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)."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Fade to black, SUN TV's Last Day in The Bunker

For those who didn't notice, and judging from their truly pathetic ratings most people didn't, SUN TV (AKA FOX North) went off air on midnight October 31 2011, after being ordered to cease all terrestrial (meaning over-the-air) broadcasting by the CRTC. SUN TV will still however be offered by some cable networks in some parts of Canada including Shaw and Bell.

The CRTC announced their order back in August 2011 ruling that SUN NEWS TV would be losing their terrestrial (over-the-air) signal at the end of October . It seems that SUN TV had been living on borrowed time since going on the air in a suspiciously rushed and slapdash manner during the last federal election, during which SUN TV acted as cheerleaders for the Tories. Since backing the winning horse in the election SUN TV had spent an remarkable amount of attacking their enemies in the media with vitriolic campaigns against the CBC and arts funding along with some what less frenzied attacks on the CRTC. Both SUN TV as well as FOX itself have been feuding with the CRTC for years while demanding the preferential treatment that would allow both of them to set up the kind of national wide right wing network FOX has in the USA and ultimately the rest of the (white) English speaking world including Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. FOX's ambitions have dealt a serious if not lethal blow by the phone hacking scandals of course, but this hasn't dampened the frothing ambitions of SUN TV who continued to try and bully the CRTC into granting them a full nation wide broadcast. If SUN TV were assuming that they now had protection from the now all powerful Harper govt, they gambled wrong.

The odd thing about the SUN TV's sign off was it's stealthy nature. For a right wing trash talking tabloid who never pass up a chance to rage against the vast liberal establishment which is always censoring our poor oppressed billionaires and conservatives this silence spoke volumes. Even after the CRTC's public announcement the near silence from SUN TV was deafening. The assumption is that SUN wants another crack at this once the current CRTC chair, who has the honest-to-God name of Conrad Von Finkelstein (Seriously? He sounds like a Bond villain) is gone. Finkelstein's term is ending and while he has made it known that he would like to stay for another term, Harper has made it even more clear that he will be appointing another one of his more pliable cronies. So SUN is going to bide their time and not make things worse by picking a public fight with the CRTC.

An additional factor was the pathetic ratings of SUN TV which at times have been measured as being as low as 25,000 nation wide, which is less than some local TV stations. Some surveys showed them pulling less than half that (7000 at one point) which is even less than CKLN used to get. Pathetic. As SUN TV was circling the drain the CBC couldn't pass up a chance to rub salt in the wound by taking out ads bragging that CBC's ratings were 650 percent better than SUN TV's. And that was even before they went dark. This led to more impotent outrage from from various SUN TV talking heads who sputtered about the scandal that "Tax Payer Money" was being used to "attack" a poor defenseless mom and pop operation like SUN TV. Taking another shot in the increasingly nasty death match, the CBC piled on by running more ads pointing out the millions of "Tax Payer Money" that QMI (SUN TV's parent company) had gotten over the years from corporate welfare (which I also wrote about here,). QMI Boss Pierre Paladeu threatened a libel suit (like his pal Rob Ford when faced with bad press) and then failed to follow through (also like Ford). Notably he did not actually deny the accuracy of the CBC report however. He did however get to testify at parliamentary hearings which gave him yet another chance to sputter his outrage on behalf of the sacred taxpayers that the big bad CBC would be allowed to run adds smacking him down.

So the run up to the Oct.31 sign off was oddly muted. Other than a crawl across the bottom of the screen which listed the cable providers which would still carry SUN (which at that point was merely Shaw, at least in Southern Ontario) but actually did not mention that they would be off the air at all. That was pretty much it.

I watched the last hours from SUN TV's bunker curious to see how they would go into the dark, dark night, on Halloween no less. Still expecting some kind of grand defiant send off, or at least some kind of acknowledgement to their few viewers. What we got was slapstick.

With FOX North looking to come with a version of the ever popular "War on Christmas" that FOX South has been hawking for years, we had the ludicrous spectacle of Ezra Levant and Charles Adler ranting about the liberal "War on Halloween". The evidence for which being a few schools that banned Halloween dances. Running on a roll they then rambled on to rant some more about the outrageous liberal War on Disneyland. If the War on Halloween consisted of a few school board Killjoys, the War on Disneyland existed solely in the paranoid fantasies of Levant and Adler who simply speculated about how imaginary liberal activists MIGHT protest about racism in Snow White or whatever. The fact that nothing like this ever actually happened is apparently beside the point. As was the fact that the one group who actually HAVE protested Halloween has been Christians, outraged at a pagan holiday. Actually some Christians have even protested Disneyland for allowing gay tourist charters. But there I go using "facts" again, no fair.

At any rate with all this idiotic babble going on I plumb forgot that they were about to go off the air at midnight and turn into a pumpkin with no viewers. Apparently they forgot as well since they never bothered to mention this even once as the minutes ticked down to midnight. At about five to midnight as Levant was in still in mid rant the screen suddenly froze on Levant with his arms outstretched and his mouth silently agape. This shot stayed motionless like this for perhaps half a minute, then the screen went dark on SUN TV forever. And that was that.

I have now had the odd distinction of listening in to no less than three stations go off the air. I also listened in as 1050 CHUM went off air back in 2001 to become an all sports station. They had a classy sign off with an Elvis song "Heartbreak Hotel" (the first number one record at CHUM) and a long sound collage of various moments from CHUM's past. The new format didn't last very long and they soon came back as an oldies station, which also didn't last. Then they were bought out to simulcast CP20's TV newscasts, which was odd since there was obviously no video to go along with the commentary. This year that came to an end and they went back to being an all sports station, which is dying in the ratings again. I didn't catch those changeovers but apparently they were done with little or no notice, let alone fanfare.

1050 CHUM promo circa 1986;



And then there's CKLN. They were yanked off the air this April for being completely inept. Given their penchant for strident left wing ranting and bizzarro conspiracy theories their sign-off was oddly muted. As D-Day came there was no notice of their impending demise until mere minutes before when the station manager Jacky Harrison broke into "The OCAP Show" to announce they would be going off air in about five minutes. She then handed the show back to the perpetually outraged OCAP Radio show host to furiously rant about this censorship for a few minutes before Harrison came back to repeat the warning. Then back again to the OCAP host who was by then comparing CKLN to the Arab Spring protesters before being cut off in mid rant, putting an end to their Abbott and Costello routine for good with the sweet, sweet sounds of static.

It's worth pointing out that after being yanked off the air various members of CKLN's disgraced management gave their conspiracy theories about the CRTC's secret plan to destroy community radio, using this as an excuse for their incompetence and portraying themselves as hapless victims. To go along with this they confidently predicted that others would soon follow, particularly CO-OP Radio in B.C. and CIUT in Toronto.

CO-OP Radio did indeed face CRTC hearings last year partly due to some serious issues over their financial and equipment problems as well as some missed paperwork fillings, as well as a plan by CO-OP to trade their signal with a commercial radio station in exchange for enough money to fix their existing issues. I happily wrote a letter of support to the CRTC for them. The hearings were quite different from the CKLN Gong Show hearings of December 2010. In spite of the CRTC's supposed ruthless corporate racist agenda against community radio they granted CO-OP their extension and allowed their signal swap. And CIUT has been granted their extension along with every other community station as well. Except for CKRG who gave theirs up voluntarily.

CKRG was a Low Power campus station at York University's Glendon Campus. How low? About 5 watts, which would cover the area of the campus itself and that's it. They had been around since 1998 first as a Low Power AM signal then moving to Low Power FM in 2004. They had tried to go for a 200 watt license in 1994 but were turned down. Lately they had decided not to bother to renew their license when the current one came up for renewal in Aug. 2011. There was an extension to Nov. 2011 but by then CKRG had actually been off the air since school had let out the previous spring. Like many student stations (and CKRG was always a student station) CKRG had given up on trying for a terrestrial signal and had decided on a purely internet future. This is unfortunate since they had made this call before they know that CKLN was going down and would be creating an opening that they could have made a bid for. Oh well.

So the cheese stands alone.

A few other sign offs;


CINW-AM 940 in Montreal;





CIGM-AM 790 in Sudbury;






CJUL-AM 1220 in Cornwall;





WMJX-FM 96.3 in Miami (shut down by the FCC in 1981);

FOX NORTH is outraged, OUTRAGED I tell you!! And it's all your fault!

Ever since SUN TV (AKA FOX North) went on the air smack in the middle of the last election FOX North has been searching for a wedge issue comparable to the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay hysteria that their American mentors have used so successfully. Not that they haven't also pushed those buttons as well, but they must sense that that sort of thing will exclude them forever from mainstream Canadian society.

That brings us to the arts, yeah that's the ticket. Attacking "elitists" is the new black. The poisonous idea that anybody who makes the mistake of actually treasuring arts, culture, education, science or the environment over greed, guns and god is naturally an "elitist".

Never mind that those who scream this the loudest are always rich and powerful media types and politicians who get out of their limos long enough to plant themselves in front of another microphone and complain about how they are once again being silenced and victimized for their "patriotism" by "the elite".

Of course they are utterly shameless and cynical hypocrites who deserve to be treated with the utter disdain usually reserved for those wingnuts who walk around with their sandwich boards warning us about the end of the world. Combined with the contempt given to telemarketers who scam us while we are trying to have dinner, with perhaps a touch of the "shut the fuck up" we save for those ignorant louts at hockey games screaming at the ref and cheering the most concussion inducing body checks with all too revealing glee. (Significant aside; I can't help but noticing that these types usually don't actually play hockey themselves). I seriously doubt these soulless opportunists have any actual beliefs other than lust for power, greed and attention who will not only yell fire in a crowed theatre, but then blame the resulting stampede on those damn liberal elitists. And the artists on stage of course, let us not forget the real enemy.

In the recent (and ongoing) budget debate in the U.S.A. the Republicans have used deficit hysteria to once again demand the cutting off of such perennial straw men as the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS and NPR. Hey it almost make sense to ask about taxpayer funding during a recession and budget cuts right? Until you realize that arts funding in the USA counts for less than one tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. budget. That's right, you read that correctly. Less than one tenth of one percent. Mind you most Americans think it's more like ten percent. Gee, I wonder how they got that idea? Could it be that Republicans find it useful to attack the arts so as to distract voters away from the cost of the massive tax cuts and giveaways Republicans have pledged to protect even at the cost of total economic collapse? What a cynical elitist idea and you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that. GET A JOB YOU STONERS!!!

And yet; I can't help but remember in the previous election Stephen Harper's speech attacking the "cultural elites" in Quebec which cost him the lead in the polls there and which he has never recovered from. After that he kind of backed of a bit. But now the election is over and he has his "More centrist" (remember when they promised that?) majority promising massive cuts to deal with the deficit they would like us to forget they did not in fact inherit from the previously Liberal government. I can't help but noticing SUN TV, AKA FOX North's new fixation on attacking the arts in Canada, especially those artists that most of us have frankly never heard of.

First there was Ezra Levant attacking some band B.C. called "Living With Lions" for accepting a FACTOR grant. We had the spectacle of this comically smug tightass proclaiming his love for The Clash and punk rock and demanding that the band return the money and demanding that “public funding” to be cut to “so called musicians", "a bunch of losers" and a “crummy band". He also brayed his outrage of their "anti-christian" message calling them "Christophobic", which is a little rich coming from a blowhard who made his bones by attacking Islam on a regular basis.

He demanded that the band "return the money" to the taxpayers. Which the shell shocked band then did. Clearly the band should be renamed "Living With Pussies" All of which proves by the way that punk is truly dead. And so is satire.

Then enjoying the taste of easy blood FOX North picked another easy target. An award winning interpretive dancer who I am apparently not elite enough to have ever hard of named Margie Gillis.



The resulting ambush interview between SUN TV's mini-skirted attack bunny Krista Erickson and the almost comically soft spoken and polite Gillis has become a much re-posted horror show of an absurdly uniformed and arrogant host alternating between rank sycophancy of the most cloying sort and text book bullying tactics borrowed from FOX and every other talk radio dick with delusions of grandeur. Constant interruptions, blanket assertions, manufactured outrage, faux working class self pity, bizarre digressions and non-sequitors, oh and of course a completely gratuitous invoking of "Our Troops". It has to be seen to be believed.




(aside update; It turns out you can't actually see it after all since SUN TV regularly uses bullshit copyright complaints to ban any and all embarrassing clips from Youtube. They have had to do this quite a lot lately given the tendency of SUN TV's "Flagship Show" host Ezra Levant to engage in the sort of vitriolic race-baiting that actually got them on the receiving end of a police investigation for violating the country's hate laws, seriously, he's that disgusting. For months the response from the SUN Bunker was to defiantly state that they would never, ever, apologize or cave in to "political correctness" so there, take that. Until the police paid a polite call, then SUN fired off a hurried and half-assed apology. Then they had all the numerous Youtube evidence banned. Not to state the obvious but this is the same SUN TV which has always demanded "openness and transparency" of The CBC. And Native Band Councils. And Arts Groups. And Unions. And any political parties they don't like. Just sayin. Back to our rant already in progress.)

Then a strange thing happened. Normally polite Canadians were revolted by the spectacle of a perfectly nice (if somewhat goofy) hippie lady being attacked by this hard faced bottle blonde harpy and did something they rarely do in large numbers. They got off their butts and complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (AKA CBSC). I know there's been complaints before, Howard Stern got a bunch and earlier this year there was a whole kerfuffle over a Dire Straits song (which I also blogged about on here) but there has literally never been a deluge like this. That entire Dire Straits clusterfuck came as a result on just one single complaint for example.

How bad? The CBSC got an astounding over 4,350 complaints an a matter of weeks where they normally get around 2000 in an entire year. In fact they got so many complaints that the CBSC took the unique step of actually putting out a press release begging people to stop sending in complaints as they were completely overwhelmed. Allow me to paraphrase; "We heard you the first 4,350 times! Now please stop, really, we are totally swamped over here". Wow; Nice work people. Seriously, I am impressed.

Just to add salt to the wounds according to the BBM surveys thus far the ratings for SUN TV are so pathetic that at times they have only averaged 7,000 viewers nation wide. So I guess they should be happy that over 4,350 people were watching at all.

For some reason Sun TV and Erickson don't see it that way of course and have been predictably whining about being "bullied" and "threatened" with "four letter words". SUN TV's owners blamed the whole thing on Facebook. Turns out they are outraged at the idea of people using the media to push political agendas. Yeah; this is all your fault Facebook! Shame on you. So let us never forget that the real victims are always the right wing media, our most vulnerable resource.

Now the CBSC doesn't have the power to ban Erickson or fine FOX North and I'm fine with that but I like the fact that Canadians were actually willing to show support for their artists. Harper learned that one once already but that was before the recession so it's nice to see it again. I think Canadians also stood up as well for basic civility, if Erickson had merely asked a question about tax dollars and arts funding that would be one thing, but honestly, she's a snide whining bitch.

But then again if they are going to suckerpunch the straw man of arts funding then FOX North and Erickson have a few questions to answer themselves.

First of all Krista Erickson herself made her name working at the taxpayer funded CBC for years so if FOX North can smugly demand that the hapless band "Living With Lions" return the their funding to the taxpayers than surely Erickson can do the same. Now. And if we are really going to make the tired argument of pay based solely on "merit" then the next obvious question is exactly what are Erickson's qualifications anyway for being some sort of expert on public policy, I mean aside from the obvious fact that she is exactly the type of imperious pinch faced, blow dried, bottle blonde, mini-skirted harpy that right wingers get a hard on for. I mean if we are supposed to give jobs only to the most qualified and experienced than why not give the gig to former Reform M.P. Deborah Grey? She's actually done policy and media stuff and could do actually do a credible job. She also has impeccable conservative credentials and is even good on camera, she certainly wouldn't behave like a rabid chihuahua. I'm guessing that FOX North is assuming that there is little demand to see Deb Grey in a mini-skirt. No offense to Deb Grey. She seems nice and polite.

But now I'm engaging in the sort of nasty "persecution" that conservatives so love to complain about suffering. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. So how do you respond to these tea-bagger douchebags? How about by pointing out the indisputable fact that SUN TV gets more taxpayer money than all these silly dancers and musicians combined? No shit. I kid you not.

SUN TV is owned by Quebecor, which also owns the SUN newspaper chain (obviously) along with the free daily "24 Hours" commuter paper and a bunch of other papers and magazines. All presumably profitable. And it turns out they also get a lot of taxpayer grants from something called The Canadian Periodical Fund. How much you may ask, since clearly nobody at FOX North will. Well check this out;

"Granted to magazine publishers under the Canadian Periodical Fund.

A list of Quebecor properties and the commensurate amount they received from taxpayers for 2010-11, via the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Chez Soi: $487, 735
Cool: $191.136
7 Jours: $327,160
TV Hebdo: $1,157,100
TV Hebdo Teleromans: $8,480
Les idees de ma maison: $376,943
Clin d’oeil: $480,749
Cote Jardins: $33,678
Derniere Heure: $154,966
Echoes Vedettes: $188,704
Le Lundi: $376,018
Moi & Cie: $7,947
Tout simplement Clodine: $99,489
Clodine Hors serie: $4,366

TOTAL $3.7 million."

And keep in mind that's in JUST ONE YEAR, not the decade that Erickson was so hot and bothered about. Soooo...Krista, Ezra, howabout it? When is Quebecor going to return that money? All of it? As a taxpayer I demand to know. Now. Why should I have to subsidize your no doubt generous salaries? Surely Quebecor doesn't actually require an annual taxpayer bailout? And even if they did then surely you would be the first ones to insist that Qubecor must be allowed to fail. No?

And when are you going to do an ambush interview about that? I'm waiting. And I'm sure so are your 7,000 viewers.


pc screen shot