Tag Archives: CRTC

| Montreal, Radio

New low-power FM station would carry mainly Tamil programming

“…there are for all practical purposes no more FM frequencies available to serve Montréal.” — CRTC, July 6, 2007

Five and a half years after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission made that statement in approving two new FM stations in Montreal, there are still people finding holes on the FM band to fill with low-power stations or stations in Montreal’s suburbs.

The latest is an application published on Wednesday for a low-power FM station carrying mainly Tamil programming.

The station, at 102.9 MHz, would essentially be a migration of an existing service that operates on a subcarrier of CISM-FM. Before that it was on a subcarrier of CKUT-FM. Subcarriers are great because they can piggyback on existing stations, but they require special receivers to listen to.

And that’s the problem that AGNI Communications Inc., owned by Phillip Koneswaran and Jenoshan Balasingam, is trying to overcome. According to the brief they submitted with their application, a younger demographic is more mobile, and the special receivers aren’t built into car radios. To them, getting on FM, even at only 50 watts, is a better way to reach their audience.

Programming

For those familiar with the existing service, it will stay mainly the same. The proposal is that more than half of the programming (before 10am and after 5pm weekdays; before 10am and after 8pm weekends) will be in the Tamil language. The rest of the schedule will be filled with programming for the Sri Lankan, Indian, Malaysian, Ethiopian, Maldavian, Malaysian, Somali, Nepalese and Singaporean communities.

If that seems like an obscure mix, it is. The main selling point is that these communities and languages are not served by any other radio station in Montreal.

In 2011, the CRTC denied applications for three new ethnic radio stations in Montreal, mainly because they would compete with existing ethnic stations in markets that can’t handle that kind of competition. By limiting its programming to those communities not served by any existing stations, this service can argue that it’s not competing with them and there would be room for more.

According to the application, the radio station would be 100% ethnic programming, with no programming in either French or English. Its programming would be mainly local, and it proposes a minimum of 60% local programming being imposed as a condition of licence, increasing to 70% in the third year.

Broadcast contours and interference zones for proposed new FM station (click for larger)

Broadcast contours and interference zones for proposed new FM station (click for larger)

Transmitter

The low-power station would operate as a 50W transmitter on top of a building on Chabanel St. next to Highway 15. The signal covers Saint-Laurent, Ahuntsic, Mount Royal, Park Extension and parts of western Villeray before it starts hitting interference from other, much more powerful stations (the shaded areas above).

The technical brief goes through each of the stations that could cause interference problems:

On the same frequency:

  • CHOC-FM-2 St-Jacques-le-Mineur (34km away): This retransmitter of the French community station southeast of Montreal would not receive any interference in its current pattern, but at its theoretical maximum it might get some interference in a sliver around Candiac and La Prairie, most of which it would see interference from anyway from another station on the same frequency.
  • CFOI-FM-1 Saint-Jérôme (42km away): This retransmitter of a Quebec City-based Christian station would not receive any interference in its primary pattern, which covers a radius of about 20km. In fact, you wouldn’t have to get far from the Montreal station before you start hearing this one instead.

On the first-adjacent frequency (103.1 or 102.7):

  • CITE-FM-1 Sherbrooke (102.7) (113km away): This 100kW Rouge FM station has a huge pattern that reaches into the Montreal area, and will be the primary cause of interference for this new proposed station. Only a tiny sliver of the station’s coverage area of more than 30,000 square kilometres could be affected by interference from the new station, and the technical brief says the protection for stations of that class is limited to a radius of 86km, where there would be no interference. And it’s kind of a moot point practically because people in that area (roughly downtown Montreal) would be listening to Montreal’s Rouge FM station anyway.
  • CKOD-FM Valleyfield (103.1) (45km away): Though closer together, this station and the proposed one would not interfere with each other to any great extent.

On the second-adjacent frequency (103.3 or 102.5):

  • CHAA-FM Longueuil (103.3) (9km away): This Longueuil community station, whose transmitter is actually on the island of Montreal, is far in frequency from the new proposed station, but is physically very close. The technical brief nevertheless shows no interference between the two stations.

The analysis also includes stations even further away in frequency, CKRK-FM at 103.7 and CINQ-FM at 102.3. The first won’t cause any issues because of its distance, and the station has promised to resolve any interference issues affecting the second.

Budget

The financial projections for the station are modest: $120,000 a year in revenue, increasing steadily to $300,000 by the seventh year. The first-year projection is perfectly reasonable, since it made that amount in 2011. Whether they can double that in five years is another story.

Operating expenses would be even more modest, going from $76,200 in the first year to just over $100,000 in the seventh. This means the station would be making a profit already in its first year.

The cost of actually setting up the transmitter is only $20,000.

Procedure

The CRTC has called a hearing for March 20 to consider this application (the same hearing at which it will consider an application for a French sports-talk station at 850AM). Unless significant objections are raised, a presentation by the applicant will not be required at the hearing, which will take place in Gatineau.

People wanting to comment on the application, or express support or opposition, have until Feb. 15 to do so (this includes other broadcasters who might oppose the station for technical or programming reasons). They can do so by clicking here, choosing Option 1 and then 2012-0821-5: AGNI Communication Inc.

 

After the hearing, it’s up to the commission to decide when to come to a decision and what that decision will be.

| Montreal, Radio

CRTC proceeds with TTP application for French sports talk at 850AM

Proposed propagation pattern of station at 850AM

Proposed propagation pattern of station at 850AM: day (black lines) and night (blue lines)

An application I told you about in September, for an all-sports radio station at 850AM, was published on Wednesday by the CRTC and will be considered at a hearing in March.

The proposed station would be the third AM talk station in Montreal owned by TTP Media (officially 7954689 Canada Inc.), a company formed by partners Paul Tietolman, Nicolas Tétrault and Rajiv Pancholy. The trio’s other two stations, already approved by the CRTC but yet to launch, are for a French-language news-talk station at 940AM and an English-language news-talk station at 600AM. They are expected to go on the air simultaneously some time this year.

Here’s what the application tells us about this new 850AM station:

Programming

“Utilizing sports professionals and experienced broadcasters, AM850 will offer a locally produced, innovative brand of sports talk unlike anything heard previously in Canada. Francophone sports fans will finally have a 24 hour a day source of information covering the topics about which they are most passionate. Opinion, insight and debate sprinkled with listener interaction and lifestyle commentary will be offered up in a cutting edge fashion.” — Supplemental Brief in application to CRTC

As was the case for its previous applications, TTP likes to talk big about how it’s going to revolutionize radio with ideas no one else has tried before. This station is no different.

For one thing, there won’t be a focus on live broadcasts of sporting events. Unlike TSN Radio in English, which has things like European soccer and NFL football games broadcast live, the TTP station plans to have zero syndicated live sports programming. Instead, it will be locally-produced sports talk, 24 hours a day, seven days a week (they’re even willing to accept a condition of licence to this effect). Pancholy told me there might be some live local sports coverage, but the focus will be on discussion (which one would imagine would be mainly Canadiens-related) outside of games.

This is interesting, to say the least. Team 990 went a decade without rights to Canadiens games before it finally got them from CJAD in the hope that that would bring them back into the black (it didn’t, but the station hopes that the move to 690AM will push it over the break-even mark).

On one hand, people love to rant about their Canadiens. On the other hand, they’re more likely to do that on a station that carries the Canadiens broadcasts. Or at least that’s the conventional wisdom.

Programming details will have to wait until the station is approved, but the application said they expect a total of four hours a week of hard news, and 126 hours (i.e. every minute of the week) of local programming.

The application also makes reference to “an online strategy.”:

Online is the perfect place to offer up stats plus extended commentary and analysis. Using social media is an ideal way to further engage listeners in debate and discussion. A strategic use of cutting edge technology will insure that AM850 remains contemporary, immediate and relevant.

History

The application comes in the wake of the decision from owner Cogeco to replace CKAC Sports with Radio Circulation in September 2011. That move, which came after it became clear there was resistance to a move to reactivate 690 and 940 for government-subsidized all-traffic stations in English and French, left Canada’s largest French-language market without a full-time sports talk station.

Instead, Cogeco’s news-talk station CHMP 98.5FM has adopted a hybrid format, with news and information during the day and sports talk during the evenings, including live broadcasts of Canadiens and Alouettes games. (Montreal Impact games are not broadcast on radio in French in Montreal).

Though that decision has been criticized, and CKAC’s market share is only a tenth of what it was as a sports station, CHMP’s ratings have soared, and it’s now the top-rated station in Montreal.

TTP’s application focuses on the void left by CKAC and the need for sports talk during the day.

The transmitter

The proposed frequency, 850AM, was previously used by Montreal’s CKVL (a station founded by Tietolman’s father, Jack Tietolman). That station changed frequency and was transformed into Info 690 in 1999, and 850 has been vacant here ever since.

But rather than bring the station back using its previous parameters, TTP has suggested a new setup with an improved signal. The transmitter would be located in a wooded area off Don Quichote Blvd. in Notre-Dame-de-l’Ile Perrot. There’s no transmitter site there, or towers, or anything. But it’s an ideal location for the coverage pattern they want to create.

Because it’s not a clear-channel station, it has to adjust its pattern to protect distant stations at night on the same frequency. The trickiest one is WEEI 850, a 50,000W station in Boston. This limits the proposed station’s pattern to the southeast. There’s also WKGE in Johnstown, Pa. (10kW), CJBC in Toronto (Première Chaîne at 860 kHz), WAXB in Ridgefield, Conn. (500W), as well as clear-channel stations in Denver and Alaska that are too far to be a real concern.

The station must also protect potential stations, patterns that are allocated but where no station is currently transmitting. (For the most part, these are patterns that used to be used by AM stations that no longer exist or that have changed frequency.) These include allocations in Timmins, Ont., Spaniard’s Bay, N.L., and Enola, Pa., on 850, plus adjacent-channel allocations in Drummondville (820), Brockville, Ont., (830), Rivière-du-Loup (840) and Quebec City (870).

The proposed station was originally going to be 50kW day and night, but that had to change after the Federal Communications Commission in the United States noticed that the station would interfere with WEEI. The technical application had been based on incorrect data, and the new data showed an unacceptable interference. TTP responded with the simplest solution, which is to reduce its nighttime power to 22kW, but it says it may try another solution if it comes up with something better later on.

The proposed signal also encroaches on the allocated pattern for the Spaniard’s Bay station. The community, just west of St. John’s, was served by AM station CHVO on 850 until 1990, but the allocation remains active. TTP proposed reducing the Spaniard’s Bay allocation’s contours slightly, arguing it would be better for the broadcasting system as a whole, and the advantages to the Montreal station (which would, you know, actually exist) would far outweigh the disadvantages to an AM allocation that might never be revived.

Taking all these protections into account, TTP decided the best move was to point the signal toward to the northeast (around 35 degrees). Putting the towers on Île Perrot maximizes the population inside the coverage area for a signal pointed in that direction.

The proposed transmitter setup is four towers 88.2 metres high spaced 98 metres apart, in a line pointing toward Montreal. The signal would be very directional, with the 0.5mV/m contours reaching almost to Quebec City 250km away but barely grazing towns like Hawkesbury, Cornwall and Hemingford which are only about 50km away. The signal would be excellent in the lower West Island (somewhat ironic since it’s a French station) but would cover Montreal and both shores pretty well.

Building a new transmitter site won’t be cheap. The application lists $1.5 million for transmitter setup costs, plus $63,000 in annual rent. The project could also be the subject of hearings if residents nearby object. Pancholy didn’t want to discuss details of potential hearings, but said that things were moving along well in terms of getting approvals necessary for the transmitter site.

TTP’s other two stations will use a transmission site in Kahnawake owned by Cogeco on rented land. This site was deemed inadequate technically for the 850 station.

Budget

The financing for the proposed station would, like with the others, be through a combination of personal financing from the partners and a bank loan. The application lists $5 million in total financing, which breaks down as $1 million from the owners and $4 million in debt from James Edward Capital.

But the station’s optimistic budget shows a quick profit turnaround. With $3.5 million in annual revenue, increasing to about $5 million by the end of the first seven-year licence term, the station expects to be making money by the fourth year of operation. Expenses would start at $3.6 million a year and rise to $4 million a year by Year 7.

Though TTP would argue its projections are conservative, its competitors would say they’re unrealistic.

Station revenues would come mostly through local advertising, since TTP doesn’t have any stations outside of Montreal (yet). It expects to come out of the gate with a respectable market share for an all-sports station:

“We conservatively project that by the end of the first year of operations AM will secure a 3.4% share of hours tuned for All Persons 12+ and a 6.0% share of hours tuned for males 25-54.”

Nevertheless, it expects its impact on other stations “will be negligible. The approximate 2-4 % average yearly increase of revenue coming into the market should largely offset the financial impact of minimally decreased share for these stations.”

TTP breaks down its ad revenue like this:

  1. 20% of our revenue will be derived from advertisers which do not currently advertise on existing radio services.
  2. 20% of our revenue would result from increased spending from advertisers which currently advertise on existing radio services (given this unique targeted opportunity).
  3. 15% of our revenue will come from our online/web site offerings.
  4. The remaining 45% of our projected revenues will come from existing radio services.

The application doesn’t list the number of jobs the station would create, and Pancholy didn’t want to come out with a number. Many administrative jobs would be shared among the stations.

The application makes reference to “a special intern program”, which suggests that unpaid interns might be a big part of the plan here. (Cheap and free labour is certainly a large part of the tight-budgeted TSN Radio).

Process

The CRTC has called a hearing in Gatineau on March 20 to consider this application and others. Unless there are significant objections, the commission plans for these to be non-appearing items, meaning that the applicants won’t have to appear at the hearing and there will be no actual discussions.

The public is invited to file comments with the commission on this application until Feb. 15. They can do so here (choose Option 1 and then 7954689 Canada Inc.)

After the hearing, the commission will take a few weeks (or a few months, it’s really up to them) to make a decision. Once the station is approved, it will have two years to launch, though Pancholy said they would expect it to be up within a year of a positive decision.

What do you think? Does this business plan sound plausible? Are people more interested in talking about sports than listening to live matches? Can you have a sports talk radio station without any live sports? Leave your comments below.

Other coverage

The Journal de Montréal/Agence QMI has a story on this. Its headline says there will be a decision this summer, but no source is provided for that statement, and I doubt the commission has confided that detail to the reporter. It’s a good guess, but it’s a guess. The decision could be done by the end of April, or they might still be waiting for one in October. It’s really up to the commission.

| Montreal, Radio, TV

2013 will be a big year for local radio and TV

I wouldn’t dare say that the crisis affecting news media is behind us, but there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about local media — particularly on the broadcasting side — going into 2013. The coming year will see at least four new radio stations and one additional television station, which will mean more jobs for technicians, editors, advertising salespeople, marketers, broadcasters and even some journalists. And existing media will see some big changes too that will improve the local landscape.

In August, I did a piece for The Gazette going over upcoming changes station by station. Here’s mainly an updated guide to those changes we expect to see this year:

AM radio

The biggest changes will happen on the AM dial, thanks to the Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy group which plans to launch news-talk stations in English and French. There’s also another additional station, and perhaps a third by TTP Media. It won’t bring things back to what they were in the 70s, but a lot of those frequencies that once had big-name radio stations and have been silent the past few years will be brought back to life:

600: TTP’s English station will occupy the old CFCF/CIQC frequency, silent since 1999. The station was approved in November by the CRTC. The group wants it to have live programming 24/7, including a journalistic team that puts CJAD’s to shame. That will mean hiring a lot of people.

690 (CKGM): TSN Radio was saved as an English station when the CRTC said no to the Bell/Astral deal, but they’re going to try again, this time asking for an exemption to allow them to keep CKGM along with the three Astral stations. While a popular idea among the station’s fans, it might not work with regulators who would face giving four of the five English-language commercial stations in Montreal to one company. The one thing that might help get this through is the new TTP station at 600 bumping the total number from five to six. But will that be enough to justify an already dominant radio group (CJAD/CHOM/CJFM) getting even bigger? In the more immediate future, an early afternoon host has to be found (or announced) for Randy Tieman’s old slot.

730 (CKAC): The government-subsidized all-traffic station still does poorly in the ratings, though it doesn’t have to worry about that too much because of the $1.5-million-a-year paycheque it gets just for existing. There’s a new government that would love to save as much money as it can, but the deal with Cogeco only comes up for renewal in 2014.

800 (CJAD): No big plans are in the works for Montreal’s News-Talk Leader that I know of. But it might have to change whether it wants to or not. If TTP makes good enough offers to lure away talent from CJAD, the latter might have to reshuffle its schedule.

850: The CRTC has confirmed that there’s an application for the use of this frequency, but it hasn’t been published yet. We do know it’s from the Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy group and that it’s for a French-language sports talk station. They’ve seen an opportunity now that there’s no longer an all-sports radio station in French. But with 98.5FM carrying Canadiens and Alouettes broadcast rights, and devoting their evenings to sports talk, will there be enough of a gap for TTP to capitalize? If the application is published soon, it could be approved by this fall.

940: TTP’s French-language station goes here, on the clear channel that was once home to CBC Radio and 940 News. The station was approved in the fall of 2011, which gives them until this November to launch or request an extension from the CRTC. No launch date has been set, but the plan is to launch both simultaneously some time in the spring. And just as 600 could steal talent from CJAD and elsewhere, we could see 940 taking away people from stations like 98.5 or even Radio X.

990: The former CKGM/Team/TSN 990 frequency was vacated on Dec. 1 and is ready for Radio Fierté, a French-language music and talk station run by Dufferin Communications. They have until November to launch or request an extension.

1410 (CJWI): Still waiting for the Haitian radio station (CPAM Radio Union) to switch to this frequency from 1610.

1570 (CJLV): The Laval-based commercial station, which had threatened to shut down if the CRTC didn’t convert it into an ethnic station, had its bluff called when the CRTC ruled that the Montreal market couldn’t take another ethnic station. Its plan B seems to be a partnership with Internet radio station CNV (which you’ll see sometimes if you go to Complexe Desjardins) which sees the latter’s programming on the former’s signal.

FM radio

The FM dial in Montreal is full. That’s really the only thing preventing someone from launching another radio station to compete with Virgin, The Beat and CHOM. Still, there’s room for at least one addition in an adjacent market.

89.9 (CKKI-FM): Kahnawake Keeps It Country has hired a new morning man: local radio critic Sheldon Harvey. The small station with a low-power transmitter in its backyard isn’t even the most popular station in Kahnawake. Can the former pirate station get enough revenue to cover its modest expenses and keep it on the air?

91.3 (CIRA-FM): The religious station has received CRTC approval to launch a subchannel which will carry programming by La Fiesta Latina. The subcarrier signal requires a special receiver to decode.

91.9 (CKLX-FM): Months after relaunching as Radio X Montreal, the former Planète Jazz is still awaiting a CRTC decision on whether it can abandon its status as a specialty jazz music station and be relicensed as a general commercial station. The application for this was first published almost a full year ago, and officially heard at the Sept. 10 hearing in Montreal. Under its current licence, CKLX-FM is required to devote 70% of its musical selections to the jazz/blues format. This doesn’t technically interfere with them being a talk station during the day, since there isn’t much music during talk shows. But it does go against the Radio X model of rock music on weekends. So until its licence changes, CKLX airs jazz/blues music evenings, overnight, on weekend mornings and weekend evenings.

92.5 (CKBE-FM): The Beat has some schedule shuffling to do. Ken Connors has essentially replaced the fired Murray Sherriffs as the morning news man, and Pete Marier has been doing weekend mornings in his absence, but on the website Connors is still listed as the weekend morning man. Will Bad Pete get a permanent gig here? On the regulatory front, the station is awaiting a decision on a request to boost its power from 44 kW to 100 kW. That request hit a bit of a snag because Dufferin Communications has applied for an FM station on that frequency in Clarence-Rockland, Ontario, just east of Ottawa. The CRTC is treating the applications as competing, even though The Beat said it would accept interference caused by the overlapping coverage areas. The hearing was in November, and a decision hasn’t been published yet.

93.5 (CBM-FM): CBC Radio Two is waiting on the CRTC to decide whether, as part of the CBC’s larger licence renewals, it will be allowed to carry commercial advertising. The request received fierce opposition from commercial competitors who believe the CBC will use its government financing to create an unfair commercial advantage for itself, as well as from CBC listeners who believe this will cause the network to make more decisions based on ratings and advertising than on the quality of programming.

95.9 (CJFM-FM): Will Montreal’s top-rated music station face a stronger competitor in The Beat in 2013? Will its schedule undergo more changes as what seems like a revolving door of talent keeps spinning? Will listeners tire of Ryan Seacrest and demand more local talent during peak hours? We’ll see. Otherwise, there aren’t any big changes I know about in the works at Virgin.

96.9 (CKOI-FM): CKOI faces an identity crisis. Its ratings are pretty bad, and the regional network of stations with its brand has been switched to talk, with the exception of the Quebec City station that Cogeco doesn’t own anymore. Cogeco already has a talk station in Montreal with 98.5, so what to do with the low-rated flagship station of a network that no longer exists? Its owners can comfort themselves with the news that it still ranks highly among younger audiences (18-34), but you have to wonder if the station will last the year the way it is without some big shakeup.

97.7 (CHOM-FM): As Montreal’s rock station marks one year since the return of Terry DiMonte (see Bill Brownstein’s story in The Gazette), the schedule is pretty stable: DiMonte and Heather Backman in the mornings, TooTall during the day, Bilal Butt in afternoon drive and Jason Rockman in evenings, with Sharon Hyland, Rob Kemp and Randy Renaud on weekends and Brandon Craddock and Ronny Mack splitting the overnights. Its ratings are decent, and it owns the male demographic (not hard since the other music stations are both targetting women).

100.7 (CBFX-FM): Like Radio Two, Espace musique is seeking permission to carry advertising.

103.7 (CKRK-FM): Kahnawake’s K103 is trying to keep going without the attention that Ted Bird brought. It has a new program director in Al Gravelle, and a new morning guy in Zack Rath to join veterans Paul Graif and Java Jacobs. Will the station find an answer to its main existential question — is it a Kahnawake community station, or a wide-audience commercial station?

105.1 (CKDG-FM): Ethnic station Mike FM quietly lost afternoon guy Patrick Charles, leaving Tasso Patsikakis to carry the show solo. Is he bringing in the kind of ratings (and advertising) needed to make the relationship work for both parties? If not, there’s a limited amount of time to make it work. Earlug ads in The Gazette are nice, but if Mike FM is going to be a general-interest radio station during the morning and afternoon drive hours, it needs some serious efforts in promotion.

106.7: Dufferin Communications, the same company behind Radio Fierté, has received CRTC approval for its radio station on this frequency in Hudson/St. Lazare. The station, which will almost certainly carry Dufferin’s Jewel branding, will air mainly easy-listening music but also carry local news and information, which will be a boon to the local community. Here’s a CTV Montreal report on the planned station. Its launch could be as early as spring but expect it to be closer to fall.

Television

Local television in Montreal is going to see its biggest changes since 1997. The number of stations will increase by one, from 9 to 10, but the changes are more significant than that:

CBMT (CBC) has taken some significant steps to improve local programming, even in the wake of cuts to the CBC’s budget. The evening newscast expanded to an hour and a half, a late-night 10-minute newscast was added and then expanded to 30 minutes, and weekend newscasts added so the station has news seven days a week. This could improve even further depending on how the CBC’s licence renewal goes. The CBC has proposed that its local stations have seven or 14 hours a week of local programming, depending on the size of the market (Montreal’s English market would be considered large). Currently, CBMT has a bit under 11 hours a week of local news, so this would mean an expansion of some sort. The CBC also said that one of those 14 hours could be non-news programming. This could mean the return of cookie-cutter local lifestyle shows like Living or something else. But anything is better than nothing.

CFCF (CTV) is finally making the move toward high-definition newscasts, and a finish line is in sight in the spring or early summer for the 4:3 programming to be replaced by beautiful 16:9 HD. Its newscast also finally has a permanent replacement for Kai Nagata in Quebec City. Former Gazette reporter Max Harrold started there in November and is already working on his TV reporting skills filing reports in Montreal. He should be in Quebec City by the time the National Assembly resumes its work in February.

CKMI (Global) is launching a two-hour weekday morning show, long promised as part of Shaw’s purchase of Canwest in 2010. It’s supposed to be some time in the spring, but an exact date isn’t set yet. There’s also been no announcement of a host, though there have been hires on the technical side. The show will be Montreal’s first local morning show since This Morning Live was cancelled in 2008. That was five years ago, but could we see some of its personalities returning? Richard Dagenais still works there.

CJNT (Metro 14/City) is changing owners, from Channel Zero to Rogers, within the month. Starting in February, its ethnic programming will be stripped (at least from primetime) and replaced with the entire Citytv lineup, including some new original Canadian shows. By September, it will launch a three-hour local morning show, competing with Global, and a weekly half-hour local sports show, the first since SportsNight 360 was taken off CFCF to make room for expanded weekend newscasts. The move will mean 20-30 new jobs, mainly technical ones. Rogers has made clear that it plans to hire locally for its on-air jobs.

ICI is the new kid on the block, taking up the ethnic programming from CJNT. The independent station, with some generous support from both Rogers and Channel Zero, will need to install a new transmitter and setup a complete television station essentially from scratch, but hope to be on the air by late spring or early summer. With more than a dozen independent producers already signed on and many more reportedly waiting to join, the project for an ethnic station financed by its own producers starts with a lot of good will.

I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of stuff, that’s being worked on in secret, or that’s being done at a station too small to have a PR person keep me abreast. (If you know of stuff, let me know.) But even with just this, we can be confident that there’s a lot happening in this city in 2013. And I’ll try to document as much of it as I can.

Happy new year.

| Montreal, TV

CRTC skeptical about CJNT, ICI applications

As with all ownership transactions it is the responsibility of the seller or its representative to prove that a transaction is in the public interest. The Commission has been abundantly clear about this recently. This means that the burden of proof lies with Rogers and Channel Zero. This is not simply a matter of promising to invest a certain amount of money in the Canadian broadcasting system, many other factors must also be taken into consideration, including the impact on the Montreal market and the Commission’s various policies.

This was the statement at the beginning of last month’s hearing by Jean-Pierre Blais, the chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Combined with the grilling that the commission gave to the three parties involved in two applications related to the purchase of CJNT by Rogers, it’s clear that the commission’s hard line about acquisitions wasn’t just a one-off for Bell’s sake.

Continue reading →

| Business, Media, Montreal, Radio

Bell/Astral Take 2 would give it near-monopoly on Montreal English radio

It’s official: Bell is trying again. The company announced Monday morning that it has reached a new agreement to acquire Astral Media, and will submit a revised proposal to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, one that will address the commission’s concerns about Bell becoming too big.

Details of the bid won’t be known until the CRTC publishes the application, which could take months, but it’s expected Bell will sell off some English-language television assets to stay under the CRTC’s ownership cap, and Bell says it will improve its tangible benefits package (with at least 85% of it going to on-screen initiatives).

CKGM will stay English

One detail we do know concerns CKGM. Bell says it will ask the CRTC for an exemption to the common ownership rules to allow it to keep TSN Radio 690 as an English station. From their FAQ:

We heard sports fans in Montréal loud and clear. Their passion for sports talk radio is unparalleled. Loyal and devoted, they responded in droves in an effort to preserve CKGM (TSN Radio 690) as an English-language sports radio station. As a result, as part of our new application, we are filing a request for an exception to the CRTC’s Radio Common Ownership Policy to keep TSN Radio 690 as an English-language sports radio station. As a result of tremendous listener response, we think it’s a discussion worth having. We believe an exception to the Policy is reasonable, consistent with previous regulatory practice, and the only way to preserve CKGM as an English sports talk station. Montréal sports radio fans deserve it.

An exemption from the policy is certainly what many listeners were calling for after Bell decided to blame the CRTC for its decision to request TSN be turned into RDS Radio. But it would also mean four of the five English-language commercial radio stations in Montreal (or four of the six if you include the soon-to-be-launched TTP Media station at 600AM) would be owned by the same company.

Normally, CRTC rules state that one company can own no more than two AM and two FM stations in a single market (English and French Montreal are considered separate markets), and that in markets with fewer than eight commercial radio stations, one company can own no more than three.

The combined Bell-Astral would have a 61% total market share and a 79% commercial market share in English Montreal.

It’s odd to hear Bell say on one hand that it understands the CRTC’s concerns about concentration of ownership on a national scale and then argue it needs to own more radio stations in Montreal than the policy would normally allow. (Of course, it’s just as odd for Cogeco to cry about Astral’s market power in radio when it got a similar exemption allowing it to own three French-language commercial FM radio stations in Montreal. In that case, it was so it could hold on to CHMP 98.5FM as the flagship station of a Quebec-wide radio news network.)

Since there’s no application to change CKGM’s licence, they can’t turn around and make it French if the CRTC decides not to allow Bell to own four stations. Instead, it or one of the other former Astral stations would likely be sold to bring Bell under the ownership cap. And since CKGM has the poorest ratings, it would likely be the one to go.

So while RDS Radio isn’t an imminent threat, CKGM and its staff aren’t out of the woods yet.

Say No To Bell vs. Canadians Deserve More

If there’s one thing Bell has learned most from its previous attempt, it’s that it needs a better PR campaign to convince Canadians to be on its side. So it launched CanadiansDeserveMore.ca along with a corresponding Twitter account. Expect to be bombarded by ads from Bell touting the awesomeness of this deal, particularly on television and radio stations owned by Bell Media and Astral. And, if Quebecor and others aren’t convinced this new deal addresses all of their concerns (I’m guessing it won’t), expect a similar ad campaign from Say No To Bell on channels owned by Quebecor and Cogeco, and possibly Rogers and others as well.

 

The public will have a chance to comment on the application when it’s published by the commission.

| Montreal, Radio

CRTC approves TTP Media’s English news-talk station at 600AM

Nicolas Tétrault, Rajiv Pancholy and Paul Tietolman now have licences for two AM radio stations in Montreal.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Friday approved an application by 7954689 Canada Inc., better known as Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media, to create an English-language talk radio station at 600AM.

The station, which would have 100% local programming under a news-talk format, would be the first direct competitor to market leader CJAD since 940 News, which changed formats in 2008 and eventually shut down in 2010. (The commission notes that CKGM, which is all-sports under the TSN Radio 690 brand, and CBME-FM, which has CBC Radio One programming, are not direct competitors because the first has a different format and the second is non-commercial.)

Approval was expected, because in its decision last year rejecting the application, the commission made clear that it was doing so only because it did not have an available frequency to give to the group. It invited TTP to re-apply for another frequency, and said it would reconsider the application. TTP did that, stepping down from an earlier bluff that it needed clear channels for both stations or wouldn’t proceed with either.

The new application received little opposition, only one comment that the market could not handle a competitor to CJAD (see below). The commission dismissed the comment, which came with no evidence to back it up, noting that CJAD itself did not oppose the application.

The new station will operate as a sister station to one the commission approved last year for a French news-talk station at 940AM. That station has until November 2013 to launch unless it gets an extension. Paul Tietolman tells me he expects both stations to launch in the spring at around the same time.

It was also revealed recently that the group has applied for a French-language sports-talk radio station for 850AM, the former frequency for CKVL, a station owned by Tietolman’s father. That application has not yet been published by the CRTC.

You can read my Gazette story on the decision here.

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| My articles, Radio, West Island

CRTC approves Hudson/St. Lazare radio station

Coverage area of proposed FM station in Hudson/St. Lazare provided by Dufferin Communications

The Montreal area is getting another radio station. On Friday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved an application from Dufferin Communications Inc. for an English-language radio station in Hudson/St. Lazare.

The station would be a local one, with 500 watts of effective power, operating on 106.7 MHz and playing easy-listening music, similar to that of its other stations that are part of the Jewel network. (Dufferin says the station’s branding hasn’t been decided yet, but “Jewel” is an option.) The application called for 110 hours a week of local programming, including four hours and 22 minutes a week of “pure news”, of which half would be local to the area.

I summarize the decision in this story for The Gazette’s new Off Island section, which targets this community.

This will certainly mean jobs for journalists and radio workers in the region. Dufferin vice-president Carmela Laurignano tells me they plan to hire 15-20 people in total to work at the station. The proposed station’s financial projections show revenue gradually growing from $480,000 the first year to $1 million in the seventh year of its license. Expenses would start at $700,000 (including a $90,000 startup cost) and reach $850,000 in the seventh year.

About 95% of its advertising revenue is expected to be local, with 20-30,000 minutes sold a year at an average rate of between $22 and $34 a minute.  Under these projections, the station would start making money in Year 4 and pay for itself in the seventh year.

The application was not without opposition:

  • Cogeco objected that there wasn’t an open call for applications for what can be considered Montreal’s last available FM frequency. (The frequency was used by Aboriginal Voices Radio until it shut down here, then on an unlicensed basis by Kahnawake Keeps It Country until it got a formal licence for 89.9FM.)
  • Groupe CHCR, which owns ethnic stations CKDG-FM and CKIN-FM in Montreal, objected that the station would negatively affect its station and others
  • CJVD-FM, which is a French-language commercial station in Vaudreuil, objected that the region could not accomodate two local stations that would have to compete with the larger stations in Montreal.
  • Groupe Radio Enfant told the CRTC it planned its own application for a station at 106.7 (the group had a temporary permit to operate a transmitter on that frequency in late 2009). The CRTC says it has received no such application.

In the end, the CRTC dismissed the objections. The commission found that the station’s pattern would not significantly compete with large Montreal radio stations because the signal does not reach far into Montreal. It did not compete with CJVD-FM because they’re in different languages, and most importantly 106.7 FM is not a viable frequency to use in Montreal itself because it is too close to CHCR’s CKIN-FM 106.3 and would cause too much interference. (Though CHCR itself applied to move CKDG-FM to that frequency from 105.1, thinking it would get a better signal. It later withdrew that application.)

Dufferin Communications is also the company behind Radio Fierté, a French-language music and talk station aimed at Montreal’s LGBT community that got CRTC approval to broadcast at 990 AM after CKGM vacates that frequency. Laurignano said they expect to get moving on that station in the new year.

Though Radio Fierté has already been approved, the Hudson/St. Lazare station’s application predates it. It was first filed in February 2010.

Dufferin Communications has two years to get the station running unless it asks for an extension from the CRTC. That means it must be up by Oct. 19, 2014. The licence expires on Aug. 31, 2019. Laurignano said they expect to have it on the air by the fall of 2013.

And by the way, fans of National Public Radio can breathe. Dufferin had listed as an alternative frequency in its application 107.9FM, which is the frequency used by the Vermont Public Radio transmitter that covers northern Vermont and much of Montreal. Unless someone else applies for that frequency (which isn’t protected from interference here), VPR can still be heard on it.

| Media, My articles, Radio

CRTC kills Bell-Astral deal, saving TSN 690

The larger story is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has rejected an application from BCE Inc. to acquire Astral Media Inc. This means that the companies will remain independent, and among other things CJAD and CTV won’t be owned by the same company.

The smaller story is the denial of a related application from Bell to convert TSN Radio 690 (CKGM) from English to French, to meet the commission’s common ownership policy. With the larger deal denied, the smaller one becomes moot. Bell said at the hearing that the latter was contingent on the former, and without approval of the larger purchase it would continue to operate TSN Radio as is.

This is the best possible outcome for TSN Radio and its fans. Any decision allowing Bell to acquire CJAD would have meant moving Canadiens games there, and TSN would have either been converted to French, sold or shut down.

The question is what will Bell do now. Does it still plan to launch RDS Radio in Quebec? If so, on what frequency and where? (The number of vacant AM frequencies in Monteral is going down fast.) Many people were looking forward to a French sports station that could take over where CKAC left off. Even many TSN Radio fans angry with the application said they would love to see a French-language all-sports station alongside the English one.

Requests for comment from people at the station were passed up the chain until I got an official “no comment” from Greg McIsaac at TSN. But privately, station staff are thrilled. As are fans, who expressed delight on Twitter. The language change would almost certainly have meant job losses at CKGM and possibly CJAD as well as the latter incorporated programming from the former.

UPDATE: Bell says it’s asking the federal cabinet to step in to reverse the decision. (Astral has nothing interesting to say yet.) The federal government says it will not overrule the regulator (whose chair it has just appointed), but Bell says it will formally ask for intervention anyway. Bell could also try to have the decision overturned in court, though it’s unclear under what grounds they would ask for a legal appeal.

In its angrily-worded statement, Bell also accused the CRTC chair of impropriety, saying he had met with Bell’s competitors but not with Bell. As the CRTC tells it, this is correct, but only because Bell had an application in front of the commission and it would have been improper to meet with Bell. The commission also says that at no time did the other companies discuss the Bell application with the CRTC ex parte.

| Montreal, TV

Bell Media opposes Rogers plans for CJNT

It’s not that Bell Media, which owns CTV, is opposed to adding a third private English-language station to the Montreal market. But it tells the CRTC it thinks such an application should be done in a straightforward way with a call for new applications, rather than the roundabout two-step process that Rogers is proposing with CJNT.

Normally, when an application is made for a new commercial television or radio station, the CRTC responds by evaluating the market to see if it can sustain an additional station, and if so issuing an open call for applications. The various applications are evaluated and the commission chooses the best one.

With the Rogers acquisition of CJNT, which it proposes to convert into an English station, and a related application for the new ICI ethnic station, which would take over the ethnic programming responsibilities from CJNT, the new application isn’t technically for Citytv, but for an ethnic station to replace an existing one. In comments filed to the CRTC, Bell’s vice-president of regulatory affairs Kevin Goldstein says Rogers is “looking for an extraordinary result from this process” and the CRTC should reject the application, instead issuing an open call for applications for a new English television station in Montreal. Indeed, he questions why it wasn’t the group behind ICI that didn’t seek to acquire CJNT, and Rogers issue the new application.

Even under an alternative proposal, in which CJNT remains an ethnic station but with relief from rules like the one requiring 75% of its programming between 8pm and 10pm to be bilingual, Goldstein says “its commitment to local ethnic programming hours will be drastically reduced and much lower than what is required by other ethnic stations. This would represent a significant loss of diverse programming for Montreal’s ethnic audiences, particularly during the prime time hours when they tune in the most.”

Other Bell concerns include:

Timing: Bell points out that if the two applications are approved, the ICI service would take some months to launch, while Citytv could be converted into an English television station “essentially overnight.” In the interim, Montreal would be absent any ethnic programming on local television.

Programming: Though it doesn’t object to Rogers’s proposed English programming grid per se, Bell does suggest that it might not be the best option in terms of local programming. It points out that the station would have “limited local news” which would be done within a morning show and a weekly sports show. Goldstein suggests that, with an open call for applications, another proposal could offer a better option that would have more or better local programming.

Bell’s main objection, that Rogers seems to have structured this plan as a clever way to get around normal CRTC process for a new television station, makes a lot of sense. But it’s also kind of an academic argument to make, for the simple reason that there’s little demand for new conventional television stations. I’d be surprised if an open call for applications for a commercial English station would result in an application from anyone other than Rogers for the simple reason that there’s no other large mainstream commercial Canadian television network that doesn’t already have a station in Montreal. The only other networks in Canada are the small, mainly religious Joytv and CTS.

In 1996, when Canwest applied to acquire Quebec City station CKMI-TV and convert it into Global Quebec, CFCF objected strongly, saying the market could not sustain a second television station. Ownership of CFCF has changed a few times since then, though.

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| Montreal, TV

Burning questions about CJNT, Citytv and ICI

Sam Norouzi, whose family would own 90% of the company behind ICI, in the Mi-Cam studio on Christophe-Colomb Ave.

I have two stories in Wednesday’s Gazette, explaining to readers the two proposals for new television stations related to the proposed Rogers acquisition of CJNT. The first discusses the plan for CJNT itself, to convert it to an English Citytv station that would air the Citytv schedule and a new local morning show. The second talks to the family behind an application for a new station called ICI that would essentially bring back CJNT’s predecessor Télévision Ethnique du Québec, in which producers acted independently in a cooperative and sell advertising for their own shows.

While the Gazette stories are long and contain a lot of information, there were a bunch of other little facts that I couldn’t cram in there that would probably be of more interest to people who follow local media a bit more closely. So here are some answers:

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| Radio

CFRA Ottawa gets power boost toward Montreal

Comparative map of existing (red) and proposed (black) night contours of CFRA Ottawa. (Click for larger image)

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today approved a nighttime power increase and pattern change for CFRA 580AM in Ottawa. The change will significantly improve the station’s signal, particularly toward the East, putting Montreal inside its 0.5mV/m contours at night.

Like most AM radio stations, CFRA is required to protect other stations on the same frequency at night, when AM radio signals carry much further. Specifically, it was required to protect the following 580AM stations, all of which have now moved to FM (and all of which are private commercial music stations):

  • CJFX in Antigonish, N.S. (at 98.9 and 102.5 FM exclusively since 2003)
  • CKPR in Thunder Bay, Ont. (at 91.5 and 93.5 FM since 2007)
  • CHLC in Baie-Comeau, Que. (at 97.1 FM since 1996)

The result is a speech-bubble-shaped pattern pointed heavily toward the north, northeast and northwest (the transmitter site is due south of Ottawa).

With these stations gone from this frequency, and no expectation that anyone would try to reactivate them in these small markets where there are still FM frequencies available, Bell Media Radio successfully convinced the CRTC that it should allow CFRA to increase its nighttime pattern to have better coverage toward eastern and western Ottawa suburbs at night. The fact that no one objected to the application also convinced the CRTC that this was a good idea.

Under the approved technical parameters, CFRA will drop from 50kW to 30kW at night (instead of from 50 to 10). The pattern shape will also change slightly, still speech-bubble-shaped but a bit less directional toward the north, improving its signal toward the southeast and southwest.

According to the broadcast engineer’s contour map, the 0.5mV/m contour, which under the current signal goes through Deux Montagnes, Rigaud and Alexandria, will now cover all of Montreal, Laval, the north shore and Châteauguay and Valleyfield regions. It’s hard to translate that into actual receiving abilities (which are dependent on the type of radio and local interference sources), but it will be an improvement.

According to a story on CFRA’s website, “CFRA Chief Engineer Harrie Jones says the technical work will begin soon, and he’s hopeful the affected listeners should hear a difference within a month.”

| Montreal, TV

Rogers proposes two television stations to replace CJNT

Back in May, when Rogers and Channel Zero announced that they had reached an agreement to buy CJNT from the latter and turn it into a Citytv-branded station (with it becoming a Citytv affiliate in the meantime), it was unclear whether it would remain Montreal’s only ethnic television station. Rogers Media President of Broadcast, Scott Moore, couldn’t be pinned down either way on what, if any, amendments to the station’s licence the media giant would propose as part of the purchase.

On Sept. 5, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission published the application for transfer of ownership, and we learn that, in fact, Rogers is asking to change Citytv from an ethnic station into an English one, or at least to relieve it of a condition of licence requiring 75% of programming from 8pm to 10pm be ethnic in nature (a condition that previous owners have tried and failed to have relieved).

But this request comes with a twist: In exchange for turning CJNT into an English station, Rogers proposes to support a brand new television station in Montreal whose programming would be almost entirely ethnic in nature. The new station, which would be the 10th over-the-air television station in Montreal, would be run by an independent group and would include some of the same programming that used to air on CJNT.

During this week, I’ll be speaking with the principal parties involved (Rogers, Channel Zero and the independent group proposing the new station). In the meantime, here’s what the applications themselves say.

Citytv Montreal

“The acquisition of CJNT-TV and its conversion to an English-language commercial television station will allow RBL to establish an over-the-air television presence for Citytv in Montréal. This is a key step towards making Citytv more competitive with CTV and Global in terms of programming and our ability to access network advertising revenues.”

Rogers has made clear its intention for a more national footprint for the Citytv network, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this week. Advertisers treat Citytv, which has no stations east of Toronto, as a small regional player, and Rogers wants that to change. So it signed an affiliation agreement with three small-market western stations in the Jim Pattison Group, and acquired Saskatchewan educational network SCN, rebranding it Citytv Saskatchewan. And it acquired CJNT in Montreal.

The network still isn’t complete. There’s no station in Atlantic Canada, and only a retransmitter in Ottawa. But these moves have increased the network’s reach about 27%.

Being a national advertising player is a priority for Rogers, so much so that it’s willing to lose a lot of money on a Citytv station in Montreal:

“In terms of revenue potential, Citytv has a very limited ability to sell network advertising. National advertising buyers want access to top quality programming on national networks with extensive audience reach to meet their clients’ needs in the most efficient way possible. They naturally look first to CTV and Global for network buy opportunities, as these networks have the national reach that they are seeking. Citytv network buys may be considered to fill the gaps, but only after the buyers have exhausted their advertising opportunities with the large national networks.”

Purchase price

The application lists a purchase price for CJNT: $10.3 million. That breaks down as about $550,000 for the actual assets (mostly transmission assets, as Rogers isn’t interested in the existing studios or programming rights), and the rest for the licence itself. When Channel Zero bought CJNT in 2009, it was in a package deal with CHCH in Hamilton for $12, along with commitments to cover the stations’ liabilities.

If we consider a $6 purchase price and a $10.3 million sale price, that’s a 171,666,667% return on investment in just three years for Channel Zero, or 57,222,222% a year. That’s about 10 million times the rate on my RRSP.

From the Rogers application, we also learn a bit about Channel Zero’s motives, including the fact that it took the station mainly so it could get CHCH:

Channel Zero’s primary consideration was the acquisition of CHCH-TV; however, it was clear that the stations were being sold as a package and Channel Zero was enthused by the opportunity to acquire an ethnic station in one of Canada’s greatest cities.

Channel Zero has invested just under $500,000 on technical upgrades to the CJNT-TV facility including converting the transmission facilities to digital. It has also created new office facilities and has funded operating losses which are expected to total $1.5 million by the end of the current broadcast year.

This is consistent with criticisms that while Channel Zero has invested a lot of time, energy and money into programming at CHCH, it has all but ignored CJNT. (Though, the application also correctly points out that if Channel Zero had not bought CJNT in 2009, the station would likely have been shut down.)

The big question, though, is why Rogers is bothering with this when it could just apply for a new licence for a new television station, and leave CJNT to remain ethnic. The CRTC asked the same question, and here is Rogers’s response:

Montreal, as a major English-language television market, remains a key part of our expansion strategy. As such, we have looked at number of options to monetize Citytv’s programming in this market including applying for a new licence, applying for a rebroadcast transmitter, negotiating broad distribution and simultaneous substitution with local distributors and available acquisition opportunities.

The purchase of CJNT-TV was the most attractive of these options as it represented the fastest and most predictable entry into the market and would allow us to start monetizing our programming in the upcoming broadcast year.

The other point made is that if Rogers tried to start a new station, Channel Zero and CJNT would probably be first in line to oppose it.

It’s through the related application presented for this CRTC hearing that we learn that Channel Zero had originally planned to ask the CRTC to convert CJNT from an ethnic station into an English station, similar to what Rogers is proposing now. Channel Zero and the group behind the new ethnic station project came up with this joint proposal in order to allow CJNT to become English without depriving Montreal of its only ethnic television station.

If the Rogers acquisition is denied, Channel Zero is apparently still interested in converting CJNT into an English station. From Rogers’s application:

In the event the Commission denies the proposed transaction, 2209005 (the licensee of CJNT) intends to apply to the Commission to convert CJNT-TV into an English-language television station as it does not believe the station is viable, on a long-term basis, as an ethnic station based on its current business model. RBL (Rogers Broadcasting Ltd.) has also been informed by 2209005 that should the Commission deny the proposed transaction that it will strongly oppose any applications for a new English-language television station to serve Montreal, as 2209005’s intention is to apply for an English-language television station in Montreal.

Programming

Proposed Citytv schedule for CJNT (PDF)

As previously stated in May, Rogers’s plan for CJNT would not include a daily evening newscast, since Montreal already has three of those (CTV, CBC and Global). Instead, most of a Montreal Citytv station’s local programming would come through a local morning show called Breakfast Television Montreal, which would run from 6am to 9am weekdays. This is consistent with Citytv’s other (non-Toronto) local stations, which also rely on Breakfast Television for most of their local programming.

The application describes the proposed morning show as “a mix of local news, information and entertainment programming focused exclusively on the Montréal market.” It also touts the “community” focus of the shows, covering everything from cultural events to fundraisers.

The other local show would be a weekly sports show, which in its application Rogers calls “Connected Montréal”:

RBL will also launch a weekly half-hour sports program, to be known as Connected Montréal, dedicated to covering the best in professional, amateur, university, CEGEP, and junior league sports in the Greater Montréal area. Currently, there are no programs on television that showcase the talented athletes and coaches that make-up this rich and diverse sporting community. We intend to focus on the positive influences sports bring to young people, community building, and the historical and cultural fabric of Montréal.

This show will include a mix of game highlights; team, athlete and coach profiles; and analysis from a wide variety of local sporting events. This program will be uplifting and motivational, providing Montréalers with the opportunity to celebrate their city’s athletic achievements.

The proposed programming grid lists a one-hour program called “The Fan” that would air Sundays at 6pm and repeat Mondays. The half-hour option seems to be the more recent of the two. It’s not clear at this point when exactly the show would air, but likely on weekends with at least one repeat, Moore tells me.

With 15 hours for the morning show and half an hour for the sports show (repeated once), the station would produce 15.5 hours of original local programming a week, and air 16 hours including the repeat.

Citytv Montreal would also air Citytv network programming as it does now, including Cityline and programs like The Bachelor Canada.

But the big thing is U.S. programming. The reason Rogers wants more local stations (as opposed to distant-signal carriage on local distributors) is to benefit from simultaneous substitution. The real losers here aren’t CFCF or CKMI, they’re WPTZ, WFFF, WVNY and WCAX, who will lose a big chunk of what non-substituted primetime programming it has left.

Plan B: An ethnic station

Rogers’s application proposes an alternative if the CRTC decides against turning CJNT into an English station:

“RBL would be prepared to respect the current licensee’s commitment to provide 14 hours of local ethnic programming each week, provided that the word “original” is deleted. We would be prepared to accept the revised commitment as a (condition of licence) in the licence to be issued for CJNT-TV as an ethnic station.”

But more importantly, Rogers needs the requirement that 75% of programming from 8 to 10pm be ethnic to be removed, as well as another similar condition requiring that at least 50% of programming between 6pm and midnight be ethnic. Without those licence changes at minimum, Rogers says it will walk away from the deal.

“Without these changes to CJNT-TV’s licence our purchase of the station no longer has any strategic value to our broadcast group.”

If the CRTC doesn’t buy the two-station plan, Rogers may have a tough time convincing the CRTC to move forward with this change. The CRTC has already twice denied previous owners’ applications to have this condition removed.

It’s not clear at this point what Rogers would do as far as local ethnic programming in case CJNT remains an ethnic station under its control. But it would not air an English morning show if the station remains ethnic.

Finances

Rogers’s proposed five-year budget for an English-language CJNT shows it would lose between $6 million and $7 million each year as an English station, and in fact it would get worse rather than getting better. The largest expense, about half its total, would be for the acquisition of American programming. Less than half of that, about $3 million a year, would be spent on Canadian programming, including its local shows.

Under the second proposed scenario, where Rogers buys CJNT but it remains an ethnic station (relieved of its obligation to air 75% ethnic programming from 8 to 10pm), it would spend only about $1 million a year on Canadian programming and about $6-7 million on U.S. programs, but would lose slightly less money every year.

Technical parameters

No changes are being proposed to the technical setup of CJNT. It would remain on digital channel 49 (virtual channel 62.1), transmitting from a small tower on the roof of the CTV/TVA transmission building next to the Mount Royal tower, with 4 kilowatts effective radiated power.

Rogers proposes its licence for CJNT expire on Aug. 31, 2016, which is when CJNT’s current licence expires.

ICI

ICI (International Channel / Canal International) is a project of Mohammad Nowrouzzahrai and his family, who want to bring Montreal’s ethnic television station back to its roots. Nowrouzzahrai produced a Persian program for Télévision Ethnique du Québec, which was a public access cable channel and became an over-the-air broadcaster in 1997 as CJNT. It was sold to WIC in 1999, and became a Canwest station when Canwest bought WIC.

Mohammad’s son Sam, who worked for him in the TEQ days, runs the day-to-day operations at Mi-Cam Communications, a production company owned by his father which created programs for CJNT in its early days. According to the application, Sam Nowrouzzahrai, aka Sam Norouzi, would continue in this role at ICI.

Because the ICI project predates the announced sale of CJNT to Rogers, the plan does not consider Rogers’s involvement locally. And with the announcement that Rogers is buying CJNT, the plan doesn’t change much. But there’s an additional bonus for ICI, in that Rogers has proposed to use the tangible benefits package of $1 million (10% of the $10 million purchase price) to help fund the ICI station and offset its losses. This is additional money that ICI’s original plan hadn’t considered. (If the ICI station is denied, Rogers plans to put the money to other uses.)

Because it gets funding from Channel Zero, the ICI application is dependent on the sale of CJNT to Rogers. Otherwise, the two would both be ethnic stations competing with each other.

But the group behind ICI insists that it is not contingent on Rogers converting CJNT from an ethnic station into an English-language one. Though it admits that the business case becomes a lot tougher (particularly if it doesn’t get that $1 million in benefits money), it feels that it could continue while competing with CJNT. ICI’s plan does not involve OMNI programming, which CJNT currently airs a lot of as a Citytv affiliate.

Rogers, however, is less convinced that Montreal could support two ethnic TV stations:

“…we believe there is increased potential for brand confusion and audience fragmentation as a result of having two ethnic stations in the market. Based on the above, and given CJNT-TV’s financial history, it is not clear to RBL that there is room for two ethnic stations in the Montreal market.”

It’s hard to imagine the CRTC ruling in such a way that we get two ethnic stations, considering the precarious history of the existing one. If ICI is approved, expect Rogers to get its wish for a fully English station.

Ownership

The channel would be run by 4517466 Canada Inc., a company owned 90% by five members of the Nowrouzzahrai family (specifically, Mohammad Nowrouzzahrai, his wife and three children). Another 5% would be owned by Marie Griffiths, who used to own part of CJNT and is the controlling owner of Groupe CHCR, which runs Montreal ethnic radio stations CKDG (Mike FM) and CKIN-FM. The other 5% is “to be determined.”

Finances

The group would be financed by up to $1 million from Channel Zero’s Movieola subsidiary, as well as about $1 million in benefits from Rogers (over five years) that come from the tangible benefits package from its acquisition of CJNT.

The station would have an operating budget of about $3.5 million for each of its first seven years, with programming in the news, music/variety and entertainment magazine formats. There would also be about 14% of its programming budget spent on non-Canadian programs.

Its revenue, entirely through local advertising, would start around that level and eventually increase to $6.5 million by the end of its first seven-year licence term. The station would be profitable by the third year, and making almost $2 million in Year 7.

That sounds incredibly optimistic. To put it in perspective, according to the same application, the English stations combined received about $8 million a year in local advertising in the six years up to 2009, and $10 million in 2009-10. And CFCF currently has about 100 times the audience of CJNT.

Cooperative

According to the application, the station would operate as a producer’s cooperative. This means the producers of individual shows would be responsible for their own budgets, and for selling their own advertising. The application explains the structure this way:

Ici proposes a channel that will operate very much like a co-operative in that each of the individual language producers will be able to shape their program as their own business within the overall business structure that ici will create. Each of the producers will own the advertising inventory within their own programming and therefore be in a position to generate revenue through the sale of advertising to the community that they know best. The producer’s will in turn provide a share of these revenues to ici in exchange for the services which ici will provide.

This makes sense, in that the individual producers are closer to their communities than any central ad sales staff could be. But it also means that more of the risk would be on the shoulders of the individual producers. Many would probably end up producing their shows on a volunteer basis.

Programming

Proposed programming schedule for ICI (PDF)

Programming for ICI would originate from a small studio (74 square metres) on Christophe Colomb Ave. in Ahuntsic, at the home of Mi-Cam Communications.

The programming would be in 15 languages and directed to 18 ethnic groups, including:

  • Italian
  • Latino
  • Arab (including: Lebanese, Egyptian, Moroccan, Algerian)
  • Portuguese
  • Greek
  • Haitian
  • Polish
  • Armenian
  • Persian
  • Romanian
  • African (French)
  • Russian
  • German
  • Afghan
  • Indian
  • Pakistani
  • Chinese

The largest chunk of programming would be Italian (31%, including most of the weekday afternoon schedule), followed by Arabic (10%), Spanish (8%), Greek (3%) and Mandarin/Cantonese (2.5%).

Some of the programs previously produced for CJNT would find a new home on ICI. The application includes signed letters from hosts and staff of Chinese, Bangladesh, African and Egyptian programs that aired on CJNT, as well as potential producers of other programs, that are willing and excited to sign on to this project.

In all, the programming grid proposes 33 shows of half an hour or an hour in length, almost all of them locally-produced weekly shows. Shows appearing more often include a one-hour yoga show weekdays at 7am,, and a Hellenic show and a Greek show that would each be produced twice a week. Most shows would be repeated at least once on another day.

Monday and Thursday evenings, from 7pm to 11pm, the channel would air Teleritmo, which consists mainly of music videos in Spanish.

Despite the involvement of Rogers, which came after the original application for this station was submitted, there are no significant plans for OMNI programming on ICI, even if CJNT is stripped of its ethnic station status. “We do not envision OMNI programming being a significant portion of the ici schedule,” the application says.

Also unlike OMNI (and CJNT under Canwest, Channel Zero and as a Citytv affiliate), the ICI station would not air significant English-language programming during primetime (or at all, really). It says this is because of the way the industry has changed in the past decade. Rather than each station in a market acquiring programming, the large players (Bell, Rogers, Shaw) buy U.S. programs on a national basis, leaving little room for small broadcasters. So instead of trying to put some high-profit U.S. programs in primetime (and take advantage of simultaneous substitution to steal some ad revenue), the station is abandoning this practice and focusing entirely on ethnic programming. It does leave open the door to airing some U.S. programs, however, particularly those that are acquired by other independent stations like CHCH in Hamilton.

Though there are no definitive plans for programming synergies with Rogers, the application does expect Rogers and Ici to collaborate on national ethnic ad sales if CJNT becomes an English station.

The revised application also suggests news gathering resource sharing between ICI and Citytv, much like OMNI and City share resources in other markets, with the same visuals being used by both but with different reporters in different languages.

Master control would either be shared between Rogers and ICI, or if that doesn’t work, ICI says it is prepared to rent master control facilities from other broadcasters.

Conditions of licence

The ICI application proposes to replicate most of CJNT’s current conditions of licence, namely:

  • At least 60% ethnic programming between 6am and midnight
  • At least 60% ethnic programming between 6pm and midnight
  • At least 75% ethnic programming between 8pm and 10pm
  • At least 55% Canadian programming between 6am and midnight
  • At least 50% Canadian programming between 6pm and midnight
  • Ethnic programming directed at at least 18 ethnic groups and in at least 15 languages each month
  • 100% closed captioning of programming, including all advertising in English and French by Year 4
In addition, the station proposes, like CJNT, to have a minimum of 14 hours of local programming a week. The actual proposed programming grid would, in fact, be double this, not including repeats. Including repeats of local programming, more than half its broadcast day and almost all of primetime would be locally produced. If they could pull this off, it would put Montreal’s private English broadcasters to shame.

Proposed transmission pattern for “ICI” would be directional, with a triangular shape.

Transmitter

ICI would operate on Channel 47 (it had originally proposed Channel 51), with a transmitter on the Bell tower on Mount Royal (just west of the main CBC tower). That’s the same tower CFCF used when it was operating a temporary digital transmitter (also on Channel 51). Because the plan for this new station began before CFCF left that channel, they decided to move to Channel 47. Industry Canada also has a moratorium on issuing new broadcasting certificates for Channel 51.

The transmitter would put out a maximum 5,500 watts ERP at a height of 196 metres. This puts it about on par with CJNT’s current signal, for those wondering if they’d be able to capture it.

Unlike CJNT, which is carried by many distribution services, ICI expects it would not get satellite carriage, and so would rely solely on local cable systems (which are required by law to carry all local over-the-air stations). About two-thirds of Montreal’s English population and 80% of the francophone population either get cable or rely on over-the-air reception, according to the application’s estimates.

The CRTC is considering these two applications at a hearing to begin Nov. 7 in Gatineau. The deadline for comments is 8pm Eastern Time on Oct. 5. To submit an intervention, click here, choose Option 1, then choose “2012-0756-4: Rogers Broadcasting Limited” (for the CJNT application) and/or “2012-0175-6: 4517466 Canada Inc.” (for the ICI application).

| Montreal, Radio

TTP Media applying for 850AM, wants to buy CKGM and CHRC

From left: Paul Tietolman, Nicolas Tétrault and Rajiv Pancholy, partners in 7954689 Canada Inc., aka Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media

The group of three Montreal businessmen who want to revolutionize radio broadcasting by putting money back into it don’t yet have their first station on the air, but already they’re looking to expand their growing empire from two news-talk stations to up to five AM radio stations in Quebec, including sports-talk stations in English and French, I’ve learned. And that expansion includes an as-yet unpublished application to start a new radio station on a frequency with a lot of history for one of these partners.

7954689 Canada Inc. is the official name of the company founded and controlled by Paul Tietolman, Nicolas Tétrault an Rajiv Pancholy, and known as Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media (you can read more about them here). It was founded a little more than a year ago to apply to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for two AM radio stations in Montreal, which would both have run on a news-talk format – one in English, the other in French. The French station was approved last October for 940 kHz, but since the other clear-channel frequency of 690 was given to CKGM and other frequencies were considered undesirable for the group, the commission turned down the application for an English station. The group has re-applied for an English station at 600 kHz, the former home of CIQC radio. The application was technically part of the hearings last week in Montreal that focused on Bell acquiring Astral Media, but since it did not provoke any opposition, there were no oral presentations about this application. Barring some unforeseen problem or change of heart, expect it to be approved quickly.

With two big-power AM stations set to launch soon, possibly in early 2013, perhaps more realistically by the fall of 2013 (they have until October 2013 to launch the French one unless they ask for an extension), you’d think they’d have their hands full. But they’ve already set their sights on getting bigger.

The group has taken part in two open calls for applications for new FM stations: one in Calgary for a hit music station and the other in Toronto for a news-talk station. Both had heavy competition and the group lost both times (decisions came for Calgary in May and for Toronto last week).

But that’s not all. They’re also looking to expand here.

Buying CKGM? “Absolutely”

Tietolman has previously said that his company might look to acquire existing radio stations as a result of the Bell-Astral acquisition that might force the divestment of an English radio station in Montreal. He has his sights on CJAD, but Bell said at last week’s hearing that if anything it would be CKGM (TSN Radio 690) that would be sold or shut down. Asked about the possibility of buying that station instead, Tietolman said “absolutely.” Since they already have an English news-talk station in the pipeline, this new one would probably maintain its sports-talk format.

During the hearings last week, Tietolman was seen having brief conversations with executives at Bell, but whether these are of any consequence, I don’t know.

New application for French sports-talk at 850AM

When I asked the TTP group for their plans regarding sports radio, they were reluctant to share details, which I found odd for people who are normally very forthcoming with information. Was something in the works that hasn’t been made public yet?

Turns out there’s at least one thing: the Industry Canada radio station database lists an entry for a Class B station at 850 kHz, dated Aug. 20, 2012 (updated Aug. 22), with a transmitter whose coordinates show it to be in the middle of a forest in Île Perrot. The company listed with that entry is 7954689 Canada Inc., or TTP Media.

Applications for new radio stations have to meet approval of both the CRTC and Industry Canada. The latter handles the technical aspects of transmission, ensuring that the proposed station’s technical parameters meet regulations and do not interfere with other stations. An engineering report filed with Industry Canada is a step in the application process for a new radio station, but an entry in the database does not mean a station is authorized to begin transmitting. It’s merely a provisional entry, and it’s the CRTC that will decide if the proposed station will be given a licence.

The CRTC tells me that indeed there is an application from 7954689 Canada Inc. for a radio station at 850 kHz in Montreal, but until it is published they cannot confirm any details about the application. A commission spokesperson said they could not say when a public notice about the application might come.

Asked about this application, Tietolman confirmed that his group is applying to start a French sports-talk station at 850AM. The station would be 50,000 watts day and night, with a signal pattern that would cover the region but still provide protection for WEEI in Boston.

Tietolman said the process began a year ago, when Cogeco announced it would move CKAC radio from sports-talk to all-traffic and well before Bell’s proposal to turn TSN 690 into an RDS radio station became public. Tietolman said they first tried buying another existing station (he wouldn’t say which one) to convert to sports-talk, but when that fell through they had their engineers find an unused frequency and signal pattern that could cover the region for a new application.

It’s interesting that the frequency they came up with is 850 kHz. That channel has been silent since CKVL became CINF (Info 690) in 1999. CKVL was a major French-language commercial radio station for decades. It was started in 1946 by Corey Thompson and Jack Tietolman. The name is no coincidence: Jack Tietolman was Paul Tietolman’s father.

Asked about getting back a frequency that used to belong to his family, Paul Tietolman said there wasn’t any sentimental value to the frequency, and it really was just the best one available.

Quebec 800 too

That’s not all. Tietolman also confirmed that TTP Media is also interested in acquiring CHRC in Quebec City, whose owners announced last Friday that they would be shutting the money-losing station down. Tietolman wouldn’t go into detail about what his group would do with the station, but expect it to be a sister station to the news-talk station being built in Montreal.

Bell Media is also reportedly interested in acquiring the station, the last AM station in Quebec City. They would likely turn it into a sister station to RDS Radio, should the CRTC approve its application to put it on 690 in Montreal.

Can TTP make sports radio work?

I asked Tietolman how he thinks his group can make sports talk radio successful without rights to game broadcasts. He replied that play-by-play rights to live sports games like Canadiens and Alouettes have only a marginal impact on a sports-talk station’s overall profitability. It’s more of an image and brand thing than anything else, he said, and he said he was confident that they could make it work even without rights to those games.

In English, Canadiens rights are held by Bell Media (which airs them on CKGM), while Alouettes and Impact rights are held by Astral Media (which airs them on CJAD). If the application by Bell to acquire Astral is approved, Bell would move Canadiens games to CJAD, and presumably Alouettes and Impact games would stay there.

In French, Canadiens and Alouettes rights are held by Cogeco Diffusion, which airs them on CHMP 98.5. There is no French-language radio broadcaster for Impact games, which means either RDS Radio or a TTP sports-talk station could quickly pick up rights to Impact play-by-play.

Thinking big

Those who considered TTP’s plans for their original two stations to be unrealistically optimistic will think this new expansion to up to five stations is just lunacy, an insane money-burning exercise that will leave the company bankrupt within two years. Those who think these three guys are going to save the radio industry will consider this great news.

Expect the CRTC to be very skeptical about business plans once the 850AM application and any transfer of ownership applications come before them, just as they were when TTP’s original applications were heard last year.

But don’t count out these little guys with a bit of money and big dreams, either.

| Radio

Three pleas to save TSN Radio 690

According to the CRTC’s website, 774 interventions (comments in favour, opposed or neutral) were filed related to a proposed licence change replacing CKGM (TSN Radio 690) with a French station. Of those, only six were scheduled to appear at a CRTC hearing at the Palais des congrès this week to present their case in person.

Of those six, only three showed up.

And yet, that’s three more than appeared as individuals to comment on the $3.38-billion purchase of Astral Media by BCE.

Rahul Majumdar: Willing to go further

Rahul Majumdar was the first. He’s a big sports fan and a fan of the station, but he has no other stake in this game.

“I’m not a professional intervenor nor do I play one on TV,” was his opening line, eliciting chuckles from the commissioners and the small audience. He may be inexperienced, but his presentation was professional, earning him specific praise from the commission.

“Eliminating TSN 690 may help Bell-Astral satisfy CRTC ownership rules, but the price will be a further erosion of Montreal’s sports broadcasting scene,” Majumdar said in his opening statement. “If the CRTC accepts Bell’s proposal, you will deprive Montreal of an important local sports media presence, and deny its rightful place within a national radio network.”

“Montreal is a bilingual, multicultural city and I believe that its sports fans must be served in both of Canada’s official languages.”

Bell’s proposed compromise of moving sports programs and Canadiens games to CJAD didn’t sit well with him. He said doing so would take away from CJAD’s core purpose, which is news and information.

Majumdar has harsh words for Bell: “I am dismayed at the manner in which Bell neglects, downplays and outright dismisses its English clientele and English Montreal sports radio.”

When I spoke to him after his presentation, Majumdar said he had been listening to CKGM for years, but when it first became a sports radio station “I wasn’t completely into it.” He cited nationally syndicated programming as part of the problem. But when it grew to be more local and gained its own personality, he became hooked.

At first he hadn’t planned to go beyond sending a written statement. But “you got to ask yourself: ‘Am I willing to go further?'”

So he did.

His proposal is that the CRTC reject the language switch, if only because Bell obtained the 690 frequency by saying it needed better coverage to reach the West Island anglophone community.

“At the very least, Bell should be ordered to surrender the frequency in order to allow another party to bring sports radio to Montrealers,” Majumdar’s statement reads. “Even so, it will take months or years for a competitor like Rogers, Cogeco or another Montreal media entrepreneur to essentially reinvent the wheel.”

“Mr. Chairman, in all honesty, does this specific application really make sense?”

It always looks funny when people appear in front of the CRTC without lawyers or executives by their side, sitting alone at a table meant for six (with another table behind), and introducing themselves as individuals without titles. But Majumdar’s presentation impressed other national journalists and interested third parties who came here to talk about Bell and Astral.

As for Majumdar himself: “I thought I did a decent job.”

Sheldon Harvey: No coincidence

Sheldon Harvey was the second presenter. He’s a radio enthusiast, moderator of the Radio in Montreal forum and co-host of the International Radio Report on CKUT. He’s about as tapped in to the radio scene as you can get.

Harvey also presented at last year’s hearing, in which Bell asked for CKGM to move from 990 to 690 to improve its signal. Harvey didn’t support or oppose that application directly, though he said he was skeptical of CKGM’s reported signal problems and even accused the station of not respecting its obligations to adjust its signal at night to protect distant stations.

Here, Harvey was extremely critical of Bell.

“I think it is more than coincidence that Bell began broadcasting on the 690 kHz frequency just 10 days prior to these hearings commencing,” his opening statement reads.

“The word on the street, in the radio business circles in Montreal, was that it was always the intention of Bell Media to get into the French sports radio business, piggy-backing off their successful RDS television service, particularly when Cogeco closed their CKAC 730 sports station in favour of government financed Radio Circulation. 690 would be the best frequency for them to accomplish this.”

Harvey’s right that Bell has wanted to launch RDS Radio for a while. It even hinted at that publicly at the hearing last year. But there’s no evidence (beyond the circumstances) that Bell was acting in bad faith or had ulterior motives when it applied to move CKGM to 690.

Harvey continues: “It appears that both Bell and Astral really don’t seem to care about their listeners. CJAD has an incredibly loyal listenership and is currently Montreal’s only commercial news/talk English option. How will their listeners feel about having approximately half of CJAD’s broadcast day dedicated to sports? Nobody is bothering to ask.”

“There is a level of arrogance and cockiness that has so many members of the public concerned about the power and strength of Bell and their attitude that ‘we are Bell and we will do and get what we want.'”

Finally, Harvey points to “corporate-level instructions” that Bell gave to TSN Radio staff not to discuss the station’s future on the air. This order, which Bell and TSN Radio have never denied, seems to contradict what Bell told the commission earlier in the week, that the company has never issued orders to its staff (meaning, for the most part, journalists) on how to discuss this hearing.

Harvey wants the CRTC to have to reapply to use 690 through an open application process, because a French station would be “a completely separate entity” from the English one. Commissioner Suzanne Lamarre called Harvey on this suggestion, asking what would happen. CKGM can’t stay on 990, because that frequency is already licenced to another broadcaster. Opening 690 up would mean turning in CKGM’s licence, and putting TSN Radio off the air.

“I threw everything at them that I could,” Harvey told me after the hearing. He’s particularly critical of the fact that Bell did not bother asking for an exemption allowing it to keep the station in English. “I think that would have been something to try at least,” he said. “It might not work, but at least try. Show you believe in your property.”

Harvey doesn’t know what the ideal solution is for CKGM, particularly if the Astral takeover is approved. A forced sale would mean the station losing not only its TSN branding and Canadiens rights, but other resources associated with TSN. It would be starting from “square one,” Harvey said, even if someone like Rogers or Cogeco came into the picture.

“They’ve painted the whole organization into a corner.”

David Birnbaum: Just wants the station saved

The last presenter to show up was David Birnbaum. He’s the executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association, but made it clear he’s here as an individual.

“I love the station,” Birnbaum said. “It’s really intelligent radio.”

Birnbaum spoke as if a man here representing the anglophone community, even though that wasn’t his role here. But he invoked this idea that the community would be harmed if this station were allowed to change language, and that the CRTC has an obligation to protect minority-language services like this one.

His solution seems to be to allow Bell an exemption from common ownership rules. “My preferred position remains getting an additional frequency for a French-language sports station,” he said. “I would hope the CRTC would have said ‘yes we are the watchdog about media concentration, but we’re also a watchdog for the needs of Canadian consumers, particularly those in minority language situations.”

He understands the need for ownership concentration rules, but feels the need to keep English radio should be more important. “I would expect one rule to be trumped by another.”

How it’s solved isn’t his major concern. “Bottom line is to keep TSN 690 on the air,” he said.

Asked about a possible sale to Rogers or others, Birnbaum was, like Harvey, skeptical of how much that would set the station back. “You’re starting over,” he said.

All three presenters made it very clear they have no objection to a French-language sports station with the RDS brand. And, in fact, all of them welcome the eventual return of sports-talk radio to Montreal’s French community. They just don’t want it at the expense of TSN Radio.

“Francophones should have a sports station,” Majumdar said, “but it should not happen through the back door of a zero-sum game.”

Grateful

Three interventions might not seem like much, but they’re quite rare for the CRTC. Commissioners have repeatedly expressed disappointment that more individuals are not interested in the commission’s processes. (We can have a whole other discussion about why the excessive bureaucracy of the commission is preventing more participation.) So commissioners, and particularly chair Jean-Pierre Blais, repeatedly expressed to the individual presenters a great deal of gratitude for taking the time to make their views heard.

Whether those three make the difference for the commission is unknown. They might be given more importance than statements by interest groups, or they might not. But the commission certainly won’t ignore them. Neither will they ignore the hundreds of written statements sent in by people who wouldn’t or couldn’t appear in person, though Blais said those who do appear in person have a stronger impact.

Coverage

While the first and second days of the hearings received a great deal of coverage, there wasn’t much local interest in these three interventions today. In fact, Global Montreal was the only media to cover these appearances specifically.

The hearings continue on Friday, with the last of the intervenors in the Astral purchase. Then Bell will get a chance to respond to them, as well as to the comments about the CKGM application.

Prediction

People have asked me how I think this will end. I can’t predict that. The CRTC has a new chair, these applications have little precedent, and the commissions decisions aren’t always that predictable. The commission was definitely very skeptical about both applications Bell presented, but also grilled some competitors about their stances as well. Bell has a hard road to climb here, but not an impossible one. If I had to guess, I would say a compromise situation is most likely. But what that entails is hard to guess.

A decision will come in a few months. How many is unknown. The timing is up to the CRTC. It could be done by October, or it might not be done until January. It’s entirely up to them.