CRTC turns down Astral/BELL deal. Toronto radio scene can go back to sleep now.

On October 18 the CRTC announced it's much anticipated ruling on the proposed merger of BCE and Astral Media. For the better part of a year there has been a serious lobbying and media campaign to stop the deal led by competitors such as Cogeco, Eastlink, and Vidéotron. The last of which are owned by the right wing Québecor Média (QMI), who also own SUN Media and have become notorious for their campaigns attacking the CBC as well as government grants and funding for the arts in general, all on behalf of the poor oppressed tax payers of course. Mind you this is even while QMI blithely takes millions of taxpayer funded grants themselves (something the CBC famously revealed and which I have already written about).
In fairness the anti-merger group did have some genuine grass roots support from consumers groups worried about concentration of media ownership and raising fees as well as less choices in programming. But I'm pretty sure they weren't behind all the anti-merger ads I've been seeing.

Still most smart money has been confidentially predicting that the merger would be rubber stamped, and that's not even counting the usual suspects with their conspiracy theories about the CRTC's "EVIL CORPORATE AGENDA" (cough..NCRA..cough) which makes the CRTC's ruling a bit of a surprise.



From the CTRC ruling;
"Conclusion
67. The Commission has reviewed BCE’s proposal, as well as the comments received in response to Broadcasting Notices of Consultation 2012-370, 2012-370-1 and 2012-370-2. As noted above, the Commission must evaluate applications for a change in effective control against the objectives set out in the Act, as well as its own policies and regulations. The Commission considers that the concerns related to competition, ownership concentration in television and radio, vertical integration and the exercise of market power are very substantial and fatal to the application.
68. The Commission finds that BCE has not discharged its burden and demonstrated that, on balance, this transaction is in the public interest. The benefits proposed would advantage BCE and its services, but the Commission is not persuaded that the transaction would provide significant and unequivocal benefits to the Canadian broadcasting system and to Canadians sufficient to outweigh the concerns described above.
69. Accordingly, the Commission denies the application by BCE Inc., on behalf of Astral Media inc., to change the effective control of Astral and its licensed broadcasting undertakings so that it is exercised by BCE (application 2012-0516-2). In light of its decision, the Commission has not made determinations on other aspects of BCE’s application, including the value of the transaction.
70. The Commission notes the objections of numerous interveners with respect to the application by Bell Media Inc. and 7550413 Canada Inc., partners in a general partnership carrying on business as Bell Media Canada Radio Partnership, to convert CKGM Montréal from an English-language to a French-language commercial radio programming undertaking (application 2012-0573-2). These objections related to, among other things, the integrity of the Commission’s licensing process and the loss of an English-language broadcasting service to an official language minority community. At the public hearing, BCE indicated that in the event the proposed transaction was denied, it would continue to operate CKGM Montréal as an English-language station. As a result, the Commission denies this application. Therefore, the licensee will continue to operate CKGM Montréal under the terms and conditions in effect under its current licence.
71. Similarly, the Commission denies the following related applications, which BCE indicated were contingent on approval of the proposed change of control of Astral:
applications by BCE Inc., on behalf of certain of its licensed broadcasting subsidiaries, to effect a multi-step corporate reorganization involving the transfer of the assets of 33 Bell Media radio stations to seven partnerships or corporations, requiring the issuance of new broadcasting licences (applications 2012-0701-9 and 2012-0736-6); and
application by BCE Inc., on behalf of Astral Media inc. and certain of its licensed broadcasting subsidiaries, to effect a corporate reorganization involving the transfer of the assets of certain broadcasting undertakings to companies to be incorporated, requiring the issuance of new broadcasting licences (application 2012-0735-8)."

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What this means for radio is that a number of radio stations which Astral would have had to divest (sell off) in order to comply with existing ownership rules will now stay where they are.
BCE owned stations in Toronto include 1050 CHUM AM (TSN), 104 CHUM-FM and CKFM (Virgin Radio);



Informed speculation about the FM stations BCE were most likely to divest following the purchase of Astral Media based on performance are as follows:

City ~ Call letters/freq. ~ Station name and format ~ Share/Rating
1. Vancouver CHHR/104.3 Shore-FM, AAA 1.6/16th
2. Vancouver CKZZ/95.3 Virgin Radio, adult contmp. 7.2/5th
3. Ottawa CJOT/99.7 Boom, classic hits 1.5/14th
4. Ottawa CKQB/106.9 The Bear, active rock 3.5/11th
5. Calgary CKCE/101.5 Kool, adult contemporary 3.4/13th
6. Winnipeg CHIQ/94.3 FAB, ’60s/’70s hits 4.9/10th
7. Toronto CHBM/97.3 Boom, classic rock 5.7/7th
8. Toronto CFXJ/93.5 Flow, hip-hop 1.4/19th
Or they could have sold off the latest money loosing version of the former iconic CHUM AM, now an all-sports station called "TSN 1050". (I have already written about this as well).



Note the two Toronto stations. ASTRAL also had originally put in an application for the vacant 88.1FM frequency last year but then withdrew once the proposed merger was announced and before they had a chance to reveal what exactly they had in mind. Not that there was any guarantee they would have beaten out the winning INDIE 88FM application anyway.
Speaking of which the CRTC also recently announced that the call-letters for the new INDIE 88 will be "CIND".

At any rate this means that the after three years of uncertainty in the Toronto radio scene the status quo has been settled. The FLOW and BOOM 97 are not being sold, and probably not changing format either. Unless ASTRAL change their mind of course, but at least they don't actually have to. Some of those various corporate types who applied for the 88.1FM frequency and got turned down and who have been lurking around to see if they might get a second bite at the apple by buying one of ASTRAL's cast-offs can now go home thanks.

FLASH!! CRTC revokes license of a corporate radio station. NCRA says diddly squat.

Remember in 2010 when Ryerson University radio station CKLN lost it's broadcast license for being incompetent, lying, weasels? Remember when Ryerson's attempt to get that license back was turned down? Remember how the far leftist wack-jobs at CKLN and the National Campus Radio Association claimed it was proof of the CRTC's "corporate agenda" to "destroy community radio"? CKLN and NCRA partisans (like say; NCRA head Shelly Robinson, CKLN Manager Jacky Harrison and CKLN Exec Andrew Lehrer) insisted that the CRTC was being unfair, holding CKLN up to an unfair double standard compared to commercial radio who are always breaking the rules and never getting penalized. It's all so unfair. According to their official line the only time a commercial station lost it's license for not complying with CRTC was CHOI FM in Quebec City in 2006, and they were able to sort of weasel out of it by fighting the ruling in court until they could sell off the signal. (Note: As it happened the court ruled in the CRTC's favour after the fact, although by then the station had changed hands).



Somehow the CKLN/NCRA Axis failed to notice that commercial radio station CHSC in St Catherines also lost it's license in 2010. Even though the CHSC hearings were held at the same time as the CKLN hearings were originally to be held before they were postponed, and thus that ruling came down first. Well now there's been another;




THE ABANDONED CHSC STUDIOS

"CJRN 710 told to go off the air
By Matt Day, Niagara Falls Review
Friday, October 12, 2012 4:38:12 EDT PM
NIAGARA FALLS - The airwaves may go silent at CJRN 710.
The Niagara Falls tourist information radio station has been ordered by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to cease broadcasting by Nov. 30.
A report issued by the CRTC on Oct. 10 states that CJRN Radio 710 AM failed to comply with multiple sections of the Radio Regulations, including broadcasting a live program in the Punjabi language and having commercial messages that targeted the Asian community in Toronto.
“When you’re a tourist information station there are a number of things you can and cannot do,” said Annie Laflamme, director of radio polices and applications at the CRTC. “The bottom line in this case was that the licencee had been found in non compliance repeatedly.”
According to the licencee’s condition, the radio station was only permitted to broadcast pre-recorded tourist information for the purpose of informing visitors to Niagara Falls.
The CRTC monitored the programming of CJRN during the week of April 18, 2010 to April 24, 2010 and found that, in addition to weather forecasts and tourist information consistent to the licence, the station also broadcasted international, national and regional news, promotions for two Niagara Falls FM radio stations and sports updates from NHL games.
Radio 710 said that the information provided was of particular and direct relevance to tourists, said the report.
A second monitoring period took place between Aug. 14, 2011 and Aug. 20, 2011.
During that time, a program entitled Reflections on Islam containing both spoken word and musical selections was aired.
The radio stationed claimed it was providing the program for Muslim tourists who were celebrating Ramadan.
On Aug. 25, 2011, the CRTC requested program logs from that week in August and failed to receive portions of the broadcast.
“The Commission considers that the issues of non-compliance … when taken cumulatively, are extremely serious both due to the nature of the non-compliance and its recurrence,” said the report.
“The Commission is gravely concerned about the licencee’s willingness and ability to bring itself into compliance.”
Niagara Falls Tourism chairman Wayne Thomson said his organization “didn’t really have a relationship or association” with CJRN 710, but believed the radio station to be a good service to the tourist community.
The decision can be appealed.
A representative from CJRN could not be reached for comment.
matt.day@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @Matt_Review"

No word yet from the CKLN/NCRA Axis on why the CRTC forgot their much feared "corporate agenda" and shut down a corporate station for blatantly flaunting the rules. And this after the CRTC granted the old CKLN 8.1fm license in Toronto to tiny INDIE 88 instead of the 20 or so corporate entities who also applied. I guess they didn't get the memo from their corporate masters.