radio station a lot.  But by virtue of the fact that it will be the only rock offering in the market, we are going to get some tuning from 18 to 24s almost by default.  We're not going to actively target them obviously because there are so many people in that 25 to 54 group that want this radio station, but they'll certainly come to it because there's no alternative choice for them in the marketplace to listen to.

136              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you, Mr. Maheu.

137              I'm going to ask you a question now about a response you gave to our deficiency letter.  And your response is dated August 14.  And you've indicated that nearly 100 percent of your program will be locally produced, and that voice tracked or automated programming will air only in non‑regulated hours between midnight and 5:30.  You've also indicated your intention to offer some syndicated programming.

138              Could you tell us what type of syndicated programming would be offered and on average the number of hours per week you would devote to this type of programming?

139              MR. MAHEU:  Our intention, Commissioner, is to be as live and as local as we can possibly be whenever we can possibly do it.  And we thought long and hard about this, and we made reference to it a little bit in our opening remarks, that we feel going forward for radio to be competitive, especially in smaller markets, we need to be live and we need to put people on the air and have people in the radio station.  And we're doing that not only in our proposal for Medicine Hat, but throughout Alberta, and all our radio stations across the country.

140              There's a ‑‑ this is our strategy and this is our approach.  There are different opinions out there, but we believe that pouring money back into people and content on the air is going to be what helps differentiate us from competition.

141              In terms of voice tracking, we're only going to be voice tracked right now, we propose, between midnight and six.  It's actually probably going to be probably midnight to 5:30.  But in the unregulated hours, we will employ voice tracking to reduce our expenses.

142              We're going to be live with real people behind microphones in the radio station from six in the morning until midnight seven days a week.  We do want to have the opportunity to look at some potential syndicated programs.  We have not chosen any yet, but there are some interesting programs out there.  We talked about our in‑concert program.  There are some live syndicated programs that are available in Canada and the United States, we're going to look at some of those.  There may be some rock documentary type of programs.  There are some long‑form documentaries about the Beetles and the Rolling Stones and bands like that that we may look at airing from time to time, but the majority, the vast overwhelming majority of our programming is local originating programming with real people.

143              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I see in your comments this morning we expect we will be live and local at least 120 hours per broadcast week.

144              MR. MAHEU:  Right.

145              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Can we take that as a specific answer?

146              MR. MAHEU:  Absolutely, yes.  And if I may, just to supplement that.  When we are doing some features, or if we are running some syndicated programming between six in the morning and midnight, if we do run some of that type of programming there is going to be a real person in the studio.  It's not going to be in a computer in an automated system.  We're still going to offer service and surveillance, weather, et cetera, during those hours when those programs are airing.  And if there's anything going on in the city or whatever, there is somebody there to answer the phone in the radio station.  So we are ‑‑ we are live and we are doing business and it's not off a computer and turn off the lights on your way out the door.

147              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you.

148              Before we leave the music, one last question.  I think you've given us a good sense of the play list and your approach to the mix.  As you know, other applicants have also proposed the use of the terms classic rock, classic hits.  Very briefly, how would you describe your approach in comparison?  How does it differ from the approach that others have tabled?

149              MR. MAHEU:  Specifically the difference with our proposal to the others is the fact that we're the only proposal looking to make a hybrid out of classic hits and classic rock.  There are other proposals that are looking to incorporate alternative rock and mainstream rock and classic rock together, but our proposal really takes ‑‑ is rooted and based in familiar music with a small current component.  The other proposals that are looking to put a rock station on are generally a little younger, have more different genres of music being put together into one format.

150              Our experience is with classic hits and classic rock, we do them as independent formats in a lot of different markets with a great deal of success, is that those two genres of music are very complementary, because partly they really target a very similar demographic group as opposed to, say, trying to mix alternative rock with classic rock.

151              You know, when you take those two genres, they both fall under the rock umbrella, but they're both kind of at polar ends of the rock scale, and it's very difficult to hybrid a format that, say, is targeted to 16 to 29 year olds with a format that's targeted predominantly to 35 to 54 year olds.

152              So we believe that our proposal here, that's how it's different, that we've taken two genres that are demographically complementary, sound ‑‑ they sound complementary in terms of the intensity and the texture of the sound of the music that we would play, and we put them together.

153              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you.

154              I'm going to turn now to another component of the 120 hours of locally produced programming, and that is the news and spoken word.  I should say spoken word comprised of news, traditional news and non‑news.  And I believe with your presentation this morning there is a ‑‑ a document which puts ‑‑ lists the components of the scheduled news, the non‑news and the hours.  So if we repeat a little bit of this, those were some of my questions to try to clarify these points, but perhaps to also add a little more substance to what we're going ‑‑ what the audience would hear.

155              When we got to the deficiency on August 14th, you raised your news packages from 53 news packages, for a total of 3.5 hours, to 81 news packages of various lengths, for a total of five hours and 45 minutes of news.  I see it here as five hours and 75 minutes, and in your presentation this morning you said five hours and 45 minutes.

156              Just can we clear for the record the news, per se, the packages as described in this document Monday to Friday, Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday.  Is it five hour and 75, or five hours and 45?

157              MR. MAHEU:  If I can, Commissioner, just to clarify.  Five hours and 45 minutes we've done it numerically down the sheet, so that's 5.75 hours.  So that's the ‑‑ five hours and 45 minutes would be five and three‑quarter hours.

158              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I see.

159              MR. MAHEU:  And ‑‑ sorry for the confusion.  So 5.75 hours, which would be five hours and 45 minutes.

160              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Okay.  So it's still five hours and 45 as such in terms of the news itself, okay?

161              MR. MAHEU:  That is correct.

162              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  That's what I had added up from the August 14th deficiency.  In terms of the ‑‑ the news itself, you've talked this morning about the content of the newscast and you will have on staff, as I understand your August 14th deficiency and your Supplementary Brief at page 9, two journalist announcers and one news director.  You also discussed this morning the possible synergies with other Alberta holdings.  Do you intend, however, to hire more journalist announcers or draw ‑‑ or is it going to be supported ‑‑ your increase from 53 to 81 supported by the synergies with the other operations in Alberta?

163              MR. MAHEU:  I'm going to ask Sue Stevenson in a moment to just kind of elaborate on that a little bit if I could.  But I want to make quite clear that our proposal for Medicine Hat, the journalists and the radio reporters that we're going to hire for the marketplace, are going to work in Medicine Hat, collecting news, creating news programs and delivering it on the air in Medicine Hat.

164              When we talk about the synergies throughout the Alberta Radio Group, it's really the icing on the cake.  It's not the cake.  The cake is good service done by people in Medicine Hat for the people of Medicine Hat.  But one of the things that we do bring to the table is the ability to access all the reporting work and the news coverage that's being done throughout the Province of Alberta because we are in so many markets, and we think that it kind of makes us a bit unique and gives us a bit of a leg up that we can cover stories in other areas that just can't be covered by our competition, because we are in so many places.  And we think that makes for a more robust and real substantive news approach.

165              And, Sue, if you wouldn't mind elaborating a little bit on what our intentions are in terms of doing news in Medicine Hat with people here, and maybe how we can work in what we're doing through the rest of the radio room.

166              MS STEVENSON:  Thanks, Mark.  Of course the reporters, journalists who are based in Medicine Hat, that is their focus.  They're focusing on City Hall, they're focusing on doing streeters on the hot topic of the day, going and talking to the city planners or the school board, agriculture.  That is their focus.  Local news is their business.

167              Now, what the ARG south stations can add to that is ‑‑ it's really a complementary service.  The Medicine Hat reporters have their own local news.  What we have in the ARG south is a group of reporters that can complement the Medicine Hat service.

168              We may have a story in Red Deer that deals with the river that goes through Medicine Hat.  Well, we in Red Deer are going to send that to Medicine Hat, and they will be able to incorporate that into their newscast.  So really it's a win, win situation in that regard.

169              News content of course, you know, we've stated 75 percent local, and that is ‑‑ you know, that's not going to happen every newscast.  Some newscasts are going to be 100 percent, some newscasts may be 65 percent, but the Medicine Hat reporters will be complemented by our resources elsewhere in the province.  Not just in the southern Alberta markets, but in the rest of the province.  We have over 50 reporters on the ground right across Alberta, and it's really a win, win situation.

170              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I think if we could just pursue that.  I wanted to be sure I understood you.  The 75 percent of the news would be local news, and that was in your August 14th deficiency as well, but you said that could change so ‑‑

171              MS STEVENSON:  No.  On average it's always going to be 75 percent or more.

172              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Okay.

173              MS STEVENSON:  And, you know, given by what we do in Red Deer, it's the or more.

174              You know, there is going to be a day where you're going to have more local stories that you can even put in your newscast, the next day might be a little slower.  It's going to balance out.

175              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So does this 75 percent cover only the news portion, or does it include the weather and sports and ‑‑

176              MS STEVENSON:  The five‑minute newscasts, of course, would cover weather and traffic and sports.  But all those are local issues.  People want to know ‑‑ if there's a storm out on the highway, that's top of mind.  That's what they want to know about.  If there's a bad accident that's affecting traffic, that, of course, is local content, because that's what people want to hear, and that's what we would deliver.

177              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  You recognize the ‑‑ the interest in discussing this as well because you explained well this morning the synergies that you are bringing to your proposed station from your other Alberta stations.  So it's the balance in trying to understand as yet how local, the live and local, what it will really mean for Medicine Hat listeners.

178              Will the 75 percent local content in newscasts be measured over the week or over the broadcast day?

179              MS STEVENSON:  I think it would have to be over the week, just for the reasons that I mentioned.  You know, news doesn't happen in a vacuum.  We have national news, we have international news.  Of course you strive to localize that.  If we have something happening in Afghanistan, of course Medicine Hat has a large military base there, you know, so you can tie that in.  So you're looking for every angle to localize that story.

180              But, you know, as I said, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.  If there's a big national story, that might supersede local.  If you have another 9/11, for instance, you know what's going to lead the news, so you can't say every single cast is going to be 75 percent, but during the week it's going average out to that or more.

181              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  When you responded to this point in the August 14th deficiency, and I think you also spoke to that again today, Ms Stevenson.  You increased the news packages from 53 to 81, stating that the radio environment has increasing music choices from satellite and iPods.  We have to compete, we have to be local and live ‑‑ compete local and live.  And you used that same rationale for increasing your involvement and your commitment to spoken word.

182              The increase is in the news packages, why did you focus on increasing the number of news packages as opposed to the other component of your spoken word proposal, which is non‑news?

183              MS STEVENSON:  I'm going to let Mr. Maheu answer that.

184              MR. MAHEU:  Thanks, Sue.  This is really in response, and this is characteristic of an approach we've taken on a number of our applications, and an approach that we've taken and implemented at our radio stations across the country.  And I touched on it in our opening remarks.

185              The radio world is changing and it's changing quickly.  And we plan on being in this business and being successful in it for a long time to come.  We have seen this pendulum kind of swing back and forth.  If you look back to the late‑'80s and through the early to mid‑'90s, when economic times were tough for AM radio and radio in general, things that were cut out of radio, and I'm unfortunately old enough to have been in the business during those times, newsrooms got slashed, sports departments disappeared.

186              The music centric orientation of radio became paramount.  Everything was about the music, and everything else, including talent, surveillance, news and weather was cut back because people cost money.

187              What we found at Newcap, and I'm sure other companies are looking at it as well, in a world where we're not necessarily the king of the hill any more, where people can program their own play lists into an iPod and take it anywhere or pop it in their car, or listen on line to pretty much any music choice they want any time they want, radio broadcasts coming over on cell phones so you can listen to the music you want or even watch TV, so we have to re‑invent and re‑think our whole proposition.

188              It's been a great run for radio.  We've had it pretty darn good, but now the competition is starting to close in around us, and it's non‑traditional competition.  The interesting thing about the non‑traditional competition is it's made us kind of go back to our roots what made radio famous to begin with.  Good local service done by real people doing things you couldn't get anywhere else, and it really isn't that complicated.

189              So we don't want to make it sound like it's some sort of big, elaborate, you know, well‑researched and well‑thought out idea.  It's pretty much coming to the common sense basics that in order for us to compete in our markets, and we operate in a lot of small and medium‑sized markets, where people's expectations of us are maybe a little higher than they are in major markets where they have so many choices, that we have to re‑invest and re‑think our proposition, and that begins with people and service.

190              And we think the way we can be different in markets like Medicine Hat, is to really go back to the basics.  Put a little more money, time and effort into good people and good ideas, and do some spoken word.  It's an unrated market, there's limited competition.  This isn't a contest to see who can play 12 in a row commercial free, this is really a market that's going to respond to radio stations that reach out, become part of the community and reflect what's going on.

191              And that's really our approach in our response in the deficiency, what it was all about.  We've kind of come to this conclusion in a lot of our markets, that we've got to beef up the amount of local news and information that we're actually providing on the air, be more than just a stick cranking out hit after hit after hit, and start doing things that bring people back to the medium of radio and keep them listening to us.  So that was really the reason for that.

192              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So you increased the scheduled news component.  And on the non‑news, I think this sheet answers my question that I had coming in, is to get some precision on the number of hour that the community events updates, the public affairs reports, the one‑hour news public affairs announcer talk comes to 19 hours ‑‑ 19.95 hours, correct?

193              MR. MAHEU:  Correct.

194              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  She can be taught.  And could you tell us a little bit more about the listener poll?

195              MR. MAHEU:  Sure.  Maybe, Sue, would you mind doing that?

196              MS STEVENSON:  Not at all.  A listener poll is ‑‑ would be a way to engage our listeners.  You're going to take the hot topic of the day, whether it be the end of free parking downtown or whatever, and you're going to poll your listeners on that and try and get some compelling answers that you're going to be able to use on the air.  It's an effort to really engage our listeners in what we do, and we see it as a very good tool to use for that, to kind of gauge what the community is thinking.

197              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I think you called it The Hat Line?

198              MS STEVENSON:  That's right, The Hat Line.

199              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Why?

200              MS STEVENSON:  Have a little fun with it.  It doesn't always have to be serious, you know, so ‑‑

201              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  It isn't always serious.  The Hat Line, so throw your hat in kind of thing, discussion?

202              MS STEVENSON:  Exactly.

203              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  All right.  We're going to move now to Canadian talent development.  And I'm looking at clearly your revised proposal through the August 14th deficiency, and you described it again in your comments this morning.  And just a couple of clarifications.

204              I believe in the August 14th deficiency we described a school board, and today we have school boards.  And I know there are two school boards in Medicine Hat, the Catholic School Board of Education and Medicine Hat School District number 76.  So are we clear that it is a proposal to support both school boards?

205              MR. MAHEU:  That is correct.

206              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  And could you describe to us then how that will work in terms of disbursement of the 40,000 amongst the two school boards?

207              MR. MAHEU:  Yeah.  The funds would be split evenly between both school boards.  That was an oversight on our part in the reply to deficiency for the singular there.  So it would be $20,000 to each school board each year for seven years.

208              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So they will be split evenly between the two school boards?

209              MR. MAHEU:  Correct.

210              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  And you indicated that they would have control over the distribution of the funds in the same deficiency letter, and your expectation is that it will be divided into ‑‑ the funds will be divided into four equal parts, which you've described again this morning in terms of instruments, scholarships, support for festivals and for the music curriculum.

211              Could you explain to us if the school boards have the control over the distribution, how you would assure that this breakdown would be carried forward and whether the control of the funds entails the control over which schools or students have access to the appropriate funding?  How would you maintain some sense that the funds would actually be disbursed as you have proposed here if they have control of the disbursement?

212              MR. MAHEU:  It's certainly a point we've contemplated, and our approach to that would be pretty straight‑forward.  The staff or the management of the radio station would work with the school boards and liaise with them on an annual basis.  Obviously we want to monitor how that money is being spent and whether it's working or not.  Are we getting ‑‑ is the school getting the desired result and are we seeing it do what we thought it would do, because we also need to report back to you each year that we've spent the money and it's been done appropriately.  So there would be an ongoing dialogue and a relationship between the radio station management and the school boards.  I would envisage that there would be a meeting at least a couple of times a year to update each other on how it's going.

213              I think we want to ‑‑ we laid it out for you in our presentation and in our application so you got a good sense of where that money was going to be used.  I think we need to be somewhat flexible in speaking and in working with the school boards, where maybe in a particular year a need in a certain area exceeds the amount that maybe they spent the previous year, and money from one area maybe gets moved to the other.  So if each school board has $20,000 and it's five, five, five and five, there might be one year where, you know, they don't need to buy music stands this year because they did it last year, but they want to go to a couple of extra music festivals and need extra money.  I think there needs to be some flexibility because the educators, I think, are in the best position to decide what the needs of the students are and where the money could best be used.

214              You know, I ‑‑ we want to give them as much latitude as possible as long as we're working together, knowing that that money is being spent on what it was proposed for, and that's to develop young talent for the future.

215              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  I think that's the point as far as ‑‑ I can certainly follow your point about flexibility, but clearly the Commission is interested in knowing, in fact, at the end of the day, if, in fact, these funds are supporting Canadian talent development as per the contributions approved by the Commission.

216              So backing up again on this point, have you had discussions with the school boards, and if so, at what stage are those discussion and are there any specific agreements to the points that you've raised in terms of:  A) flexibility; but B) reporting?

217              MR. MAHEU:  Dave Murray has certainly been riding point on this particular issue and ‑‑

218              MR. MURRAY:  We ‑‑ Al Anderson actually was the one that made contact with the school boards.  We don't have a lot of information about that with us today, but we found that, in our experience and Glenda could give some examples in Lloydminster, for example, where we are giving a significant amount of money to the schools there, that there is very much a need and it is in those areas.  And most of the details will be worked out, if we're lucky enough to be granted a licence.

219              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Okay, thank you very much.  You also changed your proposed Canadian Talent Development and are now proposing to ‑‑ I think it's 40,000 to Canadian Music Week.  Can you tell the Commission why you made the change from the previous proposal?

220              MR. MAHEU:  The proposal from the southeastern Alberta musicians ‑‑

221              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  That's correct, convention.

222              MR. MAHEU:  Well, there are certainly a lot of worthy places for money to go to develop Canadian talent.  We have proposed a ‑‑ a southeastern Alberta musicians convention as part of another application that was heard previously by the Commission.  And when we went through it, it was one of those ideas that I think if we had more money and more time, this thing could grow into something really big.  When we proposed it there were a lot of questions about it, a lot of unanswered questions, and we didn't want to bog down ‑‑ you know,we're working with a small radio station here in Medicine Hat if we get it.  You know, it's going to be a modest radio station.  And an effort of that size is going to take a lot of people and a lot of organization, and we felt that at this point in time it didn't make a lot of sense for us to tie up the amount of time, effort and energy it would take to pull that off.

223              But what we did know is that there are a lot of worthy areas out there.  Radio Starmaker Fund is certainly one we've supported over a long period of time, and we're kind of really excited about the Canada Music Week proposal.  We talked to Canada Music Week about doing a specific showcase of Alberta talent, and they were quite excited by that idea.  And the money we're proposing for that is $20,000 each year that would go specifically in Toronto, during Canada Music Week, an Alberta music showcase.  Which I think many up and coming artists from Alberta, and Medicine Hat in particular, could take advantage of.  And we would ‑‑ we would get behind that and I think it could do ‑‑ it could do a lot to expose some of the talent that is happening in southern Alberta, specifically in the Medicine Hat area.  So we think the money is well‑spent in that area.

224              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  You say that you have a view to financing an Alberta music showcase at the annual event.  And the CNW support, is that support in form of written agreement?

225              MR. MAHEU:  Yes.

226              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  It is?

227              MR. MAHEU:  Yes.

228              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  If you could table that?

229              MR. MAHEU:  Sure.

230              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you.

231              My last area of questioning is in the area of the business plan and your economic analysis.  In your Supplementary Brief at page 7 you outline for us your audience share which you propose the new station would ‑‑ would gain at 20 percent.  If I understand correctly, you're looking at 12 percent of its share points from the audience of CFMY, and your projections indicate that eight percent of the audience share will come from out‑of‑market stations.

232              Could you help us by identifying the out‑of‑market stations from which you would expect to repatriate audiences and the extent to which these stations will contribute to the eight percent share that you project for repatriated audiences?

233              MR. MAHEU:  I believe the out‑of‑market stations really are lumped into a category called others.  And the others category comprise anything from out‑of‑market radio stations, internet listening, et cetera.  So we can't really quantify station call letters or station names when we talk about out of market, but what we are talking about is other listening choices that are not available generally in the Medicine Hat area.  So a little bit of it, as you see, you know, comes from ‑‑ comes from CBC and CJLT.  It's a point here and a point there.

234              There's no one particular out‑of‑market radio station because there's not a lot that gets into Medicine Hat.  But there are, you know, when people drive south there are stations coming out of the U.S. that you can hear in your car and things like that.

235              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Okay.  On your revenue projections, which we have in front of us, based on your application.  In looking at that and looking at the market, what is your comment on the Medicine Hat market's ability to support one new station or more than one new station at this time?

236              MR. MAHEU:  That's a really good question, and our thinking has changed on that.  As you may note from the dates on our application, we, I think, triggered this call a couple years ago when we filed.  And when we did our research and our homework on Medicine Hat a couple years ago, things were a little bit different then than they are today.

237              They were still pretty good, but Medicine Hat was feeling the effects of the BSE cattle quarantine, exports to the United States and so on, which has now pretty much passed and things are different.  The economy in Medicine Hat has grown ahead of expectations by quite a bit over the past couple of years.  I'm going to ask Glenda to maybe comment on that in just a second because she's done some excellent homework on what's going on in the economy.

238              When we originally applied, we put our application in in 2004, we felt that there was certainly room for one, and that's kind of what we were thinking, and our business plan was based on that.  But looking at what's happening now, and FP Markets, what they're reporting, and just talking to some business people in Medicine Hat, things are a lot better than I think many anticipated they would be today.  And we're of the mind, based on the retail sales and everything else that is going on in the marketplace, that, you know, there is room for two.

239              Here we are in late‑2006 instead of the middle of 2004, and we believe now the market has grown to the point and shows growth for the future that we could handle two.

240              Glenda, do you have some of the stuff that you found out?

241              MS SPENRATH:  Yes.  Actually, since our filing two years ago, I have looked at the indicators over the past two years for 2005 and 2006 from the FP Markets published by the Financial Post.  And what we're finding or what I found when I looked over this research, is that the actual results are actually leapfrogging ahead of prior projections.  And the biggest thing is the financial analysts are really being challenged in Alberta to keep up with the boom that's going on out here.  To give an example of that, when you look at some of the major financial indicators that would give us, you know, an indication that there is room in this market for additional entrants, one of them is the retail sales in the market.  If you look at where they were in 2005, they were projecting the retail sales for the Medicine Hat market to be at $1.05 billion generated in 2005.  At that time they were looking at projecting ahead to 2007 the retail sales for the market being at $1.17 billion.

242              Well, here we are today in 2006, 2007 hasn't happened yet, and we're already at $1.29 billion in estimated retail sales for the Medicine Hat market.  So, I mean, we've surpassed 2000's retail sales and we've done it a year early.  And if you take that onto the population, for example, there's another area that's a good indicator.  Last year they were projecting the Medicine Hat market to be at 67,000 by 2007, here we are today and they're estimating the population to be 67,500 according to the FP Markets Research, and so again we're meeting next year's goals this year.

243              Another indicator would be the new housing starts.  And as everywhere else in Alberta, it's booming, and we're looking at new housing starts for January to May of 2006 for Medicine Hat being at 32 percent, which is astounding.  But when you look back at the results for 2005 ‑‑ or 2002 to 2006, the jump came in 2004, and we've been pacing still 30 to 40 percent ahead in housing starts from the 2002 to 2004 period.  So, you know, it's growing faster that we can project it, so I really do believe there is room in the market for two new stations.

244              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Just on the population growth, what, in your view, is the percentage growth rate?  You mentioned a number, but what is the percentage of population growth that you have seen in the reports?

245              MS SPENRATH:  What they had said in 2001 to 2006 was about six percent growth in population during that period of time.  And they're looking ahead for 2006 to 2011 to be another five percent.  It's anybody's guess.  Maybe eight percent at this point.  That was yesterday.

246              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  And going forward, do you see that being maintained?

247              MS SPENRATH:  I think what's happening in Alberta ‑‑ I don't think you could say it could be maintained indefinitely at all.  When you see what's happening it's fabulous out here, but it's not realistic to say that it's going to go on at this pace for ten or 11 years.  But I think that five percent at this point over the next five years would be realistic, yes.

248              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  The population within the contour at 105.3, what is that population and do you expect growth in that population as well?

249              MR. MAHEU:  Dave, do you have the contour handy in our Supplementary Brief?  I think it's in the 80,000 range.  I'll just get that for you.

250              MR. MURRAY:  Yeah, the population in the three millivolt contour is 61,091 people.  And in the .5 almost 68,000.

251              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  68,000.  What impact would licensing ‑‑ you mention the possibility of one, the possibility of two.  What would be the impact of licensing a somewhat similar rock, classic rock, rock, classic hits format, or even the adult standards modern nostalgia formats stations, what impact would that have on your application?

252              MR. MAHEU:  Well, the impact, if you licenced another classic rock or classic hits application along with Newcap's hybrid proposal, it would certainly be giving the folks who like classic rock and classic hits a lot of choice because there would be two stations kind of trying to deliver that to them.

253              We would suggest that if we were fortunate enough to be licenced as one of the choices in Medicine Hat, and in the Commission's wisdom if you decided to licence a second, a classic rock or a classic hits format would not necessarily be as complementary with our offering as maybe some of the other proposals that have been put forth.

254              When you take a look at the audience targeting demographically, and the life group music choice, and how to best serve the market if you were going to do two, obviously there are a number of rock and classic rock proposals that fall into a reasonable area, and then there are older targeting softer formats that are also being proposed.  So if you were to ask us which one would work best with what we are proposing, it would be an older, softer format, and I think there are a couple of those being proposed by Mr. Larsen and Mr. Hildebrand.  They would certainly provide an alternative to the marketplace that's not there, and would not compete with classic rock, classic hits hybrid, and there would be minimum overlap.  There would be lots of overlap with the other ones.

255              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So in your view, the ‑‑ it is possible to licence two stations in this market to add to the current incumbent stations, and provided that there was ‑‑ the effect on your application, however, if we also licence another classic rock station, would that make it impossible to achieve your revenue projections?

256              MR. MAHEU:  No, it would not make it impossible.  It would certainly make it more difficult because it is a smaller, medium‑sized market, and the vast majority of the revenue that we would be projecting to do would be retail, local advertising sales, and part of what drives local advertising sales is results and offering something different to advertisers to get them those results.  And if we're out knocking on doors and, you know, the word comes down, hey, there's two new radio stations coming to town, and, hey, they're both the same, it's going to make it more difficult for the new radio stations to go out there and differentiate themselves and establish their business in the marketplace because they are going to really be competing head‑on for listenership and audience, and certainly advertising revenue.  So it would not be impossible, it would just make it a lot more difficult.

257              I think if it were the case, and I certainly can't speak for other licencees, but speaking on behalf of Newcap, if we were licenced and another classic rock or classic hits station were licenced, we would do what we always do.  We'd go back into the market and say, okay, we do some more research and go here's what we've got.  We've got a classic rock station that's coming on and we want to be classic hits, classic rock hybrid.  We'd go to the marketplace, do our homework and find out how can we make this work?  What's the best formula, the best approach to put this on and actually get an audience and to be successful.  So we would do whatever it takes to make it work.

258              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  So it would knock your 20 percent share projection down if we licenced a similar classic rock?

259              MR. MAHEU:  We'd probably end up splitting that share.  We'd probably grow the share maybe to 28, and then we'd both split it somehow to whatever degree that would be.

260              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Okay.  Thank you very much, and thank you for your responses to my questions.

261              Thank you, Madam Chair.

262              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Maheu and Commissioner Pennefather.

263              Vice‑Chair Arpin...?

264              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you, Mrs. Chair.

265              When I read your ‑‑ all of the applications for Medicine Hat and ‑‑ and the material prepared by staff, there were numerous references to the Suffield armed forces base, which is somewhere around 50 kilometers west ‑‑ northwest of ‑‑ of Medicine Hat.  And I also read that they do contribute somewhere close to $120 million to retail sales in the Medicine Hat market.  Is Suffield of some importance for your business plan?

266              MR. MAHEU:  It would be of importance to the extent that we wanted a 100,000 watt signal so that we would be heard there, for sure, and because we believe that's important.  They are an important part of the community in terms of the retail sales and the local economy, so to that extent they are important, yes.

267              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Now, in your programming plan, have you provided for some things specific for the armed force or ‑‑

268              MR. MAHEU:  I think what you are ‑‑ our plan would be because they are an important part of the community, and especially now more than ever with what's going on around the world, I think that would be handled more in the spoken word area.  The reflection of the radio station, if we're going to be The Rock and some of these members of the forces are going to be our listeners, I think we need to be doing things on the radio station in terms of spoken word and featured spoken word that makes sense to them and that they can relate to and enjoy listening to.

269              In terms of special programming musically for that specific group of people, that's probably something we would look at down the road.  I think the biggest thing though is to build an audience and to build some loyalty and partisanship with that constituency is through our spoken word, and being able to talk about things and report on things that are reflective of what they are doing and things that they would find interest in.

270              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you for your summary sheet.

271              And I notice that you've provided me with my answer to my question regarding median age, which you've put at 48 years old.  The ‑‑ but your classic hits will carry more to female, while your classic rock portion of your hybrid programming, and even tribrid, with alternative rock, will cater more towards male.  Overall, will it be more male or female driven?

272              MR. MAHEU:  Slightly more male than female in terms of music appeal.

273              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Yes.

274              MR. MAHEU:  We'll try to mitigate that because the market is of a size where you can do some things ‑‑ you have a little more flexibility, let's say, than in a major market.  And I think some of our commitment to spoken word and the kind of news and information that we're going to do on the radio station, although it's branded as a rock station, it's going ‑‑ as we mentioned, it's going to be a very mainstream accessible rock station, so that women who enjoy the slightly harder side of classic hits and rock are going to feel very much at home on this radio station.

275              It's not going to be as much of a guy's radio station as you might hear ‑‑ as what we ‑‑ say what we do in Edmonton at K Rock, which is very focused on men.  This is going to be very much more of a mainstream approach in terms of production value, how we position it, the content of the news, the personalities, et cetera.  So women will feel at home, even though the music is not going to be liked as much by them as it is by men.  But we're still looking at an audience split of about 60/40 in terms of hours tuned.

276              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you very much.  Thank you, Mrs Chair.

277              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

278              Commissioner Cugini...?

279              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Mr. Maheu and team, good morning.

280              I just have a question to fine tune a little bit your format, and with a particular focus on the Canadian component, and perhaps an even finer tune on the 10 percent new or newer artists that you referred to earlier.  And the questioning really goes to the diversity of music choices available in the market.  You mentioned Sam Roberts, Arcade Fire, Mobile, and I know they're just as examples, and including the Tragically Hip.  But would you agree with me that I might be ‑‑ I might hear those bands on CFMY currently?  Like, you know, their format could accommodate Mobile or Arcade Fire or Sam Roberts?

281              MR. MAHEU:  It could.  And those are only examples for sure, but ‑‑

282              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  So how extensive a list is there out there that would provide an opportunity for more exposure to more Canadian artists?

283              MR. MAHEU:  Well, that's always the ‑‑ that's always the challenge when you're doing a gold based format, is, you know, looking at that part of the Broadcast Act where predominantly Canadian, and taking a look at the Canadian music that you can play.

284              In a gold‑based format ‑‑ we're kind of cheating the gold‑based format here a little bit, and we're only doing that because ‑‑ to be forthright, because the market is small enough that you can do it.  If you try to do that kind of thing in a major market you'd really pay the price because you cannot be that wide.

285              But in terms of the current component, there are a lot of good bands making good Canadian music today.  When we talk about Arcade Fire, for instance, on a classic rock radio station, that's a bit of a stretch because it leans ‑‑ active rock alternative, you know.  We play it on our alternative rock stations.  And, you know, it's a bit of a stretch, but we could play it because we're not going to be penalized in a market the size of Medicine Hat with ten other radio stations trying to carve up the pie where you have to be so right on the music all the time.  We can take a little licence there, so ‑‑ but in terms of finding an outlet for current Canadian performers, it's very difficult in gold‑based formats because it is what it is.  It's Guess Who, it's April Wine, it's Brian Adams, it's Triumph, you know, and all the usual great bands from the past.

286              What we wanted to try to do here is to at least ‑‑ and we're doing this on a lot of our classic rock stations too, like in Edmonton and Cold Lake and even in Saint John's, Newfoundland, where traditionally these stations have been 100 percent pure classic rock gold, no currents, we've started to play and introduce some current Canadian music on those radio stations, as long as it fits the essence of the radio station, sort of sounds like it belongs.

287              We'd be doing the same thing with the rock in Medicine Hat, where we would judiciously look at, you know, can we play a couple of new tracks from the Tragically Hip album?  Absolutely.  Sounds like classic rock, fits the essence of what we're trying to do.  Are there songs from Arcade Fire we could play?  Yes, yes, there are.

288              And we want to do that partly because if don't we're going to be recycling the same gold list over and over and over again.  And it works with some degree of success in a lot of markets, but we're seeing through the music testing we're doing in markets of all sizes, that the life expectancy of some of that Canadian gold, because classic rock and classic hits is so popular now, is really starting to fade.

289              Like, the like‑a‑lot scores are way down, the tired‑of scores are through the roof on a lot of those library titles that we've counted on.  So we've got to find new ways to re‑invent these gold‑based formats to accommodate the Canadian component, which is part of our responsibility, and we think the current portion is part of it.  And although we're only proposing about 10 percent of our sound be current, of that 10 percent, of 100 records or 100 songs that you'd hear on the radio station, 10 percent of them would be new, and of those ten, I would suggest that seven are going to be Canadian.  Seven to eight, to take a little bit of the heat off the gold library.

290              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Thank you.  Thank you, Mr. Maheu.  Thank you, Madam Chair.

291              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I have a few questions, and the first one is, and I noticed that in both your letters of the 14th of August and, I guess, the 20th, you talked about being live to air for 126 hours.  But of course you were at the Edmonton Hearing where I asked if you would agree to a COL on live to air during the 426 hours of the broadcast week.  And so today you say live and local at least 120 hours during the broadcast week, and you would agree to a COL saying you would be live to air at least 120 hours during the broadcast week?

292              MR. MAHEU:  Yes, we would.

293              THE CHAIRPERSON:  You were talking about money to Starmaker, and that you were asking that they would target it to Alberta to the extent that they can.  What is the extent that they can?

294              MR. MAHEU:  It's ‑‑ it's pretty simple.  If there is an artist that meets the criteria for Radio Starmaker funding that particular year or time frame in the course of the year where the money is available, and they are from Alberta, they're going to get it.  In other words, if it comes down to an Alberta artist and an artist from some other part of Canada, and there's only so much money, our money is going to the Alberta artist.

295              What Starmaker says though, and they are right, there are only so many artists that they look at each year that meets the criteria for number of units sold and to be eligible for that additional funding.  And if there's not an Alberta artist eligible that year, our money is just going to go into the general fund to promote Canadian talent to the next level.  But we've asked them that in case of a tie, or in case of an Alberta artist being available and eligible for funding, that our money be directed specifically to them.

296              And, you know, Nickelback was one of the first ‑‑ you know,there's an Alberta band that was one of the first beneficiaries of the Starmaker Fund that really took that band up a notch to the next level.  They've done very well.  We're hoping over the course of the seven years that we're sending this money to Starmaker on behalf of the Medicine Hat station, that there are at least a few years where there is an Alberta artist that will be able to take advantage of it.

297              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And would this money be incremental to that otherwise allocated by Starmaker?

298              MR. MAHEU:  We're going to send them that cheque each year and we want to know what the money went for.  So, you know, obviously ‑‑

299              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Can you ‑‑ do you have a letter from Starmaker saying what the extent possible really means?

300              MR. MAHEU:  We have a ‑‑ we have a pretty good relationship with Starmaker.  We don't have a letter.  We can certainly get one.  We've got their say‑so on it.  But we can certainly get a letter and have it described, to the extent that they can, what that exactly means.

301              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.

302              MR. MAHEU:  But we ‑‑ we're operating on the assumption that we've always had with Starmaker in our conversations with them, that they have a certain number of candidates each year that meet their criteria for funding, they fund them accordingly.  And obviously we want, in the case of Medicine Hat, that if we have money available that we want it for somebody not only from Alberta, but from southern Alberta would be even better.  But that can't ‑‑ they can't always guarantee that.  But if you'd like a letter we could certainly file one.

303              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.

304              MR. MAHEU:  Okay.    

305              THE CHAIRPERSON:  My next question is you didn't really answer Commissioner Pennefather when she said why did you beef up the news and not your non‑news spoken word programming?  In other words, you beefed up your news in response to satellite radio and et cetera, but you didn't beef up the community event updates, the public affairs reports, and ‑‑ I'm not talking about DJ talk, but, I mean, you didn't increase those.  And it would seem to me that on the news it would be far easier to recycle the same stories when you're increasing your news, as opposed to the community updates and public affairs reports that might require more staff input.  Is that why you only beefed up the news and not the non‑news programming?

306              MR. MAHEU:  Not exactly.  We did not beef up the community event reports and the public affairs reports because we felt that 35 per week on each was pretty substantial to begin with.  We did feel though when we looked back on the amount of news that we were doing that given where we wanted to go and what we wanted to accomplish, it wasn't enough.

307              In terms of, you know, whether it's easier to recycle news or it needs more work to be put into the updates and so on, I think it's a fair observation.  Our experience has been, and would be in Medicine Hat, we're trying to build long‑time spent listening, especially in a gold‑based format like a classic rock, classic hits hybrid, and we're going to have to do a better job, as we're starting to do in a lot of our locations, on taking a ‑‑ an approach to news where we're doing more rewrites, we're doing more ‑‑ we're out gathering more actualities, we're cutting them up differently so that the newscasts that you hear at 8:00 in the morning on our radio station in Medicine Hat will sound substantially different from the newscast your heard at 7:30 if you're listening, you know, over the course of 40 minutes, because any more ‑‑ the expectations are going up, especially in a small market.

308              We're faced with this particular situation in Charlottetown, where we just, you know, converted CHTNA into FM, and it's a big station for news on the island.  And we were really surprised when we were converted there, the amount of time spent listening being done to the radio station.  They love it, and people are listening four, five, six hours straight, you know, and you can't keep rerunning the same newscast every hour.  Not only does it not sound very good, people won't tolerate it.

309              So in this particular case, that's why we're going to have three and a half people in the news department, because we're going to have to get people that know how to write, and we're going to take a much more proactive approach to going out and gathering news.  And technology helps us do that a lot these days as well, so we can get more actualities on the air and do a much better job of creating a news cast.  So the clip you heard of the mayer at 7:30 as part of story that was happening, it may be a different clip that you hear from the mayor at 8:00.

310              So substantively, the newscast is the same news, but it's being presented in a slightly different way so you don't fatigue and get burned out on it.

311              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And my final question is, you were saying to my colleague that there would be a problem if a classic rock or classic hits format was also licenced.  The reality is, we don't regulate those, and it's going to be a race, isn't it?

312              MR. MAHEU:  It would be a race to who could get on first and ‑‑

313              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And then the second person would just have to adjust?

314              MR. MAHEU:  Would have to adjust, absolutely.  And that's why we go and do research and figure it out.

315              Again, at the end of the day, we don't decide and the Commission really doesn't decide what format is going to be in a market, the listeners will decide what they want and how they want it.  And if we do our jobs properly we will give them what they want.  As long as it lives up to the spirit of what was intended originally, and that we honour our commitments and our promises and do a good job for the marketplace, and we would intend on doing that.

316              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

317              Counsel?

318              MS BENNETT:  Thanks.  I just want to establish the filing dates for the letters that you agreed that you would file.  The letter ‑‑ or the written agreement with respect to the Alberta Music Showcase at the Canada Music Week, could you indicate when you could file that letter?

319              MR. MAHEU:  Could a week from today be okay?

320              MS BENNETT:  I think that's fine.

321              MR. MAHEU:  Would that be all right?

322              MS BENNETT:  And the second letter from Starmaker describing the extent to which they can target Alberta artists?

323              MR. MAHEU:  Could we file that at the same time?

324              MS BENNETT:  Okay.  Thank you.

325              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Steele, Mr. Maheu, Panel.

326              We'll now take ‑‑ you have two minutes to tell us how wonderful you are and why you are better than everybody else.  I'm sorry.

327              MR. MAHEU:  How about we take 40 seconds?  Just to sum up, thank you very much for hearing our proposal this morning.  I know you've got a very long week ahead of you, lots of applications, lots of good ideas for not only Medicine Hat, but for other markets as well.  We appreciate the opportunity to lead off this morning.

328              To sum up, you know, for Medicine Hat we're proposing something that's a little bit different.  It is a hybrid.  It is something new that hasn't really been done a lot anywhere else.  We just want you to know, please, if you decide that this is the most worthy use of that frequency that we'll do a good job on it, we'll take the judicious care we need to do to put together a great radio station that delivers on the needs and wants of the people in Medicine Hat.

329              They've told us through the research clearly they want this kind of music in the marketplace.  We believe we have a very good track record of delivering this type of music in this format in markets this size and smaller.  We're very comfortable and excited about markets like Medicine Hat.  It's one we very much want to be a part of.  And if you give us the licence we promise we'll go in and roll up our sleeves and we'll do a very good job for the people of Medicine Hat.  You have our word on that.

330              Thank you very much.

331              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Once again thank you, Mr. Steele, Mr. Maheu and panel.

332              We'll now take 15 minutes.  By my watch that will be 20 after 11.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1105 / Suspension à 1105

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1120 / Reprise à 1120

333              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please.

334              Madam Secretary...?

335              THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

336              We'll now proceed with item 2 on the agenda of this public hearing, which is an application by Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited to amend the licence of radio programming undertaking CJLT‑FM Medicine Hat.

337              The licencee proposes to amend the licence by changing the frequency from 99.5 megahertz (channel 258LP) to 93.7 megahertz (channel 229A).

338              The licencee also proposes to change the authorized contours by increasing the effective radiated power from 48 to 2,300 watts, by relocating the transmitter and by increasing the antenna height (non‑directional antenna/antenna height of 99.5 metres).

339              Appearing for the applicant is Mr. Scott Raible.  And Mr. Raible, you will have 20 minutes for your presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

340              MR. RAIBLE:  Thank you.

341              To the honourable members of the Commission and to others here at this hearing, good morning.

342              Lighthouse Broadcasting has been broadcasting and serving Medicine Hat since April 2003 with a strong commitment to entertain and encourage the listeners of Medicine Hat through high quality Christian music and programming.

343              As quoted by a letter from the Mayor of Medicine Hat written in support of our application for our technical amendment, CJLT‑FM has been a welcomed business in Medicine Hat providing a radio station with religious programming.  This business has been well received by the community since their commencement of broadcasting in our community.  Lighthouse Broadcasting supports the vision of Medicine Hat as being a Community of Choice providing alternate programming.

344              We've been committed to Medicine Hat, providing free promotional assistance to non‑profit charitable organizations and local businesses just starting up.  Lighthouse Broadcasting also has local features such as local hero of the month featuring and supporting our local police and firefighters serving our communities.

345              We also feature various non‑profit groups and organizations on the air supporting the different events that take place in our community.  We're also used by the Medicine Hat College for job showing opportunities in radio, as well as bringing local school choirs on the air.  And we're proud supporters of the Medicine Hat High School Dry Grad and the annual Medicine Hat Jazz Fest that takes place in the community every year.

346              We've also been a platform for local and Canadian Christian bands that you can't hear anywhere else in Medicine Hat, such as Medicine Hat's own Cross Rock, Play it Again and Minister Joe C, and some of the national Canadian bands that we feature are Amanda Falk, Downhere, and Starfield, just to name a few.

347              Indeed Lighthouse Broadcasting won the small business of the year for 2005 award as presented by Autracor(ph) and the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce.

348              The one complaint that we have received over and over again was that our signal was not strong in many part of the city, even those that fall well within our 3.0 MV contour and our original map.  This became an issue both with listeners and advertisers, as a commercial licence and a station dedicated to providing our listeners with high quality programming, this of course has caused a problem.  Whereas in the end of the 2005 fiscal year we had a $12,000 profit, this past year we've had actually a deficit.

349              The reason we heard back from advertisers is that our signal wasn't strong enough and they do not have confidence in the strength of our signal.  Many of them asked our sales team to come back once our signal is increased.  We've tried several ways to compensate that, unfortunately we are still fuzzy in many areas that we should reach according to our original map and some listeners complain they can't get us on their alarm clocks because they want to listen to us when they wake up in the morning, as well as even in their cars, and, again, in some areas that should be covered according to our original application.

350              Our technical staff tells us that because of the coulees in Medicine Hat and recent construction, the only way to compensate is to increase our signal strength and broadcast from a higher location.

351              As we, of course, are a commercial radio station, in order to remain economically viable it is imperative that we are able to cover our entire city effectively.  In response to our community, listeners and advertisers, we feel the best course of action is to increase our signal strength and relocate our transmitter to the CBC tower in the Cypress County area.

352              We have approached CBC and they have given us written approval, upon condition of CRTC acceptance, to broadcast from their tower.  Pippin Technical, which provided our technical Brief, has been in constant contact with the engineers from CBC and has agreed that our proposed signal will be able to adequately cover our broadcast area and will not interfere with any existing frequencies.

353              Industry Canada has also given us conditional approval for our amendment upon condition of the CRTC acceptance.

354              We will remain committed to fulfil our commitment in our original application to the City of Medicine Hat.  Though we have requested a power boost, may I note, it is only enough to reach our city.  We are not asking for a 100,000 watt or even 20,000, we're asking for 2,300 watts in order to effectively serve our community.

355              In our comparison chart, our contours are focused on Medicine Hat, and as our community is growing it will allow our signal to carry on into the new developments of Medicine Hat, as well as the existing areas that we should be reaching in our 3.0 MV contour, but currently are not.

356              As stated in our application, Lighthouse Broadcasting will be willing to accept any reasonable conditions of licence in order to obtain a technical amendment to our broadcast licence.  As a condition of licence we would increase our commitment to the City of Medicine Hat by offering an annual scholarship of an additional $500 to local students who wish to pursue music at the Medicine Hat College.  This would be in addition to the $400 scholarship we are currently doing for Canadian talent development.

357              I also want to take this moment and reaffirm Lighthouse Broadcasting's commitment to our Christian music format, and that the purpose of this power boost and technical amendment is to keep CJLT‑FM economically viable as a commercial radio station in Medicine Hat, and allow us to reach all of our current and potential listeners in our community with a strong, clear signal.  This is particularly important to us due to the potential of future radio station in our market.

358              In closing, please let me read you the ten reasons we think you should approve Lighthouse Broadcasting's request for our technical amendment:

359              ‑ (10) Lighthouse Broadcasting is the only applicant applying for this frequency;

360              ‑ (9) As a condition of licence, Lighthouse Broadcasting will increase our CTD to a total of $900 to the Medicine Hat College, which will benefit local Medicine Hat musicians;

361              ‑ (8) There are no negative interventions against our application;

362              ‑ (7) This is our second attempt for this technical amendment, and Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited has responded to the Commission's request for more compelling reasons to grant us our request;

363              ‑ (6) It will provide Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited an opportunity at economic stability, especially with the potential arrival of other stations in our market;

364              ‑ (5) Lighthouse Broadcasting is the only station serving the Christian music format, and we are committed to the Christian music format, and of course would make it a condition of licence;

365              ‑ (4) We are the only outlet for local, regional and Canadian musicians and artists of this format in Medicine Hat, and we support them by playing their music and promoting their events.  On average we have about 16 percent Cancon if not more than that;

366              ‑ (3) Lighthouse Broadcasting is locally owned.  We provide local jobs;

367              ‑ (2) We also promote community events and businesses;

368              ‑ (1) And the most important reason to grant us our technical amendment is our listeners.  It will allow the listeners of Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited to receive a higher quality signal of the desired music and programming, especially those in areas outlined in our original application, but are not currently able to receive the signal, and therefore more adequately meeting the need for a Christian music format in Medicine Hat.

369              On behalf of Lighthouse Broadcasting, I thank you in advance for consideration of this request and I look forward to your questions.

370              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

371              Commissioner Williams.

372              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Good morning.  Is it Mr. Raible?

373              MR. RAIBLE:  Mr. Raible.

374              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Raible.  Your application and your presentation to us this morning were quite thorough, however we have a few questions of clarification for you this morning and we will try to work our way through them.

375              In decision 2003‑12 you were licenced to serve the City of Medicine Hat, and in your current application for technical change you indicate that the station's principal marketing activities as a result of your increase in power will be directed towards the communities of Medicine Hat, Redcliff, Bow Island and Dunmore, all of which lie within the new proposed contours.  I also note that the proposed five millivolt contour would include other communities, such as Bullshead, Bowell, and Vale.

376              Hypothetically, let's say you were approached by a community group in Red Cliff, Dunmore, Bow Island or Vale asking you to cover a church dance or maybe a recital.  Your station is creating interest in these communities.  You have stated that your personal marketing activities under this new technical proposal would include these communities.  Would you ‑‑ would you reorient a portion of your local reflection programming to include content relevant to these new communities?

377              MR. RAIBLE:  Definitely.  In fact, what we have done currently right now, because parts of Red Cliff are able to get us a little bit, we have been bringing on Red Cliff organizations to support their events, like Red Cliff Days.

378              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Could you explain your need to reflect these additional communities in your local and spoken word programming?  Since your stated rationale in applying for this technical amendment is to increase your signal strength to address coverage deficiency specific to Medicine Hat and your ability to serve Medicine Hat as you were originally licenced.

379              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.  Let's see if I can answer this correctly.  By serving Medicine Hat and by reflecting on what's happening in Medicine Hat as well we could also reflect what's happening in Dunmore and Red Cliff.  Things that happen in Medicine Hat usually affect those outlying communities as well.  At the same time we will be able to actually communicate what's happening in those communities to the greater city at large.

380              By ‑‑ what we have currently now, we have ‑‑ we would invite local groups from those areas to come on.  During our morning show we actually have a spot every Friday morning where local groups can come on and explain to our listeners what's happening, so they would be included in that.  Also we have a feature where local ministers or pasters from various denominations come and have one week free of doing what we call an on‑air devotional, and ministers from those communities would be invited as well to partake of that.

381              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  For the record, if your proposal was approved would you maintain the current conditions of licence as set out in your licence and the appended decision 2003‑12?

382              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.  That was loud.

383              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  I note in your deficiency response dated 26 October 2005, you indicated you would devote $500 a year towards a music scholarship to the Medicine Hat College.  Who will be responsible for the allocation of the funds, and how will the recipients be chosen?

384              MR. RAIBLE:  Lighthouse Broadcasting would be giving the money to the Medicine Hat College Scholarship Foundation, and what would happen is the requirements to obtain that scholarship would have to be based on the fact they'd be applying to go to Medicine Hat College, be a member of the music program, and then myself with a couple other members of the Medicine Hat Cultural Centre and community would try and determine the best qualified applicant from those requirements.

385              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  What criteria would you be using to choose the best qualified applicant?

386              MR. RAIBLE:  Again, we'd be looking to make sure they were applying for a music program at the Medicine Hat College and we'd be looking at their dedication and various aspects like that.

387              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay.  Could you comment on ‑‑ please comment on the commission imposing a conditional licence requiring that you make equal annual payments over seven consecutive broadcast years to the CTD initiative you've targeted, totalling $3,500?

388              MR. RAIBLE:  I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear the question.

389              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay.  Could you please comment on the Commission imposing a condition of licence requiring that you make equal annual payments over seven consecutive broadcast years to the CTD initiative that you have targeted totalling 3,500?  If it became a conditional licence.

390              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes, we would definitely do it, yes.  We would accept that.

391              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay.  Under the CAB plan as conditional licence, annual CTD payments by Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited for a small market station should be 400 per year.  I had a question ‑‑ I had a question prepared that was to ask you ‑‑ ask you that it appeared that no payments have been made, but we received this document just this morning, stating that you're pleased to inform the Medicine Hat College Foundation has received a cheque for $800 from Lighthouse Broadcasting Limited, and these funds will be used to provide scholarships for students enrolled in the Medicine Hat College Conservatory of Music Academy Program for 2005/2006 academic years.  When was this payment made?

392              MR. RAIBLE:  The payment was made actually on Friday.  And if I can clarify what happened there, we made this agreement with the college in 2005, and we felt ‑‑ we thought everything was organized and ready to go.  I guess they didn't proceed with it, they were waiting for a fax I guess they didn't get, but they didn't tell us about it.  So we've been under the impression that we've been having this going for the last two years.

393              When the request came from the CRTC to obviously provide proof and documentation, we went ahead to get that, only to find out that they had everything ready from 2005, but they didn't proceed with it and didn't notify us that they had not.  So we got a hold of them immediately and settled ‑‑ asked what had happened.  They explained, and so we, anyway, paid for 2005 and 2006.  And we've asked that they would be able to explain that to you as well, should you have any questions, because we were quite surprised to find that out.

394              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay, thank you.  In CRTC Broadcasting decision 2004‑549, the Commission denied a previous application by you for a change in frequency and an increase in transmitter power.  In that decision, the Commission stated you had not presented compelling evidence of either economic or technical need for the proposed changes.

395              With respect to economic need ‑‑ just give me a second while I find the information you provided.  Can you tell us how your revenues and expenditures during your first two years of operation may have differed from those projected in your original business plan and where they have differed, provide us some reasons.

396              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.  I guess projections are never as accurate as when you're actually on the ground running a radio station, so for us ‑‑ for myself, experience has probably been the greatest teacher of what expenditures are real and what you can expect from economic forecasts.  So for us it was a real learning curve.  However, things were very well in 2005 as far as we were considering, but due to the fact that our advertisers could no longer have confidence in our signal, we found they weren't renewing, and it was simply because of the fact of the weakness of our signal strength.  So we have confidence that once we can get our technical boost we can retain and regain the advertisers we had, for example, in 2005.

397              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay.  Based on the information you've provided me here, you seem to have suffered a revenue drop of between 15 and 20 percent; would that be fair over those ‑‑

398              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

399              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  ‑‑ the time period we're talking about?  Okay.  Now, you said experience is a good teacher in terms of projections.  Can you please tell us how you arrived at the revenue projections you included in this application?  For example, what factors did you take into account projecting the amount of local advertising revenue?

400              MR. RAIBLE:  We're looking at ‑‑ when we originally made the application in 2005, we were looking at several of the ‑‑ I guess what ‑‑ sorry.  I guess we were looking at what we were currently generating at the time and what we could potentially get.

401              Things have changed in the last fiscal year.  We weren't ‑‑ I guess we honestly weren't counting on our signal not being as strong as it was, and so we were faced, I guess, in a situation we didn't count on being in.  And the importance of our technical amendment has really been stressed this past fiscal year, which is why I included in that package not just a copy of our 2005 fiscal year, but our 2006 as well, so you can see the drop in revenue.  And when we've gone back to our advertisers, they keep on mentioning the signal strength.

402              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  In our decision 2004‑549, the Commission denied a previous application for a change in frequency and in increase in transmitter power.  In that decision the Commission stated you had not presented compelling evidence of the technical need for these proposed changes.

403              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.

404              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Could you please describe the changes which resulted in the submission of this new application that occurred since the Commission's last decision on Lighthouse Broadcasting, which also was based on a proposal to change the authorized contour by increasing the effect of radiated power and antenna height?

405              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.

406              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  What's changed since the last time?

407              MR. RAIBLE:  What we've tried to do is we've tried to include, I guess, a clear picture, both from our listeners as well as with comparative maps, to show you that areas that we should be getting in our original application in our 3 MV contour, we're just not getting them.  Key main areas we're just not reaching.  So we're hoping to show that with the overlay, that this signal strength will obviously get those key areas, and at the same time, we believe we're still serving Medicine Hat and area.  We're not serving any other major markets.  We're keeping true to our original intent of the original application, which is to serve Medicine Hat with high quality programming.

408              We've also tried to provide information from Pippin Tech.  And again, I believe if you look at the positive letters of support from our listeners, they'll mention over and over again that they ‑‑ the reason they're supporting us in this decision is because they want to hear us in their homes and in their basement, and many of those positive interventions are within the 3 MV contour.  We didn't have that information in our last application.

409              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Okay.  Your answers have satisfied my list of questions here.

410              I'm completed, Madam Chair.

411              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

412              Vice‑Chair Arpin...?

413              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

414              You have showed us a map that you have in your hand.  Is it one of the maps that you put in your folder?

415              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.  If you look in your ‑‑ in the package on the back tab, the first map will be of our original ‑‑

416              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  The Pippin map, yeah, which is the original technical ‑‑ taken out of the original technical brief that you submitted?

417              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

418              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  And what you're saying is that even in the interior of your 3 microvolt per metre, the coverage is not good enough, so even people don't ‑‑ can't listen to the station in their home, particularly in their basement, as you said?

419              MR. RAIBLE:  Or in their base ‑‑ in their businesses.  We have clients, for example, who live on 3rd Street ‑‑ who have businesses, sorry, on 3rd Street, and other areas right in the middle of our 3 MV contour, would love to play our station, especially if they're advertising with us, but they can't.  Every time they get a fuzzy signal they question whether they should be advertising with us.

420              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Exactly, okay.  Now, on your covering page of the document that you gave us this morning, which went ‑‑ which is going in the public record?

421              MS BENNETT:  Sorry, could you repeat the question?

422              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  The document that we received, it's totally going into the public record?

423              MS BENNETT:  Yes.  I have a couple of questions to clarify exactly what we've got, but the documents will be put on the top of the licencee's file.

424              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Okay, fine.  Now, you addressed ‑‑ you said earlier today that ‑‑ how many employees ‑‑ you're locally owned and you provide local jobs.  How many employees do you have?

425              MR. RAIBLE:  Including myself, we have seven local employees.

426              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  And how many are on air?

427              MR. RAIBLE:  Five of them.

428              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Five of them?

429              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

430              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  And including yourself?

431              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

432              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  You also provided us with financial material regarding the year ‑‑ your profit and loss financials for the year 2006.  And could I question you on those financials?

433              MR. RAIBLE:  If you like to you can, and I'll do my very best to answer them.

434              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Because I'm seeing, and you provided us ‑‑ there are two lines that I wonder if you could help me in getting more details.  You have travel, and you have a $12,000 expense under travel, which for a station of your size, seems to me somehow significant and ‑‑

435              MR. RAIBLE:  As you can tell, I don't handle the finances at the station, but I'll do my very best to answer that.  I believe that included not just travel, but anything promotional to do with the station as well.

436              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  You have another line that is called promotion somewhere ‑‑ somewhere up there.  I've noticed that you have sales promotions with another $5,000.

437              MR. RAIBLE:  Mmhmm.

438              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  If you can't answer, could you provide us with an answer, say, within the next week?

439              MR. RAIBLE:  Definitely.

440              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Written answer?

441              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

442              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  I also have a similar question regarding line 54, 55, which is donations.  And again, I have a fairly big number under donations.  Do you know what that is all about?

443              MR. RAIBLE:  That I can explain.  Obviously we're a Christian radio station, so our religious beliefs, I guess, are ‑‑ motivate everything that we do.  So what we do is we give back to the community, and so we believe in tagging 10 percent back to local churches and charities.  No matter what, how much money we make, that's what we do.  So that is the reason for that.

444              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Okay, that's fine, no problem.  I don't see anywhere bad debts because you don't have any bad debts, your clients are paying correctly?

445              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.  And ‑‑

446              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Lucky you.

447              MR. RAIBLE:  We've got good clients.

448              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  You've got good clients.

449              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

450              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

451              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

452              Thank you, Mr. Raible.

453              So it is ‑‑ and I also notice that in the year before you have travel of 15,000, so I'd ask you to explain both?

454              MR. RAIBLE:  Definitely.

455              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And why they would be legitimate business expenses.

456              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

457              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And I ask you then secondly, why we should consider the donations as a legitimate business expense, when it is not generally a business expense in radio stations?  I mean, you're saying we're not profitable or won't be profitable, but at the same time you have 20,000 in each year as a ‑‑ as an expense, and why should we consider for you it's a legitimate expense when we don't habitually do that?

458              MR. RAIBLE:  Again, we do that for ‑‑ I don't know how this sounds.  We do this for religious conscience or whatever.  What I could do is I could actually find out why we consider it an expense when I talk to my accountant, but I just know that's what we have done as a principle of business, is just take ten percent off every month what we make, off the top, and we donate it.

459              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Yeah, if you could ‑‑ if you could ‑‑

460              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

461              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Now, I'm confused as to when you actually went on air.  The decision was issued 21 January 2003.

462              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

463              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Today you say you've been on air since April '03.

464              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

465              THE CHAIRPERSON:  In your Supplementary Brief at page 1 you said 2002, at page 1.  And subsequently you said you've been broadcasting for two years.  So ‑‑ that's your Supplementary Brief, I'm sorry.  Your application said since 2002, your Supplementary Brief said you've been broadcasting for two years.  Tell me when did you really go on the air?

466              MR. RAIBLE:  I believe we were approved in January 2003.  We were on the air in April 2003, very quickly right after that.  I apologize for any oversight, for any confusion that would be in that application, but we have been on the air since April 2003.

467              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So did you file your annual report as required by the regs for that year at the end ‑‑ effective the end of August?

468              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

469              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And did you pay CTD that year?

470              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

471              THE CHAIRPERSON: And to whom did you pay it?

472              MR. RAIBLE:  I would have to double check and see who we paid it to, but I know we did.

473              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Why do you know you did?

474              MR. RAIBLE:  Because it's a condition of licence, so I remember us doing that, but then after ‑‑ for 2005 we decided we needed a better Canadian Talent Development plan, and we felt that the scholarships, after talking to other radio stations in similar markets, would be a ‑‑ a better use of the money.

475              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

476              MR. RAIBLE:  Of the CTD.

477              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Our information was that was your annual report for 2003 was not filed.  Could you provide us with a copy of that within a week?

478              MR. RAIBLE:  Definitely.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

479              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And did you then file your annual report for 2004, for the year ending August 31, 2004?

480              MR. RAIBLE:  Again, yes.

481              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Our information is you did not.  Can you provide us a copy of that within one week?

482              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.  You bet you.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

483              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So then you say ‑‑ so in the year 2004, you say again that you made ‑‑ you paid your CTD?

484              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

485              THE CHAIRPERSON:  For both 2003 and 2004, can you provide us with a copy of the cheque showing that you paid the CTD?

486              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.  Yes, we will, within a week.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

487              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And then you say you decided to go to Medicine Hat College?

488              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

489              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And you did that, but they didn't proceed with it.  Why didn't you write a cheque that would then push them to proceed with it?

490              MR. RAIBLE:  Good question.  Again, I don't handle the financial end of the business.  We had made all the arrangements on the telephone.  They had faxed us a contract, we had faxed a contract back, and I was under the impression that it was taken care of and that my financial department would look after any invoices that came in.  I guess I have to do a much better job boning up and making sure in the future that things get taken care of.

491              When it came to our intention last week that it hadn't been taken care of, we contacted them.  We wanted to find out what had happened.  They, for whatever reason, didn't let us know.

492              Again, it's our responsibility.  We took care of it the minute we found out, and we provided ‑‑ we paid for 2005 and 2006, and we have proof of that payment as well.  But again, I do apologize, we should have been much more on the ball in that one and that's my fault.

493              THE CHAIRPERSON:  It's your condition of licence?

494              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

495              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mmhmm.  If indeed it appears that our records show you did not file your annual reports for 2003 and 2004, it also appears that you have remedied your non‑compliance in terms of your CTD recently, habitually the Commission is not inclined to grant people relief if they are in non‑compliance.  Why would we grant you relief if you were in non‑compliance?

496              MR. RAIBLE:  I guess we would ‑‑ we would not knowingly be in non‑compliance.  We want to comply to every ‑‑ everything you ask us to do.  You've asked us to do reasonable conditions of licences, and so we want to meet those.  And all I can promise to the CRTC, and I guess I have to show it by my actions, is that much more professional and making sure we commit and keep and follow‑up on every commitment and condition of licence that is granted to us.  And you would definitely see that, no matter if you give us the application ‑‑ the request for amendment or not, we will definitely be better at doing that.

497              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Raible.

498              Oh, Vice‑Chair Arpin...?

499              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Filing of annual returns is a part of the regulation book, and so ‑‑ and it is very important that you file your annual return because we're collecting the information and providing statistics for all the broadcasters in this country, and we're publishing on a yearly basis and monitoring the report that is used largely by various groups, including the OACD.  And it's very important that the numbers that we're providing those are complete and are showing the real picture how broadcasting is in this country.

500              If you will make sure that in the future to provide your annual return in due time.  They're due each year at the latest on November 30th of each year, and it is ‑‑ it is a very important tool for managing the ‑‑ the broadcasting system.

501              MR. RAIBLE:  If I may, I remember ‑‑ I know we did the 2003/2004 annual return because I remember being helped very patiently by ‑‑ by employees of the CRTC.  So that's why I know it was done because I remember how patient they were with us figuring out how to do it.  So we will find out for whatever reason why you don't have a copy, because I remember us doing it.  And I know when I talked to Kim last week, she said there were some problems with some faxing of things back in that time.  Again, I'm not sure, but we will make sure that you get 2003/2004.

502              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Along with proof of when you filed it.

503              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

504              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Commissioner Williams...?

505              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Just one more question of clarification on your donations.  The donations are to be 10 percent of your gross revenue; is that correct?

506              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes, every month.

507              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Maybe when you speak with your accountant then, he seems to have donated a little more than 10 percent.  It's probably ‑‑ probably almost 10 percent over contribution.  You might want to check his math on that one as well because it is affecting your bottom line in a negative manner.

508              MR. RAIBLE:  Okay.

509              COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:  Thank you.

510              THE CHAIRPERSON:  I'm sorry, I have another question, Mr. Raible.  When Commissioner Williams was asking you questions, I thought the whole essence of your argument on lack of coverage was that in the first year you broadcast your advertisers thought your coverage was better than it was.  Is that your point?

511              MR. RAIBLE:  In our first couple years, advertisers were just excited that there was another alternative to radio in Medicine Hat, and many of them really liked the idea of Christian music programming.  However, over the years, as they were listening and getting feedback from their clients ‑‑ from their customers, the responses seemed to be, yeah, we listen to it live, but not in our cars because we can't get it in certain areas or we can't get it into our businesses.  So when terms came up for renewal, we noticed consistently businesses saying, you know, we like what you're doing, we like the sound, but we just don't have confidence in the consistency of your signal to get all of Medicine Hat.  And so because of that, we noticed advertising revenue slowly dropping off, and then especially when they had the BSE crisis in Medicine Hat, we really felt that as businesses were being very careful with their advertising dollars, wanting to go with stations that had clear coverage across the community.

512              I know we've tried many different days to make do with what we have because we want to be good stewards of what we have.  Again and again we keep on hearing that we need to increase our signal strength so people can get it consistently in their cars in the City of Medicine Hat, in their homes and in their business.

513              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So when we get your annual ‑‑ copies of your annual reports as filed, we will notice a consistent decrease in advertising income over the years; is that correct?

514              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

515              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

516              Counsel...?

517              MS BENNETT:  Thanks.  I have one substantive follow‑up question, and just a couple of housekeeping matters just to sort out what we've got here to put on the file.  But the first question is just a substantive question on the number of people that would be within the proposed contour.

518              So could you just confirm that approval of your application would increase the population covered by your 3 millivolt per metre contour from 35,000 people to just over 66,000?

519              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes, that would be correct.

520              MS BENNETT:  Okay, thank you.  Now, I just want to go to sort of nailing down all of the things that will be filed, but firstly I want to just confirm that what we have here in the package that you filed today on page 4 and page 5, are the revised annual returns for the years ending August 31st, 2005 and 2006, that were requested by the Commission staff; is that correct?

521              MR. RAIBLE:  Yeah, I don't know ‑‑ I don't believe 2006 was, but 2005 definitely was.

522              MS BENNETT:  Okay.  Now, have these been filed separately with the Commission, or is it your expectation that we will forward this to them, monitoring ‑‑ or the annual return group?

523              MR. RAIBLE:  2005 has already been submitted with all the information.

524              MS BENNETT:  Okay.

525              MR. RAIBLE:  And 2006 will be as well, but 2005 they already have it, Kim already has it.

526              MS BENNETT:  Okay, thank you.  Now, just to go back through some of the things that you've agreed to file this morning.  Firstly, you agreed to file a clarification on the 10 percent profit that goes back to the community.  Could you indicate when you could file that information?

527              MR. RAIBLE:  Within one week.

528              MS BENNETT:  Okay.  Now, secondly, you have agreed to file the annual reports for the years ending August 31st, 2003 and 2004, with a proof of when you filed those returns.  When will you do that?

529              MR. RAIBLE:  Within a week as well.

530              MS BENNETT:  One week, okay.  And lastly, it was the copies of the cheques for payment of CTD for the years 2003, 2004, I believe?

531              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.

532              MS BENNETT:  Yes.  Is that one week as well?

533              MR. RAIBLE:  Yes.

534              MS BENNETT:  Okay.  Thank you, I believe that's everything.

535              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  You now have your two minutes.

536              MR. RAIBLE:  Again, I just want to thank you so much for the CRTC ‑‑ for hearing our request for a technical amendment for Lighthouse Broadcasting.  We believe that this technical amendment will not only improve economic stability for Alive 99.5, but also improve the quality that our clients and our listeners can receive of their favourite Christian Canadian and other music.

537              Thank you very much.

538              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Raible.

539              Madam secretary, do you have anything to add to the record at this moment?

540              THE SECRETARY:  No, madam chair.  Thank you.

541              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  We will take a one‑hour lunch break, which means we will reconvene at 1:05.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1205 / Suspension à 1205

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1305 / Reprise à 1305

542              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.

543              Madam Secretary...?

544              THE SECRETARY:  Before ‑‑

545              THE CHAIRPERSON:  We are presently experiencing technical difficulties, please standby.

546              THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

547              Before we introduce the next application, I would just like to clarify ‑‑ to indicate for the record that the letter dated October 30th from the foundation coordinator with respect to the Lighthouse Broadcasting application that we heard prior to the lunch, will be placed on the application file of Lighthouse Broadcasting.

548              And we now proceed to item 3 on the agenda, which is an application by Golden West Broadcasting Limited for a licence to operate an English language FM commercial radio programming undertaking in Medicine Hat.  The new station would operate on frequency 101.5 megahertz (channel 268C1) with an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts (non‑directional antenna/antenna height of 96.0 metres).

549              Appearing for the applicant is Mr. Elmer Hildebrand, who will introduce his colleagues, and you will then have 20 minutes for your presentation.

550              Mr. Hildebrand...?

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

551              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Thank you.  Madam Chair, members of the Commission and Commission staff, thank you so much for having us here today for this important hearing.

552              My name is Elmer Hildebrand, president/CEO of Golden West Broadcasting.  I'm also on the Board of the Canadian Women in Communications, secretary‑treasurer of BBM and the Radio Marketing Bureau.

553              With me here today are Lyndon Friesen, executive vice‑president and chief operating officer of Golden West.  Keith Leask to my right, senior, manager for Alberta.  And Barrie Vice on my far left, program/music coordinator for Golden West.

554              As many of you know, I have been in the small market radio business since 1957, so next year we are marking our 50th anniversary.  Lyndon Friesen has been with Golden West since 1975; Keith Leask joined our company in 1983, and Barrie Vice is the rookie of our team arriving in 1990.

555              Golden West has made its mark serving the prairies, and Medicine Hat is a perfect fit for our group of stations in the prairies.

556              We started in 1957 with a small 1,000 watt radio station in Altona, Manitoba.  Altona is still the site of our head office, and the community has seen steady growth since 1957 and now has a population of 3,500 people.

557              From these modest beginnings in '57 our organization has continued to grow, always serving non‑metro markets.

558              Today we operate AM stations in 13 prairie communities and FM stations in 12.  Just like everyone else, our AM stations are not experiencing a lot of growth, so we must increase the number of FM stations so our company will have long‑term viability when AM radio ultimately falls off into the sunset.

559              This then brings us to our application to provide local radio service to Medicine Hat.

560              Keith Leask will now outline our plans for news and information for the community of Medicine Hat.

561              Keith...?

562              MR. LEASK:  News from the community is likely ‑‑ excuse me, is likely the most important thing we do at Golden West Broadcasting.  It's how we remain relevant to our listeners.  It will be no different in Medicine Hat, as we deliver to that growing community the kind of radio news service that they deserve.

563              Each weekday, Golden West will air a comprehensive three‑minute local newscast at the top of the hour at six, seven, eight, nine and 10 a.m.  An additional newscast will air during the peak morning drive time at 7:30.  One‑and‑a‑half minute sportscasts will follow the newscast at six, seven, 7:30 and eight.  Three‑minute newscasts will also air during the midday and afternoon drive times at 1:00, two, four, five, and 6 p.m., with an extra newscast at 5:30.  One and a half minutes of sports will follow each news segment at four, five, 5:30 and six.  And you'll see the first of the two charts that show this very clearly in your package.

564              It's hard to capture all that's going on in a growing city on a daily basis during three minutes of news.  That's why we're proposing a one‑half hour noon hour show called Medicine Hat Today to air each weekday from 12 until 12:30.  This show will feature expanded news and sports, as well as features on items that are important to the citizens of Medicine Hat.

565              These will include the oil industry, agriculture, Medicine Hat City Council, the School Board and other education stories, including Medicine Hat College, recreation organizations, business and the Chamber of Commerce and news about the social fabric of the city.

566              This fast‑paced half hour will also include a good news feature that we'll call "Southeastern Success Stories."  This will highlight accomplishments and successes, both large and small, of people, organizations and businesses in Medicine Hat and area.  This feature will also air daily during our morning and afternoon drive time periods because everyone likes to hear something good about their neighbours and business associates.

567              This news coverage, combined with our weekend news coverage, means a total of just over five and one‑half hours and one hour and 20 minutes of sports, in addition to our ongoing surveillance of local traffic, local weather, community news and local entertainment.

568              Golden West will have a four‑person newsroom to cover all of the news in the area, including a dedicated reporter to cover regular beats and features.

569              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Barrie Vice will now outline our music plans for Medicine Hat.

570              MR. VICE:  Thank you, Elmer.

571              Golden West will play a hand‑picked mix of classic rock and modern rock to appeal to a broad base of listeners between 25 and 50.  This format will incorporate new rock music from artists like Train, Coldplay, U2, Stone Temple Pilots, 3 Doors Down and Evanescence, along with great Canadian modern rock artists like Nickelback, Sam Roberts, Three Days Grace, Billy Talent, Sloan and AlexisonFire.  As well as artists from the '70s, '80s and '90s, such as the Rolling Stones, Kansas, Boston, Pink Floyd, The Doors, April Wine and Bachman Turner Overdrive.

572              This format will skew 35 plus, and would be appealing to both male and females, while at the same time being completely different from what the incumbent stations are playing in Medicine Hat, which is country, and a pop music blend.  Golden West would commit to playing 40 percent Canadian content and we would do so as a condition of licence.

573              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Lyndon Friesen will now outline our plans to distribute $100,000 in direct contribution to Canadian Talent Developments.

574              MR. FRIESEN:  Golden West Broadcasting has committed ‑‑ has committed to $100,000 over the first term of our licence in direct contributions to Canadian Talent Development.  $10,000 per year in years one through five, and $25,000 per year for years six and seven.  We also have a chart to indicate how that will be distributed.

575              Although our plans call for those monies to be split between four groups during the first five $10,000 contribution years and five groups for the $25,000 contribution years, many more individuals will directly benefit from those CTD contributions.

576              The Medicine Hat College has one of the finest conservatories of music and dance in western Canada.  Both advance students enrolled in the academy programs, and students who are average, are taking the various courses for the pure love of music and dance, are a part of this fine program.

577              Although there are generally scholarships readily available for the academy students, this is not the case for non‑academy students.  As the college tells us, very often musical training must come to an end for some of these students simply because they cannot afford to continue their studies.

578              Golden West will set up scholarships through five of the musical divisions at the conservatory of music and dance at the Medicine Hat College.  $500 will be available each year to deserving non‑academy students in vocal, piano, strings, brass and percussion divisions.  We would leave it up to the instructors in those divisions to select a needy and deserving student for the scholarships each year.

579              The second portion of our CTD contributions would go to the Medicine Hat School Districts junior and senior high band programs at the Alexandra Junior High, Medicine Hat High and the Crescent Heights High School.  As you're likely aware, school band programs have been slashed in recent years.  In discussions with some of the music instructors in the school divisions, the purchase of new instruments is high on their list of priorities.  The $2,500 that Golden West would provide for these schools annually would be earmarked for the purchase of new band instruments each year.  $500 to Alexandra High or Junior High, $1,000 each to Medicine Hat High and Crescent Heights High.

580              Again, we would leave it up to the people who know best where the needs are, the instructors of the programs, to determine how the money would best be spent to acquire new instruments.

581              A third portion of the CTD contributions would go to the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival.  For 11 years now the Medicine Hat Jazz Society has brought the Jazz Fest to the streets, clubs and concert halls of Medicine Hat.  Now, with the opening in October of 2005 of the multi‑million dollar Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre, the Jazz Festival has a beautiful new venue to attract even more spectators than the 5,000 people who now attend annually.

582              The Medicine Hat Jazz Society is a not‑for‑profit organization and is a registered charity.  Golden West Broadcasting would contribute $2,500 annually as a sponsor of the Jazz Festival.  We would also provide extensive additional on‑air support and promotion of the Jazz Fest.

583              The final portion of the CTD funding would go to the Medicine Hat Folk and Roots Music Club and their monthly singer/songwriter nights.  These nights are held at various venues throughout Medicine Hat.  Each month approximately ten singers and songwriters of a variety of genres of music come together to perform their original works.  The music of these evenings and the performers has not been to judge, but to encourage.  However, occasionally someone stands out from the crowd and deserves a chance to record their music.  Golden West, along with the club's executive would select a deserving performer who would then be given a total of $2,500 to record and package their music.

584              Golden West would then promote the CD and the performer on the station in an attempt to spur on sales of the CD, all of which would go, of course, directly to the performer.

585              In years six and seven:  The above ‑‑ the above‑mentioned organizations will continue to receive their assigned benefits through years six and seven, however, we have intentionally left $30,000 unassigned, or $15,000 per year.  Once we become better established in the community and have solidified relationships, we will have a much better handle on which local organizations have the greatest need and would most benefit from financial contributions.  The recipient organizations of this initiative would be directed to reflect our musical format.

586              MR. HILDEBRAND:  That details Golden West's Canadian Talent Development contributions.  On top of these direct contributions, we will make ‑‑ Golden West makes music development an integral part of our commitment to the communities we call our home.  We will air weekly a 30‑minute music program called "Made in Alberta," which will spotlight music from across Alberta, focusing on many of the artists we will be promoting from the southwestern portion of the province around the Medicine Hat area.

587              This is something we do everywhere through our Golden West group of radio stations, and even though the program has continued for several years in some cases, we find there is never a shortage of great material to feature, from new emerging artists to established musical artists.

588              We note that there are other applications from Medicine Hat that you have to consider.  All of the applications are credible, but we maintain Golden West would be the best suited to provide a new radio service to Medicine Hat.

589              We have projected the lowest revenues from any of the stations applying, and therefore, we would have the least impact on the existing radio stations in the market.

590              I would also like to make a comment that goes back to what you heard this morning, where Mr. Maheu was saying that some years ago, during tough times, many broadcasters cut back in newsrooms as far as news people and sports people and information people.  Golden West did just the opposite.  When we saw everybody was cutting back in their newsrooms, we added people.  So we have continued to add people to our news operations, and that has stood us in good stead, and that is what would make us, I think, the best application for Medicine Hat.

591              Our track record in providing real local service all the time is well established.  We have the experience, the people and the resources to give Medicine Hat the kind of community service that is superior by any measure to any of the applications before you this week, and we hope that you would grant us a licence at the end of this meeting, and now we will be prepared to answer any questions you have.  Thank you very much.

592              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

593              Commissioner Cugini...?

594              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Gentlemen, good afternoon.

595              Mr. Hildebrand, your experience shows in that you must have anticipated some of the questions that we would have for you today and you did answer some of them in your oral presentation.  So regrettably, I do have some more for you.

596              The first area I would like to cover is your format because in your application you called it a "popular format," and here today you're telling us that it's going to be a mix of classic rock and modern rock.  So is that what you meant by popular all along?

597              MR. HILDEBRAND:  You know, in our case, music is not the most important part of our business plan.  Music is something that we obviously want to do, but our music genre is much broader and is very hard to sort of put in a narrow slot, you know, so we feel it would be popular, but it would be a much broader skew of music than you've heard either this morning or you will hear later this afternoon.

598              We think the most important part of our broadcast schedule is actually the news and information that we provide.  Music is generally available anywhere from satellite to CD to iPods, to any number of other sources.  But local news and information is the thing that makes us relevant, and that is the most important piece.  So our genre of music would not be a narrow segment, but a much broader base of music.

599              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  We'll get to your local news and spoken word programming because I sense that you're quite anxious to talk to us more about that.  But I hope you can appreciate that format ‑‑ music format is one of the factors that we consider, not only in terms of the incumbent stations in the market, but as well from the other applicants in these proceedings.

600              We don't licence format, that's true, but, of course, it forms the basis of your business plan and assessment of the market and so on, so I am going to delve a little bit into your format.  Is there going to ‑‑ is your classic rock and modern rock going to be day parted or is it going to be seamlessly blended throughout the day?

601              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I'll ask Barrie Vice to answer that.

602              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Thank you.

603              MR. VICE:  Sure.  No, we have no plans to day part music.  Our intent is to seamlessly blend, as you put it, through the day.

604              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And your target audience is 25 to 50?

605              MR. VICE:  Yeah.

606              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Do you plan on skewing more male or female with this format?

607              MR. VICE:  I think we see it as something that we hope would appeal to both sides because of, as Elmer has mentioned, the broad nature of it.

608              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And I will ask the question that Vice‑Chair Arpin usually asks, and what is the median age of your listeners?

609              MR. VICE:  I think we're typically looking at 35 plus.  I would say around, if we need a number, 42.  But 35 plus is our ‑‑

610              MR. HILDEBRAND:  42.5.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

611              MR. VICE:  Thank you.

612              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  How do you see ‑‑ what do you see as the difference between this format and what's currently available in this market?

613              MR. VICE:  I think this format will have music ‑‑ will put music on the radio station that isn't currently ‑‑ or on the radio in this market that isn't currently on the radio in this market because of its ‑‑ because of its rock roots.

614              I think ‑‑ I think we'll be pulling our music largely from the '80s and the '90s.  We mentioned some of the artists that we plan on spotlighting.  We mentioned the new rock component, so ‑‑ it's certainly not our intent to duplicate, you know, much or anything that's on the radio currently.

615              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And what differentiates this format from any of the other applicants?

616              MR. VICE:  Again, not being familiar with what the other applicants will be saying, only having seen this morning, I think it's the broad based nature of our format that probably sets it apart and makes it a little bit different.

617              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  So ‑‑

618              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I think maybe ‑‑ just to add to that, I think we will also be featuring more local music than might normally be the case, simply because that's part of our, you know, local inbred policies that we have at all of our stations, to feature as much local material as we can.  And that doesn't ever get on the chart, so ‑‑ but we find it's important, and we find that there is an audience for that when you do that.

619              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  You also mentioned in your application that with this station you plan on repatriating people who currently tune out of market to your radio station.  How will this music format do that?

620              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, I think the repatriation will be accelerated more by what is aired between the music.  The news and information will really be drawing people back.  They may have been listening to CBC, and CBC doesn't do much local news, and they certainly can't get any local news on any of the other genres, so that's what we have found again in other markets.  Once we get involved with the local community, that in itself repatriates a lot of people to our radio station and then the music just balances out the whole product for the day.

621              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Local programming and spoken word.  So from what you've told us today, if my math is correct, it's six and a half hours of local programming?  Of spoken word programming, I apologize?  390 minutes is six and a half hours?

622              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I'll have Lyndon Friesen talk about that.

623              MR. FRIESEN:  Yeah, I think on the ‑‑ if you refer to the chart that we provided, it ‑‑ we tried to make it quite clear.  Six hours and 55 minutes including ‑‑ and that is just the local newscasts and local sports casts.  It doesn't add the features or the news ‑‑ the daily news feature.  It doesn't include everything else that we do that we can't or haven't quantified.

624              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  So that's Monday to Friday six and a half, right?  The 390 minutes?

625              MR. FRIESEN:  Right.  And 25.5 ‑‑

626              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And 25 minutes on Saturday, so let's say seven hours.  And that is strictly news, weather, sports, surveillance material?

627              MR. FRIESEN:  It is 100 percent local.  We have a policy within our entire organization that our newscasts and our local information, and as you can see earlier, we actually will hire four people that ‑‑ four news people that specifically do nothing but gather local news information and then that's why we can make this kind of commitment.

628              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And the program that you spoke of today ‑‑ or this morning, "Medicine Hat Today," is that the news program or a public affairs program?

629              MR. FRIESEN:  I think I would characterize it more as a public affairs program.  Maybe I'll let Keith Leask describe it better.

630              MR. LEASK:  Now it's on.  We anticipate that that will be a program that fleshes out the news that we do during the regular newscasts.  It will be encompassing a longer form of news.  It will also encompass interviews with community people.  Like I said, the southeastern success stories feature will encompass that in there as well.  It will just be to flesh out the news that we're doing on a regular basis more.

631              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And will that ‑‑ is that part of the seven hours, or is that in addition to the seven hours?

632              MR. FRIESEN:  That's part of the seven hours.

633              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And that program will also be produced by the four‑person newsroom?

634              MR. FRIESEN:  Correct.

635              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Is there any other programming staff that will be hired?

636              MR. LEASK:  Programming staff?

637              MR. HILDEBRAND:  There will be programming staff hired as well in addition to news people.

638              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And how many programming staff do you ‑‑

639              MR. HILDEBRAND:  We expect four.

640              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Four.  So if we were to add DJ banter, for example, to that seven hours, what would your total spoken word programming commitment be?

641              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Everybody is very quiet when you ask ‑‑ you know, how much would the DJ banter add up to in hours.

642              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Just so we can arrive at a total of spoken word programming.

643              MR. HILDEBRAND:  At best it would be an estimate that we can give you here, but certainly every hour there would be anywhere from five to seven minutes of additional information that's provided during breaks.

644              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Okay.  And do you plan on doing any voice tracking?

645              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Any what?

646              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Voice tracking?

647              MR. HILDEBRAND:  We would probably do a little voice tracking to assist during various day parts, but we plan to be live basically from six to 12 midnight, and we would be, as somebody said this morning, we'd be answering the phone during that time.  So we are going to be fully staffed.

648              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  So you might have voice tracking between midnight and 6 a.m.?

649              MR. HILDEBRAND:  We would.

650              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Monday to Friday or Monday to Sunday?

651              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Monday to Sunday, yes.

652              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Monday to Sunday, okay.  I am now going to move on to CTD.  And thank you for the details in your presentation.  You also are committing to the CAB $400?

653              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

654              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And that's in addition to?

655              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, I think that's part of the whole package, but we could easily say that's in addition to, if you would like us to say that.

656              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And will you accept as a condition of licence the incremental expenses of your CTD going ‑‑

657              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

658              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  ‑‑ $10,000 years one to five and $25,000 years six and seven?

659              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

660              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Now, the 30 ‑‑ you said there was $30,000 unassigned that you have left.  What are your plans in terms of informing the Commission of how you're going to spend that $30,000 if you are established in the market?

661              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, we obviously ‑‑ I mean, as Lyndon indicated, we are leaving some of that in abeyance as to who would get that.  Because a lot of things happen in a community like Medicine Hat between sign‑on and seven years later.  There will be events that will appear that we don't even know about yet.  So we felt it made some sense not to earmark it all in advance in case there were some organizations that would be, you know, applicable to the CTD policies, and so we would put that in abeyance and say we would tell the Commission in year four or five, here is what we are planning to do in year six and seven.  Basically just to give us a little flexibility because it's very hard to make seven‑year plans.

662              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Okay.  Synergies:  In response to deficiency questions you did indicate that there may be some synergies with your High River, Okotoks operation.  Could you just expand a little bit on where you see the synergies and how it will impact this station if licenced?

663              MR. HILDEBRAND:  We see a lot of synergies between High River and Okotoks, as well as Medicine Hat, in overall management of the operation, in news coverage.  There will be obvious sharing of news stories for southern Alberta between those three radio stations.  There would be synergies by coordinating ideas between program people, and there could also be some synergies with our operation in Swift Current, which is to the east of Medicine Hat, which covers a similar area to Medicine Hat.  So we see a lot of synergies in our organization across the prairies that we can call on.

664              We have, you know, what we think experts in a lot of departments, and they're available then to all of the radio stations.  So that's one of the pluses that we see being able to give to Medicine Hat.  We really give Medicine Hat the benefit of our experience over the last 50 years.  And the synergies are always very hard to quantify, but we know from previous experience where we have launched new radio stations that there are a lot.

665              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  How do you see the newsrooms, for example, elaborating or ‑‑

666              MR. HILDEBRAND:  The newsrooms would not only collaborate, they would also share whatever news is generated in High River, Okotoks and southern Alberta, would be shared with the newsroom in Medicine Hat.  And in all likelihood would also be shared with Swift Current and vice versa.  As an example, in Manitoba, where we have more radio stations than in Alberta, obviously all of the news from all of the newsrooms is shared, and so if there are particular stories that are applicable in different areas, then we already have the information.  And so those kind of things would be applicable here as well.

667              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And are there any other back‑office functions that will be shared between the ‑‑

668              MR. HILDEBRAND:  A lot.  The traffic and the creative and accounting and overall management is all shared, so we have huge savings in that area.  Again, we have the experience to make this work, and we find that the most important things for a community is to have visible news people and visible program people.  They're really not concerned who does the accounting.

669              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  And speaking of accounting, we're going to move on to your projections.  You are by far the lowest in terms of your advertising projections of all the Medicine Hat applicants.  I was wondering if you could tell us what are the factors you took into consideration in coming up with these financial projections?

670              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, basically, again, we were calling on experience in other markets, and I think as the Commission knows, we tend to be conservative in our estimates of revenue projections.  And in all likelihood, we would work hard to exceed these, but we felt that this made some sense going into the process.  And we're projecting very little national business because that's not something that really comes through to smaller markets like Medicine Hat a great deal.  And we are finding even now more and more of the national business is being concentrated in the top seven markets.  We're seeing erosion of national business even in markets like Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, because the cost of advertising by national clients in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal is rising dramatically, and so many of the budgets that used to come our way in the prairies don't come our way any more simply because of the added costs the advertiser needs to cover those three big markets.  So we see us making our living in the future, broadly speaking, by selling retail advertising on the street.

671              And so when Commission staff have asked me in the past how do we come up with our numbers?  By and large, we have to rely on our experience from past years in other markets, and as I say, we generally try to be conservative.

672              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Some might argue that you're being overly conservative because you are proposing perhaps one of the most popular music formats, and by being over conservative you're underestimating your impact on the incumbents.

673              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, I'm sure that case can be made.  And as I say, if we can over‑achieve these numbers we'd be happy to do that, but we think that this makes some sense going forward.  And we also feel that this would have the least impact on the existing broadcasters in the community.

674              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  How many radio stations do you think Medicine Hat can support?

675              MR. HILDEBRAND:  One of the concerns that certainly I've expressed before to the Commission is that the ‑‑ overlicencing is a concern.  And so we're hearing and we're seeing that Medicine Hat has some growth over the past number of years and can project some growth, but I think it is important not to licence too many radio stations.  So from our perspective, we would say that this is a conundrum that the Commission will have to determine.  We're hoping that we would be licenced, and if in the Commission's wisdom they licence more than one, we would find our way through the process and ‑‑ but I think it's important not to overlicence.

676              COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Mr. Hildebrand, gentlemen, thank you.

677              Thank you, Madam Chair.  Those are my questions.

678              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Vice‑Chair Arpin...?

679              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

680              You mentioned the High River, Okotoks, Swift Current.  You never mentioned Lethbridge, but you have been granted a licence to operate a communicate‑based Christian music station in Lethbridge.  Do you see any synergies from a ‑‑ from the news perspective with Lethbridge, which is probably much closer to Medicine Hat than any of the other markets that you've mentioned?

681              MR. HILDEBRAND:  The reason that I didn't mention it yet is we still have that radio station to launch at a full power.  Right now it's a low power operation, and we're working at launching the full power, which was approved by the Commission.  And certainly there will be synergies there as well, but at this point, we ‑‑ because we haven't launched it yet, it's sort of hard to say how much the integration will be.  And the format is also quite different than what we're proposing here, but certainly from administration and the back‑end operations, there would be a lot of synergies.  And once the station is fully operational in Lethbridge, that newsroom would also be plugged in with all of our other newsrooms, so that all of that material would be available.

682              VICE‑CHAIR ARPIN:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

683              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Than you.

684              I have a few more questions.  I think number one, I'd like to start with your financial projections in your application.  And it's just a ‑‑ it jarred me at ‑‑ it's 4.1.  Now, the pages aren't paginated in our ‑‑ but I see no local revenue, and I'm wondering, that's got to be a typo?  Everything should be moved down?

685              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes, it's basically all local revenue, yes.  It's obviously in the wrong line.

686              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.  So everything in network should go down to national?

687              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Right.

688              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And everything in national should go down to local?

689              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Right, yes.

690              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  I just couldn't understand that.  And in exhibit ‑‑ or chart 1, I notice it refers to three minutes of local news and one and a half minutes of local sports.  Now, my colleague, Commissioner Cugini, referred to news, sports, weather and traffic.  Is weather and traffic separate from these 4.5 minutes?

691              MR. FRIESEN:  Yes, it is.

692              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And would that be part of the five to seven minutes an hour of DJ banter you're talking about?

693              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

694              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  The easiest way we could probably compare, would be what's called scripted word.  And in those cases we normally use weather to include in scripted word.  Could you give me an idea of what news, weather, sport and surveillance per hour would be, or per chunk would be?

695              MR. HILDEBRAND:  You know, I think all of that was included in the package that I mentioned earlier.  This would be, I think I said five to seven minutes an hour, and I think that's all inclusive there.

696              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, okay.  Now, I carefully read your reply to interventions ‑‑ or reply to deficiencies dated July 24th, and if I can take you to page 3, right after the bullet about voice tracking.  And I wanted to know ‑‑ what you said today, and I'm not the stenographer so I may be wrong, you said you would be live to air 6 a.m. to 12 midnight?

697              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

698              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So page 3 of that reply to interventions contemplates some voice tracking in the evenings?

699              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I think what we would contemplate there, we would have an individual in the radio station who would be doing a variety of things, including answering the phones, taking calls from the news reporters that were out, and he would or she would be doing some voice tracking while they're still in the studio so they could continue doing two jobs at the same time.  So this wouldn't be the kind of voice tracking where they would be leaving the building.

700              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So how many hours during 6 a.m. to midnight would be live to air programming?

701              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, with the exception of the kind of situation that I referred to, in the evening everything.

702              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So would you agree to a COL?

703              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

704              THE CHAIRPERSON:  To live to air programming from ‑‑ during the entirety of the broadcast regulated week?

705              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Sure.

706              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And then also on the same page of the reply to deficiencies, you were referring ‑‑ you were asked about what you were going to be doing in relation to the CTD.  And your answer consisted of one sentence ‑‑ two sentences.  We will be splitting up the 10,000 into four specific contributions to local musical groups.  The sixth and seventh year amount of 25,000 will be split between five groups.  And you agree with me that today is the first time you've shown us where in particular you've chosen to ‑‑

707              MR. HILDEBRAND:  That's right, yes.

708              THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ allocate these monies?

709              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Right.

710              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Why did you by ‑‑

711              MR. HILDEBRAND:  By and large, from earlier hearings that we attended, we felt it prudent to provide more detail today, and that's why the charts were being provided.  We anticipated some of your questions.

712              THE CHAIRPERSON:  But the problem is that none of the people with whom you are competing have had a chance to look at this ‑‑

713              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I see.

714              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And provide their input and deal with the competitive side of that.  So I guess I'll go on.  You talk about the contribution to the Jazz Festival, does the $2,500 include on‑air support and promotion?  No?

715              MR. FRIESEN:  No.

716              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  The same with the Medicine Hat Folk and Roots Music Club, you talk about the recording program and then you've got on‑air support and promotion.  On‑air support and promotion is not part of the $2,500?

717              MR. FRIESEN:  The $2,500 is a cash support, all of the rest is on top of that.

718              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And what will the funding to the Jazz Festival be used for?

719              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Keith Leask will provide an answer.

720              MR. LEASK:  That will be ‑‑ when I spoke to Lyle Revic(ph), who is the chairman of the Jazz Festival, that will be used for doing things like staging the shows, promotion ‑‑ promotion outside of the radio station, you know, for doing certain things.  And just, you know, it will be designed to enhance the program, enhance the Jazz Festival to do that.

721              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And in your view, is that appropriate CTD in accordance with our policy?

722              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I think so.

723              MR. LEASK:  I believe so too.

724              THE CHAIRPERSON:  The next one, the Folk Festival initiative, again, what is ‑‑ that is for recording solely; is that correct?

725              MR. LEASK:  Yes.

726              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Now, today you said that you would be using a classic modern rock format, and I believe we ‑‑ Commissioner Cugini stated to you at ‑‑ or asked the difference between what you said in your application, which was popular music, if I understand.  I guess my point again is, do you see this as a change from popular ‑‑ popular format to the classic modern rock?  And if so, would you consider your lack of specificity in your application as being perhaps unfair to the other applicants?

727              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I don't think so because popular music covers a broad spectrum, and so we will be certainly very different from anything that's being broadcast in Medicine Hat at the present time, and, you know, we think that this broadly falls into that category.

728              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, thank you.

729              Commissioner Pennefather...?

730              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

731              Just back to the Canadian Talent Development chart briefly.  I think if I recall in your response to questions from my colleagues, you ‑‑ in talking about years six and seven, which is the 30,000, it's a fair chunk of the overall proposal, and it's left fairly vague as to where this money would go.

732              You ‑‑ I think you put it, Mr. Hildebrand, it would be as you see things evolve and what may come up.  But is it possible though for you to assure us that in choosing some projects for this $30,000, which is a fairly significant part of the 100,000, that these projects would be in line with Commission policy on eligible contributions to Canadian talent development?

733              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Absolutely, we would assure the Commission of that.  I think I also then draw the Commission's attention to the fact that as an organization we have achieved or exceeded our CTD commitments in the past, and that we would be certain to do that again here.  But we can absolutely assure you that it will fall into the policy of the Commission today and at that time.

734              COMMISSIONER PENNEFATHER:  Thank you.

735              Thank you, Madam Chair.

736              THE CHAIRPERSON:  On that subject, when would you be in a position to inform us of your intentions as to whom the recipient of your largesse would be of that?

737              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Well, we could, let's say, advise the Commission of that in year four.

738              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, thank you.

739              Counsel...?

740              MS BENNETT:  Thanks.  I just have two brief questions with respect to conditions of licence.  You've indicated that you plan to provide 40 percent Canadian content in your overall musical selections.  Could you comment on the imposition of that 40 percent as a COL?

741              MR. HILDEBRAND:  That's fine.

742              MS BENNETT:  Okay.  And then secondly, was your intention to provide the 40 percent as well between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday to Friday?

743              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Yes.

744              MS BENNETT:  And would a COL in relation to that be acceptable as well?

745              MR. HILDEBRAND:  It would be.

746              MS BENNETT:  Okay.

747              MR. HILDEBRAND:  And just as an add‑on, our company has a policy of doing 40 percent in all of our radio stations as a floor, and, in most instances, we would be more between 40 and 45, so we're happy with a COL on all of these things.

748              MS BENNETT:  Okay, thank you.

749              Those are my questions.

750              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Hildebrand, Panel.

751              Madam Secretary...?

752              MR. HILDEBRAND:  I ‑‑ I ‑‑

753              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Your two minutes of fame, I'm sorry.

754              MR. HILDEBRAND:  No, I still have something left to say.

755              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, you do.  I'm sure you do.

756              MR. HILDEBRAND:  Again, we don't want to take two minutes.  We want to thank the Commission for allowing us to appear here today.  The Commission knows well what Golden West has been able to provide to the prairies over the past years, and we would take it as an honour to be able to do the same thing in Medicine Hat.

757              Our company is positioned to grow.  We're 50 years old, and as a Canadian broadcaster, that may be getting a little long in the tooth, but we have a lot of young people that are eager to provide service for many years to come, and we know that we can provide a great service to the Medicine Hat community, and we look forward to doing that.

758              Thank you.

759              THE CHAIRPERSON:  I really thank you, Mr. Hildebrand and panel.  Thank you very much.

760              Madam Secretary...?

761              THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I would now call on the next applicant to come forward for their presentation, Radio CJVR Limited.

762              We'll now proceed with item 4 on the agenda, which is an application by Radio CJVR Limited for a licence to operate a commercial English‑language FM commercial ‑‑ sorry, English‑language FM radio programming undertaking in Medicine Hat.  The new station would operate on frequency 102.1 megahertz (channel 271C1) with average effective radiated power of 100,000 watts (non‑directional antenna/antenna height of 96.0 metres).

763              Appearing for the applicant is Mr. Ken Singer, who will introduce his colleagues, and you will then have 20 minutes for your presentation.  Mr. Singer...?

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

764              MR. SINGER:  Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Commissioners, and Staff.

765              Before we begin our presentation, I'd like to introduce the members of our team.  My name is Ken Singer.  I'm vice‑president of broadcast operations for our company.  On my right is the president and owner of Radio CJVR, Gene Fabro.  To Gene's right is Linda Rheaume, administrative manager for Radio CJVR's two stations in Melfort and our new FM station in Whitecourt, Albert, CIXM‑FM.  Next to Linda is Jessica Schnell, director of research services at Insightrix Research of Saskatoon, and Jessica is trained in a wide variety of analysis techniques and earned her Bachelor of Science degree with great distinction from the University of Regina with a combined major in mathematics and statistics.  Next to her is Corrin Harper, a partner at Insightrix Research.  Corrin earned her Bachelor's degree in commerce and a Master's of business administration from the University of Saskatchewan.  To my left is Kevin Gemmell, recently appointed as station manager and sales manager of our two Melfort stations, CJVR‑FM and CKJH‑AM.  Kevin has been with our company over ten years.  And on my far left is Dean Sinclair, a broadcast veteran whose 30‑year career includes programming, on‑air sales, and senior management experience.  Dean has provided input and direction for our proposed classic rock musical format.  I'm sorry I've got Corrin and Jessica mixed up at the end.  I guess there's been a little seating adjustment here, so ‑‑

766              Madam Chair and Members of the Commission, Radio CJVR is pleased to appear before you today seeking approval to establish a classic rock formatted FM station on frequency 102.1 to serve Medicine Hat and surrounding communities.  If approved, CJVR will provide Medicine Hat residents with an exciting FM station whose unduplicated classic rock format will bring significant musical and spoken word programming diversity and added listener choice to the local radio market.

767              In keeping with Medicine Hat's reputation as a community of choice, relative to the quality of life, economic opportunities, business growth, and social support that it affords its residents, Classic Rock 102 will provide a further important element of choice, namely a local radio service dedicated to fulfilling the needs and preferences of the area's underserved 25 to 54‑year‑old listening public.

768              Despite the fact that the city of Medicine Hat has a growing population in excess of 56,000 persons, and overall 170,000 within its trading area, residents are very limited in their choice of local radio offerings.  Currently, Medicine Hat is served by three private FM radio stations, two of which are owned by the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

769              Approval of CJVR's proposed Classic 102 programming undertaking will establish competitive balance within Medicine Hat's local radio spectrum by providing, among other important elements, an alternative editorial perspective.  Beyond adding programming diversity, listener choice, competitive balance, and a distinct news voice, approval of Classic 102 will increase ownership diversity within Medicine Hat's private radio sector.

770              The addition of Alberta's Fabro family to Medicine Hat's radio ownership ranks will create a healthy competition between two independent western Canadian broadcasters in an underserved market with a rapidly growing economy and sufficient advertising revenue to sustain new and existing FM undertakings.

771              CJVR has strived over the past 15 years under the Fabro family's ownership.  Since acquiring CJVR in 1991, they have contributed stability and business acumen, along with strong financial and moral support to our management and staff.

772              If Classic 102 is approved, CJVR will bring to Medicine Hat that same commitment to excellence, broadcast professionalism, and dedication to local community service that has been our trademark in serving the needs of our listeners over the past four decades.

773              MR. FABRO:  Madam Chair, when CJVR appeared before the Commission this past June at Edmonton, we had just received approval to acquire the shares of 1097282 Alberta Limited, licencee of CIXM Whitecourt, Alberta, whose authority as originally granted, had not been implemented.

774              At the Edmonton hearing CJVR gave the Commission its undertaking to have CIXM FM on air and serving the listening needs of Whitecourt residents by mid‑September 2006.  I'm pleased to advise the Commission today that CIXM was successfully launched in mid‑September, and the response over the past 45 days from the residents and business community in Whitecourt and area has been nothing less than spectacular.

775              Having established CIXM, our earlier proposals for Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray, coupled with this application for Medicine Hat, are vital to CJVR's strategic broadcast plan to increase its critical mass in Alberta.

776              I think it is fair to say that Medicine Hat and our Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray initiatives are as important to the stability of CIXM Whitecourt, as Saskatoon and Regina are to the continued viability of CKJH‑AM and CJVR‑FM Melfort.

777              CJVR must grow its critical mass by expanding its radio operations in both Alberta and Saskatchewan while such opportunities for growth still exist.

778              MR. GEMMELL:  Madam Chair and Commissioners, in response to the call for applications to serve Medicine Hat, CJVR engaged Insightrix Research Services of Saskatoon to conduct a consumer demand study to assess the market's potential for a new FM station and to identify service voids relative to musical and spoken word programming.

779              Among its many significant findings, the IRS survey underlines strong listener need and preference for a greater choice in music and a more focused approach to news and informational programming, specific to Medicine Hat.

780              As noted earlier, radio listeners in Medicine Hat have limited musical options to choose from.  Essentially, CFMY's hot AC format skews towards the younger 18 to 24 demographic, while CHAT's country music format is more attractive to the older 45 to 64‑year‑old listener.  And CJLT's contemporary Christian music format attracts a limited audience of all age groups.

781              Lost in the middle are the 25 to 54‑year‑olds, and, in particular, those 25 to 44‑years‑old who tune to distant stations, satellite radio, and other audio options to source their preference for classic rock.

782              The IRS survey indicates that 83 percent of respondents aged 35 to 44, 78 percent of those 25 to 34, and 63 percent of those aged 45 to 54 say they would spend more time listening to the radio if they had access to a local classic rock station.

783              Further to the IRS survey results in relation to listener demand for a local classic rock station, CJVR was moved by the heartfelt comments articulated by many Medicine Hat residents in their letters and e‑mails filed with the Commission in support of our application.

784              The following examples are representatives of the many comments, which captured the listener frustration and need for a local classic rock station.

785              Ben Wenzel states in part:  Our current stations play country and young adult music leaving all us baby boomers, who grew up with rock music, without a listening choice.

786              Angela Pederson comments in part:  I'm only 23, and I grew up listening to all my parents' favourite rock classics, and I think it would be great and well‑received.

787              Art Railton states:  I believe there is tremendous support for this format, and it will bring people back to local radio rather than listening to Sirius or XM Satellite Radion.  Me for one.

788              MR. SINGER:  Madam Chair, CJVR, in programming its proposed new FM station musically will specialize in playing classic rock including milestone rock albums.  The playlist will feature music by artists such as Tom Petty, Pink Floyd, Santana, Bryan Adams, The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, The Guess Who, Neil Young, The Beatles, Tragically Hip, and Streetheart, to name but a few.  We'd like to provide you with a sense of how Classic 102 will sound and feel musically with the following montage.

‑‑‑ Audio Clip / Clip audio

789              MR. SINGER:  CJVR, in bringing fresh musical diversity to Medicine Hat, will compliment rather than compete with existing music formats.

790              Classic 102 will further enhance that diversity through its in‑studio production of two special musical programs.  In this regard, CJVR will produce a 20‑minute program, Canadians On Track, that will run weekdays at 3 p.m.  Four Canadian rock artists will be featured daily in five‑minute segments in which each artist will be profiled and their music played.

791              The second program, Alberta Rocks, a 60‑minute weekly special that will run in prime time on Saturday from eight to 9 p.m.

792              As such, CJVR will aggressively seek out new and emerging Alberta artists and showcase their talent on that program.  I would add that providing such windows of opportunity for established and emerging talent in prime time, like our commitment to 40‑percent Canadian content, is integral to CJVR's overall approach to Canadian talent development.

793              MR. GEMMELL:  Madam Chair and Commissioners, among the key findings of the IRS study is the fact that nearly 87 percent of respondents on hearing a description of the proposed FM's musical and spoken word programming stated they were very or somewhat likely to listen to the station.

794              On the basis of gender, 94 percent of males and 81 percent of females said they were very or somewhat likely to listen.

795              A further breakdown by age group indicates that 92 percent of respondents aged 35 to 44 are very or somewhat likely to listen to the station, followed by 88 percent of those aged 25 to 34 and 83 percent within the 45/54 age category.

796              Further to the music, respondents were near unanimous in defining their common informational needs and priorities relevant to Medicine Hat.  For example, 99 percent agreed that local news and weather was a priority, while 97 percent stressed the need for ongoing information on community events and activities and regular updates on road conditions and closures.

797              In response to meeting listener needs for locally relevant news and information, CJVR will employ three full‑time news reporters.  Their work will be supplemented by a network of community correspondence and resource persons from various disciplines who will work ‑‑ who will assist in compiling information to be presented in the form of special features throughout the broadcast day and on weekends.

798              With respect to newscasts, the station will present locally originated news at the top of the hour and every half hour in the mornings and again during selected hours throughout the day.  Classic 102 will also broadcast news on weekends.  In all, the station will provide over five hours of scheduled newscasts per week plus additional surveillance material when necessary and as it becomes available.

799              Given the importance that respondents placed on traffic and road conditions, a minimum of 12 reports will air daily between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.  The Medicine Hat area historically has experienced critical weather extremes, often causing school closures and dangerous driving conditions.  At such times, Classic 102 will air more frequent weather bulletins, engage the use of weather watchers, and bring in additional people to staff the snow desk and ensure locals are frequently updated on school closings and school bus cancellations.

800              MR. SINGER:  Madam Chair, in 40 years of broadcasting to both urban and rural communities, CJVR has consistently provided its listeners with spoken word initiatives that focus on where they live and on those elements that influence and shape their daily lives and activities and impact on their communities.

801              As such, CJVR has devised an inclusive broadcast plan for Classic 102 that enables it to keep a finger on the pulse of daily events and activities occurring within Medicine Hat and surrounding communities.

802              This will be achieved in a number of ways, including the recruitment of a network of community correspondents who will be responsible for regularly providing Classic 102 with news and information specific to their communities.

803              These 90‑second reports from our community correspondents, known as Community Connections, will be featured four times daily as part of Classic 102's regular program schedule.

804              Information on current and upcoming events and activities within the coverage area will be highlighted every hour by Classic 102's Culturally Speaking information snippets.

805              A further exciting daily initiative, Live from the Esplanade will feature a midday arts and entertainment report from the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre, which brings together Medicine Hat's museum, archives and art gallery, performing arts theater, and discovery centre under one roof.

806              As well, Classic 102 will produce the 60‑minute news magazine show, a community perspective, which will run Sunday at 10 a.m.  The program will initially focus on youth issues and activities, the area's diverse business sector, Medicine Hat's growing ethnicity, and an omnibus component that will focus on whatever is topical in the area from week to week.

807              In keeping with CJVR's deep‑rooted sense of community, Classic 102, through its newscasts and many special programs will ensure that the cultural diversity within each community served is truly reflected.

808              A further prime source for exposing and reflecting the area's cultural diversity will be realized through the collection of stories, folklore, and other such materials by groups and individuals who will transform them into vignettes.  These many stories, in turn, will be featured throughout Classic 102's daily program schedule.

809              MR. FABRO:  Madam Chair and Commissioners, CJVR brings to Medicine Hat a proud legacy of excellence, achievement, and commitment to the development of Canadian talent.

810              As such, CJVR has been recognized for its efforts six years in succession at the national level, and 11 years running at the provincial level by the Canadian and Saskatchewan Country Music Associations respectively.

811              In planning our strategy for Medicine Hat, we opted to apply a combined approach, which incorporates an on‑air exposure of artists' music and financial support through a series of direct spending initiatives.

812              While cash dollars are obviously important, hard air‑time currency and on‑air promotion is tremendously valuable to new and emerging artists who need the exposure and the public recognition to advance their musical careers.

813              With respect to direct expenditures, Classic 102 has committed to a minimum of $40,000 per year or $280,000 over the licence term on its Canadian talent development initiatives, which include 21,000 for each of the CAB/FACTOR Talent Fund, broadcast journalism scholarships, music scholarships, $42,000 for Alberta Rocks Boot Camp, $175,000 for opening acts.

814              Further to the $280,000 in direct expenditures, CJVR is committing to a minimum of 1.225 million over seven years for indirect on‑air expenditures.

815              CJVR is excited by the synergistic values created for talent development initiatives when direct and indirect expenditure allocations are combined to maximize their total effectiveness.

816              MR. GEMMELL:  Madam Chair, a recent episode of CBC's television program, Venture, described Medicine Hat as being about "as close to economic heaven as it gets in Canada."  Venture's portrayal of Medicine Hat, when coupled with Mayor Garth Vallely's description of its economy as "firing on all cylinders" aptly captures the reality of the dramatic growth and development that is taking place.

817              In examining some of the local market's key economic indicators, it is estimated that Medicine Hat's 2005 population of more than 56,000 will grow by almost 22 percent by 2012.

818              The retail sales in 2003 ‑‑ in 2005 were $1.053 billion, some 47 percent above the national average.

819              The FP market report estimates they will escalate by over 11 percent to 1.171 billion in 2007 and a further 17.3 percent increase to 1.373 billion by 2010.

820              With its natural resource‑based economy, growing population, expanding retail core, and inextricable linkage to Alberta's stunning economic growth, Medicine Hat's ability to sustain existing local radio stations and accommodate a much needed new FM service is, from CJVR's perspective, beyond doubt.

2005 retail sales are estimated at $1.053 billion.  Advertising expenditures represent four percent of retail sales or $42 million available.

821              CJVR's market analysis shows 14 percent of the advertising dollars are available for radio or about $6 million.  We estimate the current operators take about $4 million, leaving $2 million on the table for a new operator.

822              CJVR budgeted $1.35 million in first‑year revenue.

823              MR. SINGER:  Madam Chair, the following are but some of the many important considerations that my colleagues and I feel warrant approval of our application for a classic rock FM station on frequency 102.1.

824              Classic 102's unduplicated music format will add significant programming diversity and listener choice to Medicine Hat's local radio market.

825              Through Classic 102's unique music format and locally relevant spoken word initiatives, many of the unfulfilled listener needs and preferences of Medicine Hat's 25 to 54 underserved demographic will be met.

826              The new classic rock station will help produce out‑of‑market tuning by repatriating listeners and drawing former listeners away from alternative audio options.  This will result in new listeners and increased hours of tuning to local radio, without impacting on existing stations.

827              The listening public's desire for more choice, coupled with the commercial appeal of its classic rock format will result in new radio dollars being added to Medicine Hat's market with minimal impact on existing stations.

828              Approval of a new classic rock station will provide local and national advertisers with a more cost‑efficient advertising vehicle to target and serve Medicine Hat's maturing 25 to 54 adult population.

829              The addition of Classic 102 will establish competitive balance within the Medicine Hat radio market by providing, among other important elements, a distinct alternative news voice and increased ownership diversity.

830              CJVR, if approved, will provide a minimum of $280,000 in direct spending on Canadian talent development initiatives ‑‑ development initiatives over the term of the licence, as well as 1.225 million budget for indirect on‑air expenditures.

831              Classic 102 will maximize the utilization of the 102.1 frequency by extending its unduplicated classic rock format to serve the largely underserved 25 to 54 listenership spectrum within the Medicine Hat area.

832              Approval of Classic 102 will result in the creation of 16 full‑time and two part‑time employment equity opportunities within Medicine Hat's radio market.

833              Classic 102, through its daily musical and spoken word programming, will reflect the growing cultural diversity within Medicine Hat's broader community.

834              MR. FABRO:  Madam Chair and Commissioners, my family believes that it is important to the public interest and to the ownership structure of Canada's private broadcasting system that voices of independent broadcasters be encouraged and maintained.

835              Equally, it is our view that motivated independent broadcasters, like CJVR, have an important and continuing role to play within western Canada's commercial radio sector at a time when ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated.

836              We are proud of what we've accomplished in Melfort, both in terms of quality of service that our radio stations provide to over 150,000 residents of over 100 communities throughout northeast Saskatchewan and the success that CJVR has experienced in our Canadian talent development endeavours.

837              Last month, CJVR had the privilege of launching CIXM Whitecourt.  It is our hope that the Whitecourt launch represents the first of several FM stations that we'll have the honour of bringing to air in the coming months.

838              On behalf of my colleagues, I wish to thank the Commission for this opportunity to appear, and we respectfully ask for your approval of this application, which is central to CJVR's strategic broadcast plan.

839              We will be pleased to answer any questions that the panel may have.  Thank you.

840              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Fabro.  Should I address Mr. Singer with my questions, and then he can send them wherever he'd like.

841              I'm just going to be talking about programming.  And you've said classic rock again here today, but in your Supplementary Brief at page 7, you actually talk about classic hits.  That was a typo?

842              MR. SINGER:  Yes, that would be, I apologize for that.

843              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And in terms of the mix that you're going to be using for classic rock because there's one that sort of skews older, and I must say, from the sounds of it, that one ‑‑ the clip that you provided us with had me liking it a lot better than I think my nephew would.  Are you essentially trying to skew more to the 45‑plus or ‑‑ or where are you trying to skew that classic rock?  Mr. Singer...?

844              MR. SINGER:  I'll let Dean Sinclair speak to that point, Madam chair.

845              MR. SINCLAIR:  Thank you, Ken.

846              Thank you, Madam Chair.  The bullet for the station is essentially 35 to 44.  The research in the market will show the interest for the format was 25 to 44, and a big part of that has to do with the absence of the format, in general, in the market in terms of rock music.

847              In the mixture, we tried to give you an example of how the station would sound.  It is, as you mentioned earlier, a true classic rock station, and where it comes from, it draws music from the '60s, '70s, and predominantly '80s, so there's a real mixture of product in there.

848              The format itself is really artist‑driven.  It's not a hit‑driven station unlike what a classic hits station would be.  And, as such, with artists, it gives us a great example ‑‑ a great chance to play a lot of product from those artists over those decades.  It's a deep‑track station, album‑oriented.

849              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And what about the new music artists that would be on this ‑‑ on this ‑‑ on your format, would it be the emerging AOR or the new alternative rock, or modern?  Mr. Sinclair...?

850              MR. SINCLAIR:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I don't think we would close the door to anybody wanting to get airtime, but, essentially, we would ‑‑ there would be a combination of rock music, whatever form that may take, broad‑based rock, and there could be some pop artists that cross over as well too, but, essentially, we would want to stay within the rock genre.

851              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can you ‑‑ and I'm going to go directly to Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Singer.  Can you tell me what is different in your proposal as to format between yours and Harvard's, yours and Newcap's, yours and Vista, yours and Pat Lough, and the classic modern rock as proposed by Mr. Hildebrand?

852              MR. SINCLAIR:  Absolutely.  Thank you, Madam Chair.  First of all, as we just talked about, the essence of this station is pure classic rock, so, predominantly, it's an older‑based station, '60s, '70s, '80s.  It may creep up into the '90s.  The good thing about the format is that it will add newer old music each year as, of course, the audience ages.

853              Just based on my interpretation of the other applications, what I see with Newcap, as Mr. Maheu said this morning, a combination of blended rock with classic rock and classic hits.  The classic hits format is a wide interpretive format across Canada.  But, essentially, by nature, classic hits is gold for top 40 stations from years ago, and top 40, by nature, played music from country, rock, and pop, but predominantly hit‑driven.  So a classic hit station is an older version of that.  I disagree with comments made earlier that it crosses over a lot with classic rock because it doesn't.  It's more pop‑driven, so there are very big distinct differences between ‑‑ there's a little bit of overlap in terms of artists, but not in terms of the songs.  So in their case, it would add that component of more classic hits music.

854              With respect, I believe, to the Vista application, Mr. Larsen's, the way that I read it, it does mention 35‑54 as a demo, but, again, focuses predominantly on '80s music.  So in this case, you'd be missing with ‑‑ compared to ours, the '60s and the '70s music as well.  I think there was a mention or a reference in there about K‑Tel albums and that, so that was more '80's‑driven.

855              With respect to Harvard's application, the demographic, as I read it, is 18‑49, so it's a bit younger.  And you get that by adding in the modern and alternative formats as well.  They're more new‑based, and so classic rock becomes maybe a bit of a spice format instead of a mainstream format in that particular application.  We may call that a barbecue format.

856              In Rogers' ‑‑ Rogers', what I read was broad‑based rock, which was 25‑54, and it's probably closer in some ways to what we would do, although steps up a little more into the '90s music, so it's a little more current‑based.  In other words, it would lop of anything prior to 1970 and add on things plus 1990.  So there's two decades of difference between that application and the one that we're proposing.

857              Mr. Lough's application, again, not dissimilar to what I see with Newcap in where it blends hit music as well, the classic hits and also some alternative.  I think there's a reference in there of going after 18 to 34 audience.  That becomes a very broad radio station, as well, so ‑‑ they've also talked about playing some oldies, I believe, Sunday morning or something like that, so, again, that's astray from the format.  I hope that helps.

858              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And is there any ‑‑ can you distinguish yourselves from what Mr. Hildebrand described his format as today?

859              MR. SINGER:  I'm sorry, I forgot about that.  That was a new entry for us today to get down.  It appears to us that it would lean more newer based.  I have to tell you, I didn't quite get a grasp on the format entirely.  It's sort of ‑‑ I don't think it would fall under our definition of popular music.  It's certainly music out today, but popular, generally, is pop music, so they talked about more rock flavour.  It seemed to be more current or newer‑based than it did on pure classic rock.

860              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Spoken word.  Now, I think, number one, I'm going to ask you if you can, within a week of today's hearing, provide us with the equivalent of Newcap's chart so that we have it in clear ‑‑ sort of an apples‑to‑apples comparison of spoken word programming, non‑news, and feature programming in minutes and hours.  Could we have that, Mr. Singer?

861              MR. SINGER:  No, problem, Madam Chair, we'll file that with you possibly even today.

‑‑‑ Undertaking / Engagement

862              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Because I still was having problems counting minutes and hours when we were ‑‑ when you were talking today, but I want to start off with the inclusive broadcasting plan, and you referred to it again, and this inclusive plan seems to be largely based on volunteers.  Is that the concept?

863              MR. SINGER:  We have a ‑‑ I would say not primarily on volunteers, but it certainly would be an ingredient.  Our plan to develop a number of community correspondents is ‑‑ it's an add‑on to our news resources in terms of our news department will be a full‑service news department and with three news people in it.  But the correspondents are really our connection to these communities we propose to serve.  These would be people that are residents of smaller communities and of Medicine Hat that are largely the ‑‑ involved with a lot of the events and organizations that are going on in those communities.  We ‑‑ we, certainly, recognize that small communities ‑‑ I happen to live in one in Melfort, and it's difficult not to become very involved in just about anything that goes on in that community.  So if you want to know about what's going on, talk to somebody that's on a committee or whatever.  So it's our feeling that these correspondents would certainly be a go‑to for us to talk to them about events, functions that are planned for the area, and also to provide us with any information of news events in those communities, as well as ‑‑ but our news people will be digging those stories in addition to that.

864              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So aside from the community volunteers, what else is involved in your inclusive broadcast plan?

865              MR. SINGER:  Would you like me to go through the list one‑by‑one?

866              THE CHAIRPERSON:  I'd like you to give me ‑‑ and I don't need descriptors, I just need to understand the skeleton of this plan?

867              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm, okay.

868              THE CHAIRPERSON:  It includes community volunteers, number one, and then are you going to go into the specific programming that you've referred to?  Is that ‑‑

869              MR. SINGER:  Yes, our ‑‑

870              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

871              MR. SINGER:  I have a list of spoken word programming initiatives that we have outlined in our Brief.

872              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yeah, and you'll give that to me in the chart.  So what else, then, is the inclusive broadcast plan?  You have the community volunteers, the spoken word programming.  Is there anything else in this inclusive broadcast plan?

873              MR. SINGER:  Well, I guess it's the sum total of our spoken word programming, which, as you mentioned, is indicated in features such as Community Connections, Culturally Speaking, our community perspective programs.

874              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, yes.

875              MR. SINGER:  Yes.

876              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And you have three people in the newsroom, a station producer, an in‑studio producer, and another person.  What will that job ‑‑ what will that job be called, just reporter, I guess?

877              MR. SINGER:  The news department will be a news director and reporters.  The in‑studio producer is more on the commercial side ‑‑

878              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Oh, on the creative stuff.

879              MR. SINGER: ‑‑ our commercial producer, yes.

880              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  So what I need to figure out is I am living in Suffield, and I am your community correspondent, and I want to tell you about what's going on in Suffield.

881              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

882              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Who do I contact to relay this information?

883              MR. SINGER:  Our news director would be the one that coordinates these correspondents' information.

884              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

885              MR. SINGER:  Now, we also have ‑‑ we'll have a website as well and an opportunity for e‑mails and listener feedback as well, but ‑‑

886              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And, again, that's the responsibility of the news director?

887              MR. SINGER:  Correct.

888              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And I am phoning in, and I am talking about some activity, and I guess what I do is I either ‑‑ you either tape me, or you read what I say in my e‑mail?

889              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

890              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Is that what happens in terms of these ‑‑

891              MR. SINGER:  There would be ‑‑ as we develop these correspondents, our plan would be that we would have some training with them as to the type of material, the ‑‑ just, you know, the ‑‑ I guess the format of the information that we require from them, and it wouldn't always be someone out in a community picking up the phone and calling us, we may ‑‑ our news department may be alerted there's something going on at Suffield, as you pointed out, and pick up the call ‑‑ pick up the phone and talk to any number.  We don't propose to have only one person there, we might have several, depending on the size of the community.  But, most definitely, there would be a training and an orientation type of a process with these individuals.

892              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  So that's ‑‑ that was what I was headed for.

893              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

894              THE CHAIRPERSON:  There will be a training before these people do this?

895              MR. SINGER:  Yes, there would be, and we're not suggesting that they would be ‑‑ you know, have the same abilities that a trained journalist would have, but, you know, we want to hear their perspective as a resident of that community, more or less, give us the high points of this item.  We may use a part of their voice clip, we may do the whole thing, but, really, it would be driven by ‑‑ more like an interview process more than develop a story and file it with us.

896              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Oh, okay.  So how would you select these people?

897              MR. SINGER:  I think the number one thing is we would ‑‑ it doesn't take long to find out who the potential people are in these communities, as I say.  And, you know, in Melfort, where we operate two radio stations, we have developed such a rapport with the over 100 communities we serve.  We do know people in those communities, and they know us, and we've really developed this over the period of time that we have kind of go‑to list, and if a really bad storm strikes in a certain area, our news department has a list of people that they know live in that area that they can pick up the phone and ask them what the condition is there specifically, as opposed to assuming that it's a widespread storm or whatever.  And, certainly, that's ‑‑ you know, as I say, we ‑‑ on the air, we encourage people.  If you have something going on in your community, let us know.  Or over the period of time, we get to know who these organizers of these various events are, and, as I say, they're from all walks of life, teachers, lawyers, doctors, homemakers, farmers.  We definitely have a broad range of contacts, so ‑‑

898              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So if I described this as a rolodex ‑‑

899              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

900              THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ in order to be able to have somebody to phone on each and every issue ‑‑

901              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

902              THE CHAIRPERSON:  How far would I be wrong?

903              MR. SINGER:  Well, for sure we would certainly keep a database of the type of that listing, but I think from the point of view of recognizing that, you know, today we talked to Mary Smith from, you know, this organization in that community.  I think when others hear that, they say, hey, I've got a story to tell too, and that's been our experience.  They pick up the phone, and, say, you know, we'd like to tell you about what's going on in our community as well.  So it's kind of ‑‑ it starts with ‑‑

904              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So it's not that they do the programming at all?

905              MR. SINGER:  Oh, no, no.

906              THE CHAIRPERSON:  It's that your news people do the programming ‑‑

907              MR. SINGER:  Yes.

908              THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ they have the list of the people and their phone numbers, and they phone them for comments, and they may or may not use them.  Is that ‑‑ is that where I ‑‑

909              MR. SINGER:  But at the same time, what I'm saying is I think that there's information coming to us that's unsolicited as well because there's a pride in these communities and these smaller organizations that don't have this type of local coverage.  If you pick up any weekly newspaper in Saskatchewan or in Alberta to that ‑‑ as far as that goes, you'll see that kind of pride.  You'll see little stories that say, gee, that's not necessarily hard news, but it certainly is something worthy of sharing with the rest of the residents in the area.  And, definitely, I think the contribution to those types of stories is ‑‑ usually just starts with, gee, I better let, you know, the radio station know about this because they have this program that profiles communities and events going on.  So it's ‑‑ I guess it's a step beyond just taking a fax or an e‑mail from somebody that said there is going to be this event on, and here's what's going on.  We're trying to find some people that are involved in the community who can tell us their story about that event.  So, I think, yes, we will call out and ask questions, but we'll also be answering the phone and the e‑mails and the fax from people that are contributing this without being solicited.

910              THE CHAIRPERSON:  But at the end of the day, my concern is with who retains editorial control, and who ensures adherence to all the standards?

911              MR. SINGER:  That is the responsibility of us, as broadcasters, to ‑‑

912              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So in terms of your inclusive broadcast plan with these ‑‑ I'm going to call them community correspondents ‑‑

913              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

914              THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ who is the one who retains ‑‑ what person in your chart is retaining responsibility for the control and adherence?

915              MR. SINGER:  It would be the news director and his staff.

916              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And what kind of qualifications would you be looking at in terms of the news director and their staff in order to ensure that there would be compliance with the standards?

917              MR. SINGER:  Our news directors certainly have ‑‑ they've got to have, you know, some experience for sure, but they've been trained in their orientation to work with us.  They fully understand the parameters of what we expect from our news department, and the news director recruits and develops his or her news people as well, so that training is passed on.

918              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mmhmm.  You see, when I read your Brief, I thought that ‑‑ and I've been talking about the news, but I'm going to move into the longer form programming, this Culturally Speaking, and I had ‑‑ I've got to say nightmares about somebody getting on and saying something incredibly anti‑Muslim because we have a community person who, you know, strongly believes his beliefs, but that you were just going to sort of let it go.

919              MR. SINGER:  No, no.

920              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So Culturally Speaking will be a news gathering from these community correspondents, but then the actual production of that will be done by your news people?

921              MR. SINGER:  It's not exclusive to gathering from the correspondents.  Culturally Speaking is a ‑‑ it's a reflection of what's going on in our listening area.  So, in some cases, we may have a correspondent, in some cases we may not.  We may have picked up on something that's going on from another source.

922              THE CHAIRPERSON:  But at the end of the day, my point is it's not volunteer programmed?

923              MR. SINGER:  No, no, it's not.

924              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  And neither is your other community programming that you referred to?  There was another ‑‑ Community Connections?

925              MR. SINGER:  Correct.

926              THE CHAIRPERSON:  That will not be ‑‑

927              MR. SINGER:  It's not programmed by the correspondents, it's programmed by our news director's news team who will develop the story and the final on‑air product.

928              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  If I can take you to your letter of August 17, and I just needed to get ‑‑ it's answer C.

929              MR. SINGER:  Concerning the hours of local programming?

930              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Well, the hours of live to air.  When will that 14 percent of the broadcast week be automated, as you say, or voice tracked?

931              MR. SINGER:  Our proposal is Monday through Friday we will be live 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., so 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. will be the ‑‑ we'll use voice tracking.

932              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So it will be two hours Monday to Friday, eight to ten, that will be voice tracked?

933              MR. SINGER:  Correct ‑‑ or ten to ‑‑ I'm sorry, ten to midnight.

934              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, yes.

935              MR. SINGER:  It's six to ten live, ten to midnight voice tracked.

936              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Correct, yes.  At page 62 of your Supplementary Brief, you were talking about critical weather extremes, and you don't have to go to that.  Is there anybody in the station ‑‑ would there be anybody in the station 24 hours a day?

937              MR. SINGER:  No, there would not, but what we have in place in our present newsrooms is a plan of when such weather strikes, we have got a plan that we bring people in immediately if it is a time when we don't have someone in the newsroom, and that includes not just news staff, it includes extra programming staff.  Really at the ‑‑ we have a ‑‑ I guess it's an emergency weather plan more or less, and we call it a snow desk plan in the winter months, but with the way the weather can be unpredictable at other times of the year, it would apply there as well.

938              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mmhmm.  So then you talk about an emergency advisory service at page 70.

939              MR. SINGER:  Mmhmm.

940              THE CHAIRPERSON:  And if I can refer to it, you talk about it ‑‑ well, what I want to figure out is how it works.  Page 70 at the top whereby, "Its broadcasting facilities will, in times of emergency, be available 24/7 to all levels of government and attendant agencies when it may be critical."  Do you have a protocol for this?

941              MR. SINGER:  Our intention here is that given a licence, an opportunity to operate in a new community, is ‑‑ we would work immediately to coordinate with the emergency measures organizations, amateur radio operators clubs, kind of plug into the whole infrastructure of what a community does when there is a disaster of any sort, and just make our radio station ‑‑ our transmitter available to them in terms of where can we play a role, and, you know, to what degree.  If it means dropping our programming totally and just carrying public service announcements of what to do in an emergency situation, that we would ‑‑ we would spearhead the coordination of those types of measures, and, certainly, I respect that there's a lot of communities that may have this in place already, but as a broadcasting outlet, we would just like to make it very clear that we're there to serve and play our role in, you know, getting the message out to the people in our listening area.

942              THE CHAIRPERSON:  So you don't necessarily have a protocol established ‑‑

943              MR. SINGER:  Not a ‑‑

944              THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ say, within your present licence ‑‑ with your present licencees?

945              MR. SINGER:  No, we do not.

946              THE CHAIRPERSON:  No?  Because I can see, frankly, the Boy Scouts, you know, I mean, if you take it to sort of the extreme, wanting to take over your airwaves and, you know, sort of Captain Smith, you know, wants to make sure everybody should be looking out for, you know, Jimmy Jones because he threw a rock through a window.  And so I guess my concern is with having a protocol that sort of tightly retains the licencee's control over the station.

947              MR. SINGER:  The ‑‑ this would be developed very carefully with the authorities.  I mean, the police, obviously ‑‑ we're talking about a major emergency situation here.

948              THE CHAIRPERSON:  How do you define that?

949              MR. SINGER:  Well, and that, again, is ‑‑ it would be a part of our plan to develop ‑‑

950              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Should it be harm to life, or should it be harm to property?

951              MR. SINGER:  Safety.  Harm to ‑‑ you know, safety issues, certainly health issues, that type of thing.  If ‑‑

952              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Harm to property?  A tornado that only harms property?

953              MR.  SINGER:  Well, certainly.  I would consider that to be a role where we, as broadcasters, could play a very important role in helping people cope with that.

954              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mmhmm.  Now, how many programmers are you planning on hiring?

955              MR. SINGER:  How many ‑‑

956              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Programmers?

957              MR. SINGER: ‑‑ programmers?  We will have one program director who will also be our morning host.  You're talking about a program director?

958              THE CHAIRPERSON:  No, I'm talking about programmers, people in the cage from 6 a.m. until ‑‑

959              MR. SINGER:  Oh, oh, on‑air staff?

960              THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ 10 p.m., yes.

961              MR. SINGER:  I'll let Linda Rheaume run you through our staff lineup because Linda has a chart on it.

962              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, good enough.

963              MS RHEAUME:  Thank you, Ken.

964              Madam Chair, our plan is to have a programming department consisting of, as Ken has already said a news team with one news director and two news ‑‑ sports reporters.  The on‑air team consisting of a program director, who would be the a.m. announcer, a midday announcer, a p.m. announcer, and two swing announcers, one being a part‑time.  Those would be actual on‑air announcers.

965              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay, thank you.  I want to go back to these volunteers for a moment.  I guess I'm trying to think.  It appears ‑‑ what size is Melville [sic]?

966              MR. SINGER:  Melfort?

967              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Melfort, yes, sorry.

968              MR. SINGER:  Melfort is just under 6,000.

969              THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.  I ask myself if the larger the community, the less available sort of volunteers would be ‑‑