Named after Alan Freed, the original Rock and Roll DJ and dedicated mostly to music & radio. See also my Classic Film & TV blog @ http://thesilverscreenchronicles.blogspot.ca/
For My CIUT 89.5fm in Toronto radio playlists; http://moondogsplaylists.blogspot.com/
37 years ago this week on July 13 1985; Live Aid, a benefit concert for the people of Ethiopia then suffering through a terrible famine and the largest benefit concert in the world at the time, took place with two simultaneous shows in London and Philadelphia as well as being broadcast worldwide in TV. Smaller concerts were also held in the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia, Austria, Australia and West Germany and parts of these shows were also aired.
DIRE STRAITS & STING ~ "MONEY FOR NOTHING";
Best known now (musically at least) for sets by Queen (that kicked off their comeback), a Black Sabbath reunion with Ozzy, a Led Zeppelin reunion (with Phill Collins), a Who reunion, Dire Straits (with Sting) and U2. The sets by U2, Dire Straits and Simple Minds helped make them major stadium stars, although in the case of Simple Minds it would not last. In checking out the line-up I see there were several last minute additions not on the poster including Black Sabbath (with Ozzy), Tom Petty, Madonna, The Hooters, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, Four Tops, RUN DMC, George Thorogood w/Bo Diddly & Albert Collins, BB King (via satellite from Holland) Prince (ditto), Loudness (from Tokyo), Autograph (from Russia), Kool & The Gang (from a studio), Pat Metheny, CSNY, The Beach Boys, Joan Baez, Teddy Pendergrast (in his first appearance aftr being paralyzed in a car accident) and Dylan with Keith Richards & Ron Wood closing the show. Most acts did from one to three songs bout a few got slightly longer sets. Phill Collins actually played both shows as he palyed London then hopped on the Concorde and flew to America to play with Zeppelin. As I recall the set with Dylan, Keith Richard and Ron Wood was a complete trainwreck as was the Zeppelin set as it was obvious none of them had bothered to rehearse.
U2 ~ "SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY";
The concert was a by-product of the "Do They Know It's Christmas" single the previous year arranged by Bob Geldoff and Midge Ure and the following singles in America ("We Are The World") and Canada "Tears Are No Enough"). I was too young to have actually seen any of these bands but as a New Wave kid watching on TV I was primarily there for U2, Simple Minds, Pretenders, Ultravox and Adam Ant in that order.
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME";
In Toronto one oddity was that the only radio station that simulcast the entire concert was the tiny campus station CKLN (rival CIUT did not go on air until the next year) using their cable feed. CKLN had been on air since 1981 and was by this point known as a station which played underground and avant garde music and most of the bill was totally mainstream but among the New Wave acts who had been on the CKLN/campus charts only a few years earlier; U2, Simple Minds, the Pretenders, Ultravox, the Boomtown Rats, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Style Council, Adam Ant, Sting (in the Police), the Cars, Alison Moyet (in Yazoo), Paul Young (in the Q-Tips), Tears For Fears (including as the Graduates), Run DMC and Judas Priest plus Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Paul Simon's "Graceland" & Neil Young's "Trans" albums. Although by 1985 some of these acts certainly still got some airplay on CKLN along with other campus stations that were less aggressively avant garde than CKLN.
THE PRETENDERS ~ "MIDDLE OF THE ROAD";
By contrast here are the actual CKLN Charts for July/85; The Jesus & Mary Chain (and it's early wall-of-feedback era too, Hell Yeah!), Nick Cave, Black Flag, the Barracudas, Deja Voodoo, REM, Talking Heads (their last decent album), Discharge, Robert Fripp, Jah Wobble, Psychic TV, Rain Parade, Primal Scream, A Certain Ratio, Del Amitri, the Redskins (best name for a Marxist Mod band ever), Slaughter (the Toronto Thrash band not the later US Hair Metal band), Living Proof, Suzanne Vega, Roy Orbison's comeback album and the soundtracks for "Repo Man" & "Return Of The Living Dead". About the only bands here that could have possibly been asked to play Live Aid would have been Talking Heads if they had not essentially stopped touring by that point and maybe Robert Fripp with King Crimson who also were not touring. I could possibly see Suzanne Vega doing "Luka" in a studio via satellite. REM had not yet made the jump to stadium status by that point. Mind you it would have been cool if early Jesus & Mary Chain and Deja Voodoo had played. And by cool I mean a glorious clusterfuck of historic proportions. I don't think the TV audience was ready for that.
It's schadenfreude time as SUN TV shut down for good this past Friday morning at 5 AM when the screen suddenly went dark and was then replaced with the Sun logo and the caption "Sun News Network is no longer available, at the discretion of the programmer. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope you will continue to value all the channels included in your package." The station's website has also been replaced with the Sun logo and the links are broken. There was no public warning that this shutdown was imminent, some Sun staff actually found out by news reports from other networks, some of whom couldn't resist a few tactful choruses of "I told you so".
LAST MINUTES OF SUN NEWS;
(NOTE; This was probably a prerecorded segment as it makes no mention of their impending death knell and even has promos to two shows which will never see the light of day)
Setting aside old enemies like the CBC and the Toronto Star, even the conservative leaning press were not terribly sympathetic. The Globe & Mail piled on with "Five fatal flaws that led to the Sun News Network's demise" and The National Post's Jonathan Kay chipped in with "Why Sun News never had a fighting chance". Kay blamed the network's out-of-touch far-right demagoguery and did not offer many excuses for their failure but did ask for sympathy for the staff, but more on that later. First the facts ma'am;
SUN News started up in April 2011 with the stated intent of offering a right-wing "alternative" to the supposedly "liberal media bias" with "hard hitting commentary", (a.k.a. "bloviating, blowhard assholes") like Ezra Levant, Micheal Coren and Krista Erikson. The network quickly attracted plenty of attention with their often wildly, and at times comically, slanted reporting and the hysterical and paranoid race-baiting, from Ezra Levant in particular, as well as for the Network's never ending jihad against the CBC and arts funding in general. SUN News quickly earned itself the derisive name FOX North. However while SUN TV got plenty of attention one thing they did not get was viewers. The ratings ranged from the embarrassingly anemic to the laughably pathetic, averaging a mere few thousand a day, even during prime-time. That's less than a decent Campus/Community radio station (as long as it's not run by Ryerson University). Literally the only two shows they ever had that got decent ratings was a celebrity boxing match wherein an audience of horrified Conservatives watched as Justin Trudeau pounded the snot out of Conservative bully boy (and future probable felon) Senator Patrick Brazeau and the abortive Ford Brothers Show which was cancelled after one episode. No viewers means no advertisers which means no money and SUN TV reported (according to CRTC documents), loses of $17 million in 2012 and $14.8 million in 2013.
Right from the start there were problems. To begin with the whole thing just looked ugly. The studio was a garishly eye assaulting blast of neon and dayglo, like an episode of a "Sports Center" shot from the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise in a 1970's casino slot-machine floor. Harsh lighting made everybody look like mannequins in a Young Conservatives K-Mart store. They managed to achieve the look of a student amateur production with none of the charm.
The ugliness of SUN TV's very appearance was nothing compared to the ugliness of it's content. All of their onair talent was at best made up of smug blowhards reciting boilerplate right wing talking points, like FOX News's Sean Hannity in a cheap suit. But the need for SUN News to get attention by saying outrageous things or to create a "star" to be Canada's Rush Limbaugh, Bill O Reilly, Glen Beck or Anne Coulter led the likes of Krista Erikson to make a complete fool of herself with that infamous Margie Gillis ambush interview. Worse it led to the misguided attempt to build their foundation on the reckless, cynical, hateful, narcissistic pile of rancid trollshit that is Ezra Levant. SUN TV clearly counted on him being their marquee name but he was so over-the-top offensive and repellent that he quickly became more trouble than he was worth. His increasingly nasty rantings led to numerous complaints to the CRTC and Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (two of which SUN lost), a libel suit (which he again lost), and even a police investigation for hate crimes, which, rightwing paranoia notwithstanding, is quite rare. That one forced Levant to issue a reluctant apology after first bravely vowing he would never back down. In 2013 Levant aired a report (one of many) attacking Native protesters including some by name who turned to not even be in Canada at the time. Once again he refused to back down until losing yet another CSBC complaint. This past fall Levant did a typically unhinged personal attack on Justin Trudeau and his family which provoked a full Liberal Party boycott of the network until SUN News did a humiliating backpeddle and issued another apology. Levant topped himself after fatal the Lac Megantique train crash when he blamed "Native or Environmental Protesters" for derailing the train and committing mass murder. And what was the source of this gripping news flash? The shit between his ears. Most recently Levant followed that up with a rant claiming that Muslim students were boycotting Remembrance Day cuz they hate Canada and Freedom based on a memo (sent by one of his patriotic "sources") from a school board in Essex County. This memo actually tried to deal with parent's concerns about safety after the Ottawa attack and had nothing to do with any Muslim boycott. That led to yet another CSBC complaint that SUN would have most certainly lost if it had been heard before they went belly up.
To make things worse SUN lost it's free over-the-air signal within a year when it turned out they hadn't properly applied for such a signal in the first place. That was entertaining. That also left them relying purely on cable access.
So what do you do if you are a rabidly right-wing corporation who is morally opposed to "big government picking winners and losers" or "bailouts"? Why; blame the CRTC of course and demand a bailout for themselves. Duh.
Accordingly in 2013 SUN TV shocked many of their ideological soulmates when they applied to the CRTC to demand "mandatory carriage", a complicated scheme whereby all cable subscribers would be forced to buy (and pay for) SUN TV whether they wanted to or not. "Mandatory Carriage" is usually given to channels that serve a public interest such as the Weather Channel or described video for the blind, or for channels that reach under-served communities like aboriginal, multi-cultural or francophones. Most people who are not right wing assholes have no problem with this. But it certainly was never intended to bailout a for-profit corporation. And that's not even taking into account the embarrassing fact that SUN News had a loud and well documented history of opposing the very idea of "mandatory carriage" from their very inception. In fact during their initial license application process SUN News had explicitly denied that they ever had any intention of applying for such a socialist program. SUN TV head Kory Tenekye went so far as to state that any suggestions to the contrary were "slanderous lies". Once SUN TV had gotten it's license they went on a slash-and-burn campaign against such subsidies and arts funding, notably with ambush interviews such as Ezra Levant inviting an obscure indie band called Living With Lions only to browbeat them for accepting a small arts grant. The shell-shocked teens sheepishly returned the grant, so score one victory for "The Little Guys" I guess. This led Krista Erikson to up the ante by inviting on award winning modern dancer Margie Gillis on the pretext of discussing her work only to harangue her about arts funding (an issue Gillis is not an authority on, much less in charge of) in a bullying interview full of ad-homminum attacks and right-wing soundbites. That one so disgusted people that they filed a record number of complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. After these appetizers SUN TV upped the ante and went on the warpath against their real enemy; the CBC, in a series of attacks on the CBC's funding. This even leading to Teneyke testifying in government hearings on the CBC. Finally having enough of these attacks the CBC responded with an expose of it's own on the fact that SUN News through it's parent company Quebecor was the beneficiary of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies every year, far in excess of the penny-ante grants given to the hated artists SUN TV targeted. That one hurt SUN News where it would hurt any media organization; attacking their basic integrity and honesty. Kory Tenekye reacted with outrage, threatening a lawsuit, but then quietly backed down. By that time he must have known that SUN would be applying to the CRTC for mandatory carriage and this would not be good time to be having that particular fight, especially since they would lose. Rather than spend more time on this here you can read the article I wrote at the time here and here and here. (My; I have bashed them a lot haven't I? I am a terrible person. More on that later)
Speaking of jihads against big government boogie men; there was their crusade against the CRTC itself. "Big Government Overeach" doncha know. All good conservative regularly rail against CRTC regs in general so when the CRTC finally pulled the plug on the notoriously inept Ryerson station CKLN in 2011, Ezra Levant took the opportunity to attack the CRTC with a laughably slanted and blatantly dishonest report that claimed that CKLN was shut down for "playing too much hip-hop" and slyly playing the race card. It was the kind of snide hatchet job only a professional activist could like. Accordingly in an example of breath-taking cynicsm the sneeringly far-left marxist CKLN spokesman Andrew Lehrer who would normally be reduced to posting smirking tweets calling Levant a racist (which he is) gleefully tweeted and re-posted Levant's article like garlic to ward off the CRTC during CKLN's predictably fruitless appeal. When it comes to politics weasels of a feather flock together. Naturally when SUN TV discovered they would need to suck up to the very same CRTC in 2013 this principled campaign suddenly dropped out of sight.
When SUN TV made their CRTC application for "mandatory carriage" they sound found out that karma's a bitch when even most conservative pundits reacted with open disdain. To say nothing of the legions of enemies SUN had been busy making since going on air; Muslims, Aboriginals, Gays, Francophones, Roma, Greens, Unions, feminists, atheists, artists, all the groups SUN TV had targeted for insult and abuse for the past three years pounced on SUN like a pack of jackals on a wounded wildebeest in an blizzard of letters to the CRTC opposing the application. I actually fired off one myself and wrote a blog urging others to do the same which some did. It turned out the CRTC probably didn't need much of a push, the SUN's application was pretty flimsy on it's face, even setting aside it's blatant hypocrisy. During the hearings SUN executives got a rough ride with Kory Tenyeke reduced to saying that SUN TV would be forced out of business without the subsidy. The CRTC was not sympathetic; pointing out that when SUN had applied for the license in the first place they had swore they would not need such subsidies and it was not the CRTC's job to bail them out now. The answer was no. However the CRTC did allow that there might be a need to reassess some of their policies around the bundling and placement of news channels. Leading to another round of hearings last year.
Looking to slap lipstick on a pig SUN TV grabbed at this like a drowning man and pushed their way into the hearings to urge some sort of bundling arrangement that might force cable companies to carry SUN in a solid bundle of news channels thus once again forcing at least some customers to buy the wretched channel. I considered writing again but after carefully reading the CRTC's terms of reference for the considered revisions I decided against it. The suggested changes seemed reasonable enough and certainly not worth opposing just to torment SUN News some more. Besides I also couldn't see anything that would actually save SUN TV anyway despite their whistling-past-the-graveyard bravado.
It turned out that the CRTC did indeed make several changes to their rules which would incidentally lead to including SUN TV in more packages, and group the Canadian news channels together to make them easier to find. It would also make SUN TV available in areas where it had not been. Much of this was pretty obvious stuff but that didn't stop SUN TV from doing a victory lap. However my reaction was a shrug. Making your product more available is irrelevant if you have a shitty product that nobody wants. You would think that rabid free enterprise capitalists would get that. As for the areas of the country that SUN was previously unavailable; that was mostly in areas where SUN TV's patented blend of rightwing paranoia, race-baiting, war mongering and oil company worship would be least likely to find a friendly audience; Quebec, The Martimes and the Far North. SUN TV's problem was never that people couldn't find it, it was that they didn't want it.
Accordingly SUN TV's ratings did not improve but then things got more complicated when the owner of Quebecor, SUN News's parent company, Pierre Karl Paladeau announced he was going into politics as a high profile candidate then leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois. That was weird. One of the defining characteristics of the SUN Newspaper and TV empire was it's strident federalism and disdain for Quebec nationalists so the revelation that Paladeau was a separatist all along came as quite a shocker showing just how cynical the whole enterprise was. The damage that might have caused to to the credibility of SUN News was somewhat lessened by the fact that Paladeau would have to divest himself of his business holdings. Accordingly an offer came from Post Media (who own conservative news paper The National Post) to buy out SUN Media. However after SUN TV lost their bid for mandatory carriage Post Media took a look at the numbers and decided SUN TV wasn't worth the trouble. Post Media would buy the publishing arm of SUN but left SUN TV out of the deal. Then stepped up radio exec Moses Znaimer, founder and former owner of Much Music, Bravo, CITY TV, CHUM and current owner of ZOOMER Radio to make a bid for the channel and save the day. Znaimer has a successful record in TV and might have been able to save the floundering network somehow. Ezra Levant certainly thought so and issued an asskissing statement welcoming his new master, although I suspect that if he had bought SUN TV one of Znaimer's first jobs in re-branding would have been to fire Ezra Levant. As it turned out the deal fell through when Levant's current bosses demanded too much of a cash payout in severance. That's right; in a fine example of twenty-first century capitalism the thoroughly inept management of SUN News, after losing millions of dollars, demanded so much money to fuck off that they ended up sinking the whole deal. Next to these clowns the idiots behind Target Canada look like Andrew Freaking Carnegie.
There would be no other suitors and so this Friday SUN TV put up the white flag. In a masterpiece of understatement Julie Tremblay, president and CEO of Media Group and Sun Media Corporation. Said; “This is an unfortunate outcome; shutting down Sun News was certainly not our goal.” No Shit, Captain Obvious. They naturally took absolutely no responsibility for their own failure. Of course.
Besides the earlier mentioned articles from The Post and Globe listing some reasons for the spectacular crash and burn of SUN TV and with which I have no dissent I'd like to add a few more;
BAD PRODUCT + POOR PLANNING = INCOMPETENT MANAGEMENT;
As I've already detailed SUN News was a truly crappy "News" channel. It looked ugly and it acted worse. Canadians simply didn't want it. Being fervent "free market capitalists" the management of SUN News should have taken steps to improve their product. That's the way business is supposed to work right? However Kory Tenekye (unlike Moses Znaimer) is not an experienced TV or radio exec, he was a Conservative Party political hack and clearly out of his depth.
(as an aside I can't resist pointing out; I've noticed that most of the most strident "free market" crusaders have no actual business experience; Stephen Harper, Mike Harris, Paul Ryan, Preston Manning, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Ezra Levant, Kory Teneyke, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, have spent their entire lives in right wing politics, think-tanks or media. Rather like how most of the most bellicose warhawks have no military experience)
I'm not suggesting that SUN TV would drop their conservative slant, distasteful though I find it. Their reason for existence was to promote the Conservative Party after all and The National Post was also started by Conrad Black for the express purpose of defeating the Liberals and electing a Conservative government. However the Post was able to look and act like a real newspaper and keep professional standards. But SUN's focus was so narrow, strident and mean-spirited that even many conservatives found them unwatchable, let alone having any crossover potential. However instead of making any changes to either the look or content of the channel, they stubbornly kept trying to push that boulder up the hill of indifference and hostility, with predictable results. SUN TV started out shabby and nasty, and they went out the same way.
TWO WORDS; EZRA LEVANT;
Nothing better illustrates the utter failure of SUN News management than their decision to build their brand around the dubious charms of Ezra Levant. Clearly they thought he was going to be their star as Canada's version of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck. Clearly Levant thought so too, but then Ezra Levant has never suffered from a lack narcissistic self-regard. However setting aside that Levant is a terrible person, he is also a terrible broadcaster. With his flat, nasally sneer and smug smirk that just begs to be punched, Levant is truly obnoxious in any context, even if he hadn't made a career of being a total asshole, which he has. Although SUN TV had some other "names" like Micheal Coren, Charles Adler, Brian Lilly, Pat Boland and Krista Erikson (until she quit), it was Levant who got top billing, as "Canada's Freedom Fighter" no less. With all the focus on Levant it's worth noting that he actually had little practical broadcast experience. Coren, Adler, Lilly, Boland and Erikson all have had extensive careers, mostly in talk radio, but Levant had not. His prior experience was as a right wing newspaper columnist, where people wouldn't have to actually see or hear him, and where he wouldn't have to hold anyone's attention for longer than a half dozen paragraphs once a week. As for his rather short political career Levant showed a consistent inability to be a team player. His vicious personal attacks and careless disregard for the facts led to many Conservatives to distance themselves and at least one embarrassing back-down after a lawsuit threat. The biggest fiasco came when Levant decided to run for office, in the same riding Stephen Harper had chosen for himself. This led to an embarrassing showdown until party power brokers convinced Levant to pull his head out of his ass long enough to step aside with all the transparently fake humility he could muster. The notoriously touchy Harper was not amused and Levant's brief, if entertaining, political career was over. So all the warning signs were there. Nothing that happened after that should have come as a surprise.
The grind of a daily show was simply to much for Levant's meager talents which is one reason why he spent so much time in the same unhinged hysterical tirades about the various brown people who are ruining civilization. It's also a reason why he did not bother to research or fact check before going on the air with his latest easily debunked anti-muslim rant. Levant's cartoonish behavior quickly went from being hateful to farcical. Much as SUN TV saw itself as FOX North I seriously doubt that Roger Ailes would have given Ezra Levant a show of his own, much less built his network's reputation on such shaky foundations. True, Ailes did briefly give a show to Glen Beck, but dumped him as he became an embarrassment and Rush Limbaugh has been kept at arm's length. Even FOX has some standards, or at least a sense of self-preservation, but not SUN TV. I can easily see FOX hiring Krista Erikson, they always have a gaggle of bottle blonde harpies and Erikson couldn't possibly be any dumber than Elizabeth Hassleback or Gretchen Carlson. But not Levant. But Hiring Levant was one thing. We'll call that a gamble. But keeping him is inexcusable. After it became obvious that Levant was only generating complaints and the occasional lawsuit while picking stupid fights with the regulators that SUN needed to work with, but not getting ratings, he should have fired. Keep in mind other networks cancel shows and fire hosts for far less reason all the time. Political activists may see such stubborn refusal to admit a mistake as admirable courage and steadfast leadership, but for alleged businessmen it's just pig-headed stupidity. Rather like if during the Ford Edsel or New Coke fiasco those companies had responded to their miscalculations by saying "Fuck it; We spent a lot of money on promoting this lemon so you commie are going to buy it and like it".
FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THE MARKET PLACE;
When SUN set out to be FOX North they never stopped to consider that Canada and America are in fact completely different nations with different cultures. FOX works in America because of historical demographic trends in racial politics, urban vs. suburban conflicts, regional rivalries, cold war disputes, religious extremism, a corporate media environment, and celebrity worship. Not mention slavery and a civil war. There is obviously a sizable built-in audience of resentful, older, poorly educated, whites who live in small towns and suburbs ready to believe in the conspiracy to take their hard earned tax dollars and give it to lazy black and brown people, gays, rude teenagers, uppity women, union thugs and greedy teachers while "surrendering to terrorists". Not that we don't have some Tea Party types here of course, Hell I assume even Iceland has their share. However much of what passes for political discourse in America is viewed by most Canadians as outlandish, bizarre, distasteful or downright offensive. A TV network dedicated to shrill rants about the dangers of big government, union thugs, environmental fascists, feminazi's, multiculturalism, creeping sharia law, lazy Indians, greedy gypsies, and parasitic artists, was never going to find much of an audience here.
But then again most if not all Conservatives and Libertarians in Canada worship America and secretly (or not so secretly) despise Canadians as weaklings, enfeebled by decades of big government Liberalism and Socialism, held back by Quebec, Multiculturalism and the lack of recent military glory. They also deeply believe that Canadians, at least the white, anglo variety, secretly want their very own Thatcher to subject them to a tight-fisted rule of austerity, tax-cuts, law & order and and a good shooting war, preferably against some dirty Muslims. They saw the victories of Stephen Harper and Rob Ford not as odd aberrations caused by specific events but permanent majorities and as confirmation that their time had come, in spite of the fact that public opinion polls consistently show otherwise. SUN News bought into this self-delusion harder than most. To admit mistake would call into question their entire reason for existence so they continued to live in their right-wing fantasy world. It's one thing for politicians to live this way, but not supposedly hard-headed businessmen are supposed to be able to distance themselves from personal emotions and change course when their product isn't connecting. SUN TV was selling a product that even if it had been of a higher quality, would have had little demand. Once again SUN News execs showed they had no business running a business.
FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN AUDIENCE;
Levant may have embarrassed most respectable conservatives but the campaign for mandatory carriage showed that SUN TV was out of touch even with much of their own obvious audience. Even many conservatives were disgusted with such blatant hypocrisy and said so publicly. Most conservatives were happy to applaud SUN TV's attacks on arts subsidies, "tax payer bailouts", the CBC and mandatory carriage, so asking them, no begging them, to help SUN TV get the very same subsidies was a bridge too far. Rather like when a family values crusader gets caught with underage prostitutes. Even conservative politicians and pundits have some standards. At least in public. Not many mind you, but a few. Hatred in right wing circles for arts subsidies of any kind is deep, for SUN TV to cross that line, after spending so much effort in stirring up those very resentments was just too much for many self-respecting conservatives to hide their disgust. In America, where politics is more tribal and the pundit class more shameless they might have gotten away with this. But not here. SUN ended up having to play up a crude politics of tribal, us-vs-them, resentment against the "liberal elites" that were conspiring against them because SUN TV "Stands Up For The Little Guy". Rob Ford built a career around such rhetoric but a corporation can't really pull that off. Especially since they aren't promising to build a free subway to your front door.
In the end the only real base audience they had was made up of a fringe of poorly educated, paranoid, angry, older, white, English speaking bigots, conspiracy theorists, Islamophobics, and xenophobes. Not enough to build a respectable nation-wide brand on. At least not here. Yea team!
FAILURE TO WORK WITH REGULATORS;
Like all good far-right conservatives the execs at SUN TV held regulators like the CRTC, CSBC, Industry Canada in contempt. But they forgot they have to actually work with these people, and in the end they fundamentally did not understand the CRTC's role. As I pointed out during the CKLN fiasco; They are a regulatory agency, they are there to make sure to make sure everybody follows the rules. They are not there to bail you out of your own stupidity. When SUN TV first applied for a license they promised that they would never need mandatory carriage and submitted a business plan that they swore would work. The CRTC takes these promises seriously even if SUN TV did not. For SUN to come back just a few years later and basically say; "Remember all that bullshit we shoveled last time? Um..Yeah; Fuck that." showed a complete misreading of the CRTC's likely response. Then there's the issue of the numerous complaints to the CSBC.
A word of explanation here; contrary to what many people believe, the CRTC and CSBC (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) are completely unrelated. In fact the CSBC is not even a government agency, it is a industry run watchdog to deal with complaints so the CRTC doesn't have to micro-manage them. However the CRTC certainly keeps track of serious complaints and serial offenders and takes that into account when license renewal time comes around. With it's record number of serious complaints and their dismissive attitude towards them SUN was not helping themselves. To have any hope of getting mandatory carriage SUN would have to argue that they were offering a service important enough to subsidize. A history of open hate-mongering, race-baiting, lying and slander hardly qualifies.
Once they belatedly realized they would have to crawl back to the CRTC to beg for their largess SUN TV execs acted like the political hacks they were by looking for a Conservative bagman to lobby the CRTC for them. Enter Mike Duffy, Canada's current favorite cartoon villain, who got into the act by getting caught lobbying the CRTC on SUN's behalf. The usefulness of this was somewhat compromised when everybody found out what a corrupt lying sleazebag Duffy The Hutt is. Leading to SUN News desperately firing off a press release that basically said "We did not have sexual relations with that corrupt Senator". You may have even caught some mention of this on by watching SUN NEWS, in between the never-ending, panting plugs for SUN NEWS. The CRTC must have been so pleased to find themselves dragged into a corruption scandal that had nothing to do with them. It also once again called into question SUN TV's basic competence not to mention their integrity.
DUFFY THE HUTT & KRISTA ERICSON;
As an additional CRTC related fuckup was the comical spectacle of SUN News initially going on the air with an over-the-air signal that they did not realize required a separate license. Leading a no doubt annoyed CRTC to issue an order to shut down which they did with amusing suddenness. There was little advance warning and with Ezra Levant literally in mid-rant. To quote William Hurt in "A History Of Violence"; "How do you fuck that up?!".
Another word of explanation. An application would have to first go to Industry Canada to check on the viability of the proposed signal and to make sure it doesn't interfere with any existing signals as well as to confirm the corporation is legally registered. Next it goes to the CRTC for a more in depth review of the programming and business plan. I have no idea where SUN fucked up but there's no excuse for this. It's worth remembering that rinky-dink community stations manage to get this right the first time so what's SUN's excuse? Too many Muslims in the way? Later SUN were reportedly planning to reapply for an over-the-air signal but apparently hadn't gotten around to doing so. I haven't seen such jaw-dropping incompetence since the good old days of CKLN circa 2010, but while CKLN's management were arrogant idiots, at least they were amateur idiots. SUN TV were high priced professional idiots.
MANAGEMENT GREED;
Just to recap something already mentioned, but it bears repeating. There were two offers on the table to rescue SUN TV; once when Post Media bought out the entire SUN Newspaper chain and again when that deal excluded SUN TV Moses Znaimer offered to buy the network itself. That deal fell through specifically because of the greed of SUN News execs who demanded such a rich payout that Znaimer walked away and no other offers came. Znaimer may be a egomaniac but he's not a fool. If he thought the license had some value and he could make a news network succeed he probably had good reason to give it a shot, and unlike the SUN TV execs he has the track record to make that plausible. With his breezy style and eye for talent Znaimer would have no doubt re-branded as "Zoomer News", aimed at seniors (like his current radio station) with lot's of friendly life style news and some commentary. I could see him keeping Charles Adler, business editor Pat Boland and his old-timey handlebar mustache and possibly even Coren. But definitely not Levant. He would be toast. Of course the first thing Znaimer would want to do is fire all the old, inept management and put in his own team. Hence the need for a payout. Not surprisingly they got greedy enough to scuttle the whole deal. Not surprising that is in an economic system where even the most corrupt or stupid executives are expected to get bonuses no matter how much money they loose or how much damage they cause to their own company.
A few, probably well meaning people, like Jonathan Kay, have expressed sympathy for those staff who are now unemployed, with Kay saying if you gloat over their job losses "You are a bad person".
I don't think so. These "talented young news staffers" (as some have put it) were perfectly happy to be working for a hateful propaganda machine that regularly targeted marginalized groups like Muslims, Roma and Natives who could not fight back. They happily used sleazy ambush interviews, often on the the flimsiest pretexts, sometimes on obscure figures who have no media experience on subjects they had little knowledge. They were quite prepared to broadcast blatant lies without bothering to do basic fact checking, and when they got caught they simply brushed it off until they were forced to back down in the face of a CBSC complaint or lawsuit. They regularly used ugly graphics showing blood or bombs over Muslim faces. They learned that it's OK to use vicious personal attacks, race-baiting, lying and slander as long as it suits your political agenda. If you think that's OK then you are a terrible person and a worse journalist and you are no loss to the profession. I know you would argue they were just following orders but I wouldn't go there if I were you. The best you can say about these people is that they were collateral damage and I notice that conservatives have no problem brushing off collateral damage in any other context so I'll not shed any crocodile tears over them.
As a final tribute I scanned through a few remarks in the comments section of one of the news stories about the crash and burn of SUN TV. Most were of the "good riddance to bad rubbish" variety but there were a couple Ezra Levant fans out there to send SUN off with a touch of class.
One read "This is a great victory for radical Islam" (yeah those damn Muslims over at the CRTC) and another more hopeful stating; "Wouldn't it be great if this freed up Ezra to run for Prime Minister or Premier of Ontario?"
Back in 2008, when I was working at CKLN, the former radio station based at (but not owned by) Ryerson University, was a time of unbelievable turmoil as a group of far left activists backed by the Ryerson Student Unions (The RSU and CESAR) engaged in a prolonged campaign to seize control of the station. This led to more than a year of organized harrassment, threats and intimidation, I myself was personally pushed, shoved and spat on by swarms of demonstrators. The public excuse for this thugish behavior was to stop CKLN management's supposed "Corporate Agenda". Exhibit number one of this mythical agenda was the decision to end CKLN's so-called "Tax Trustee Status".
This will require some explanation; CKLN, like all community stations, relied on fundraising campaigns, however CKLN (unlike the U of T station CIUT) was not a registered charity and so could not issue tax receipts in exchange for donations. Since applying for charitable status would have required making their books public CKLN decided to take a short-cut. Thus a decade or so ago CKLN entered into an elaborate scheme with a charity called "Tractors For Our Daily Bread" by which CKLN would do it's annual funding drive, then give the money to "Tractors" who would then take ten percent and return the rest with tax receipts under their name. Thereby CKLN could pretend to be a charity and use these tax receipts as fundraiser incentives. From the beginning there were questions raised about the legality of this arrangement and a few actual complaints. Typically at CKLN these were dismissed as coming from "The Right Wing" but around the early 2000's Ryerson University and RSU were concerned enough to insist that all mention of this scheme were to be removed from the website, which at that time was shared with RSU. That should have been a warning sign, but CKLN continued to issue these bogus tax receipts and Ryerson and RSU looked the other way.
By 2007 there had been a change in management and the new CKLN management (and our lawyer) took a look at this arrangement and decided it was basically an illegal money-laundering scheme and announced that it would be immediately cancelled. This was to be done quietly to avoid attracting attention to the fact that CKLN had been issuing these bogus tax receipts for a decade. That's when the shit hit the fan. A group of leftist activists had been stirring up trouble for awhile. They were largely organized by CKLN's paid staff who were in contact negotiations and looking for raises and were therefore hoping to replace CKLN management with one of their own choosing who would then hand them the raises and benefits that they were demanding. The ending of CKLN's "Charitable Tax Trustee Status" (as they called it) was to be the rallying point for various left wing activists which would include RSU. According to their conspiracy theroy the ending of CKLN's "Charitable Tax Trustee Status" was part of a larger "Corporate Agenda" that would force CKLN to "sell-out" to corporate sponsors and advertisers. You would think this sort of nonsense would be easy to dismiss but you should never understand the willingness of activists (whatever their ideology) to live in a paranoid fantasy world of all-encompassing conspiracies.
When CKLN's annual funding drive came up in October 2007 CKLN's paid staff and many of the volunteer hosts flat-out refused to follow the decision to stop issuing the tax receipts and promised them anyway. On the air and online. During one of many hostile staff meetings the Funding Co-ordinator, Daniel Vandervoort (who also happened to be the Treasurer and Board member of Ryerson's other student union, CESAR) produced a copy of the contact, signed by himself, between CKLN and Tractors and used it to to claim that CKLN was legally bound and would be sued by Tractors if we pulled out of it. This turned out to be a mistake since a quick glance showed that the contract had a cancellation clause, but there were bigger issues which I spotted right away;
a) The central clause stated that the funds raised would be used to finance "The charitable activities of CKLN Radio Inc." which was a serious problem since CKLN had no charitable activities at all. All the funds would go right back to CKLN, mostly to pay staff, which was fraud on it's face. When this arrangement was set up there were in fact some vague ideas for CKLN to find some sort of somewhat chartiable activities to sponsor such as benefit shows etc. and a "CKLN Foundation" was set up to manage this. Naturally nothing much ever happended and no money went out. As mentioned charities must open their books to Revenue Canada to prove they are using the money raised properly and CKLN could clearly not do so.
b) It turned out that there were problems with "Tractors For Our Daily Bread" as well. Firstly it was no longer listed as a legal charity in Canada, although it had been earlier and a seperate branch did exist in America. The stated pupose of "Tractors", with it's unwieldy name, was to raise money to buy tractors in Canada, then refurbish them and send them to Africa to be used there. This sounds fine but it would seem that only a small number of tractors actually got sent to Africa which is not a good sign. I also noticed that "Tractors" was not only a charity, but a Christian Ministry which along with the tractors was also sending bibles to Africa. Just because they were a Christian Ministry does not mean they were not a charity of course and this would not be a problem for them per-se but it would be a big problem for CKLN who was not disclosing this religious aspect to their donors. Much of CKLN's left-wing membership was made up of atheists, gays, Wiccans, Muslims and the occasional Satanist and it is safe to say they would have objected to the discovery that ten percent of the money raised was going to covert the heathens in Africa. CKLN had an absolute responsibilty to disclose this both to their membersip and to donors and their failure to do so was another legal timebomb waiting to go off.
c) Vandervoort did not have legal signing authority to sign a contact of this nature anyway. Even better was my jawdropping discovery that Vandervoort and Tractors CEO Eto Ekpenyong Eto had actually acted as witnesses to each other's signatures which was blatantly, even laughably illegal.
We had actually been searching for a copy of this contact for months only to be met with obstruction by CKLN's paid staff and prior management who claimed all copies had been lost, so it's sudden appearence came as a surprise and he tried to take back all copies before anyone could get to close a look. Luckily I saved a copy and sent it to CKLN's lawyer who took one look and insisted that it be cancelled immediately. When this was explained to CKLN staff one replied with the profound comment that "This is why we don't consult with lawyers". Other volunteers insisted that such money laundering schemes were common practice in small non-profits.
The response from the various activist groups was even less measured. During the actual funding drive some hosts, especially the hosts of "OCAP Radio" went on air and promised tax receipts. Then afterwards used these promises to insist that CKLN was thereby legally bound to issue them. The Funding Co-ordinator was then caught trying to mail out thousands of reminder letters promising tax receipts. By the end of 2008 there was a petition drive (supported by RSU) to "impeach" CKLN's management and one of prime reasons listed was the "Ending of CKLN's Charitable Tax Trustee Status" in favour of "Corporate Advertsing". That party line became and remains an article of faith amongst the far left activists associated with CKLN.
Throughout 2008 these activist types escalated their activities in to daily picketting, on-air rants, and vitriolic on-line posts while staff meetings degenerated into screaming matches. I was personally shoved and spat as well as being targetted with a frivolous nuisance suit which I got dismissed. All of this was openly supported by Ryerson's Student Unions who refused security coverage, siezed the station's assets and by Feb. 2009 changed the locks and pulled the station off the air for nine months until eventually they could get the loyal leftist management they wanted. All of this was given favourable coverage by the Ryerson student press in the name of fight "The Corporate Agenda" of course. By the time they got back onair in October 2009 the CRTC had gotten fed up and hauled them up for hearings in 2010 which resulted in CKLN having it's license revoked and pulled off the air for good. I testified at those hearings. Which were hilarious. Good times.
Anyway the point of this background info is to bring us back to Eto Ekpenyong Eto, Tractors For Our Daily Bread and their "Charitable Tax Trustee Status" scheme. The one that we said was probably illegal and the one that the RSU and the OCAP posse swore was "standard practice". This month this little noticed news item came out from Revenue Canada;
"January 14, 2014 14:05 ET
Tax Preparer and Charity Director Convicted of Fraud
BRAMPTON, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jan. 14, 2014) - The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced today that, on January 10, 2014, David Ajise, a former tax preparer operating in Toronto, Ontario, was sentenced in the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, to a 30 month jail term for fraud over $5,000. On July 22, 2013, Eto Ekpenyong Eto was also sentenced to a conditional sentence of two years less a day for fraud over $5,000 for the same case. Appearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, Ajise was found guilty of one count of fraud over $5,000 under the Criminal Code of Canada on June 14, 2013, while Eto pleaded guilty to the same charge on May 23, 2013.
Ajise is the former proprietor of Datronix Solutions, a Toronto-based tax preparation service. A CRA investigation revealed that, Ajise and Eto participated in a scheme which generated $5,023,456 in fraudulent charitable donations for the 2003 to 2005 tax years. In addition to a fee of $30 to $50 for tax return preparation, Ajise charged his clients 10% of the face value of the fraudulent charitable donation receipts he provided. The fraudulent receipts were claimed by Ajise's clients on 623 income tax returns and resulted in taxes evaded of $1,413,166.
Eto, in his role as a director of the Tractors for Our Daily Bread Canada charity, provided charitable donation receipts for amounts larger than the donor's actual contribution. Although Eto himself did not personally gain from his participation in the fraudulent charitable donation scheme, his actions assisted in the fraud.
The preceding information was obtained from the court records.
"Our taxes pay for the high level of government services that Canadians count on," said Darrell Mahoney, Assistant Commissioner of the Ontario Region of the Canada Revenue Agency. "When someone tries to evade taxes, it affects all Canadians."
Taxpayers who have not filed returns for previous years, or who have not reported all of their income, can still voluntarily correct their tax affairs. They may not be penalized or prosecuted if they make a valid disclosure before they become aware of any compliance action being initiated by the CRA against them. These taxpayers may only have to pay the taxes owing, plus interest. More information on the Voluntary Disclosures Program (VDP) can be found on the CRA's Web site at;
www.cra.gc.ca/voluntarydisclosures.
Further information on convictions can also be found in the Media Room on the CRA website at www.cra.gc.ca/convictions.
Contact Information;
Sam Papadopoulos
Manager, Communications
So not only were they charged but also convicted and sentenced to jail. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Too bad CKLN isn't around anymore to go down with them.
I know it's bad form to say "I told you so" but you have to admit; we did.
And furthermore....BWAAA-HAAA-HAAA!!!! VICTORY IS MINE!!!
This week the CRTC announced that PROUD FM has applied for a signal increase. Broadcasting on 103.9 FM at 60 watts, PROUD is asking for an increase to 250 WATTS, an increase that would allow them to reach the bulk, if not the entirety of Toronto and much of the suburbs. Coincidentally this increase to 205 WATTS is exactly the same size as that formerly held by CKLN, the now defunct radio station at Ryerson at 88.1 FM.
PROUD FM (the actual call-letters are CIRR-FM) is the "Gay Themed" radio station owned by the Evanov Corp which has been broadcasting since 2007 with a checkered history of format tinkering, mass firings, abrupt walkouts over lack of pay and a recent closing of their offices and studios from downtown's "Gay Ghetto" on Church street and a move to the boondocks. The coverage PROUD FM gets from the local gay papers has gone from supportive in the early days to mostly critical for the last several years as most of the original staff either quit or were fired. The constant knock against their programming has been that while originally they made an attempt to feature gay artists they soon dumped much of this in favour of "music that gay people actually listen to". This seems to consist mainly of Madonna, Lady Gaga and lots of pretty mainstream dance music. The gay community seems to be pretty disappointed, much the way that the black community became disappointed in THE FLOW and CARN FM.
Speaking of which; WTF is this!?
That PROUD FM would now be asking for 250 watts is ironic since it was Bill Evanov, owner of PROUD FM who was first out of the starting gates in applying for CKLN's signal once CKLN had it's license yanked by the CRTC in a very rare move prompted by the truly historic incompetence and dishonesty of the station's left-wing activist management and that of the Ryerson Student Union who had seized control of the station in 2009. Evanov barely waited for the rotting corpse of CKLN to cool before bragging to the media of his intention to apply for the vacant 88.1 signal, thus setting off a feeding frenzy of over twenty other applicants for what would be Toronto's last open FM signal.
Those other applicants included the heavyweights like Moses Znaimer, CHIN and the CBC to lightweights like a small group calling themselves INDIE 88 not to mention Ryerson's attempt to get the signal back. In a surprise upset the CRTC awarded the signal to INDIE 88 last year.
As for PROUD FM; they got nothing, squat, nada, zippo, the big goose egg. At the CRTC hearings last April (which I attended) PROUD FM's testimony included the usual claims that they needed the new, more powerful signal or they would have to go out of business as their 60 watt signal could not go beyond the downtown core. Evanov had been having a good year since they had just been granted a new Gay themed AM station in Montreal. All seemed to be going pretty well until the CRTC Commissioners pointed out that PROUD FM did not actually need to move to 88.1 FM to get a better signal since they could get a signal increase where they were albeit this would be a smaller one than they were shooting for by moving.
This was an important point since the CRTC insists that before an applicant asks for some sort of move or upgrade that they will have exhausted the resources they already have. The representatives from PROUD seemed baffled by the question the Commissioners were asking and they never really recovered. However while PROUD may have been shot down, unlike most of the other applicants they were not completely empty handed as the still had their existing 103 FM signal and a CRTC practically daring them to apply for a signal increase. I'm surprised it took them this long to follow up.
This time their odds should be pretty good. They already have the signal so unlike last time their won't be any other competing bids to fight off. There may still be an issue if the increase turns out to interfere with a neighbouring signal however, but it's too early to see if that is indeed the case. There is also a sneaking suspicion among many that Evanov, who also owns a dozen other radio stations, has no real commitment to the "Gay Themed" format and intends at some point to dump it entirely in favour of some more mainstream format once he has a signal capable of reaching the entire city, more or less.
As some of you may recall, last year the CRTC granted the 88.1fm frequency vacated by the CKLN's meltdown to a new station to be called INDIE 88, an independent group dedicated to Indie and Canadian music. And then...nothing...at least not in public. So what's been going on with that? Well here's a recent update sent out by INDIE 88 a while back;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"* The Licence is confirmed!! Although the CRTC awarded us the licence, procedures allow for an appeal of the decision to Federal Cabinet. One applicant did appeal the decision, bringing us to a stand-still. Just before Christmas our decision was confirmed. Big collective “Whew!”
* We are starting to build our systems and put together technical plans for the studios, transmitter and antenna. It will take us several months to get all of this organized.
* We applied to the CRTC for approval to increase power- 88.1 coverage is limited due to other users of the frequency. We have negotiated cooperative agreements allowing us to increase power from 875 watts to 4,000 watts. This is a big deal for the station - as licensed our signal will be difficult to pick up in many parts of the City. With higher power we will reach most Toronto homes. You’ll also be able to hear us on car radios throughout the GTA. BUT, the power increase has to be approved by the CRTC.
Once again we need your help. You can help us get approval by sending another letter of support to the CRTC. If you’d like to help out, just reply back with an e-mail and we’ll pass along the details."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A little back ground here; Firstly they don't say what group of entitled jerks actually tried to fight the granting of a license in court (with zero chance of success) but I can think of two possibilities. First there is Moses Znaimer who had also applied for the license and threw a public hissy fit and threatened a lawsuit (which I wrote about here) when they didn't get it. Then there was the CBC who also made a similar threat at the actual CRTC hearings which I was at. I have defended the CBC in the past but there is no excusing such arrogant behavior, assuming it was them.
Now for the more important issue; INDIE 88 originally applied for a signal at approx. 500watts. By comparison CKLN broadcasted at 250 watts, and when I worked there we had done some prepwork to upgrade to 1000 watts. So I was not surprised to hear that INDIE 88 was going for an upgrade, although making an application before even going on-air is a little odd. I guess the extra time left by the court challenge gave INDIE 88 time to kill. INDIE 88's application called for an almost hundred percent increase to 4000 watts. To keep that in perspective CIUT has 15,000 watts, CFNY (AKA The EDGE) has 35,000 watts, Q107 has 40,000 watts, BOOM 97 has 29,000 watts, KISS FM (formerly JACK FM) has 4,700 watts, FLOW has 1,170 watts, CKFG-FM (AKA CARN) has 446, CHRY has 150 watts and PROUD FM has 60 watts. Incidentally CARN and PROUD FM also applied for the 88.1fm signal. So 4,000 watts would make INDIE 88 competitive and allow them to compete with CFNY who are their obvious main competitor as well as enable them to reach the entire GTA with a good signal.
At any rate since I did intervene in support of the original INDIE 88 application with a fairly detailed 12 page submission I figured I might as well fire off another letter if support for the CRTC below;
"Being a veteran of the Toronto music and radio scene as a DJ, Journalist and Show Promoter I wrote a letter of support of CIND's initial application and now wish to express my support for the proposed signal increase to 4000 watts. While the Commission's decision to grant a license to a radio station dedicated to an all-independent music station with a commitment to 40% Cancon is certainly a welcome step I am also aware that the current signal is not strong enough to adequately and consistently cover the ever growing Greater Toronto Area. The Independent music scene is not merely restricted to the downtown core but throughout the suburbs and surrounding communities. It is essential to encourage young musicians outside the downtown core with music that goes beyond that offered by the current commercial radio stations. Such a signal is also necessary enable CIND to appeal to advertisers needed to stay profitable. An upgrade capable of reaching not only the downtown core but also the suburbs is essential to enable CIND to meet it's desired mandate.
Furthermore I am aware as the Commission is that the proposal by CIND includes provisions to enable radio stations CHES and CFRH to increase and improve their signals as well along with financial support for these upgrades and would therefore have obvious benefits to the communities as well. This opportunity may not arise in the future and should naturally be taken advantage of. By it's willingness to work with and support these Community Stations I believe that CIND has shown it's willingness to be the "good corporate citizen" that any "Indie" oriented radio station must be in order to build a relationship with it's proposed audience and should be encouraged.
While I recognize that it is unusual for a radio station to ask for a signal upgrade before it has actually gone on the air I believe that the unusual challenges set by the unexpected opening of the 88.1FM frequency and the short deadlines for application made this unavoidable in this case. I have read the Supplementary Brief offered by the Applicant and I believe they have answered the concerns that the Commission may have concerning this issue. I therefore ask the Commission to approve the proposed signal upgrade.
(Signed) Daibhid James
The hearings will be sometime in April. They'll be in Ottawa so I won't be there however but I'll post the CRTC decison when it comes in.
As I allude to in my support letter one of the byproducts of INDIE 88 applications is that it also allowed for signal upgrades for two other stations; CHES and CFRH. This is because they share the 88.1 frequency outside the GTA and therefore INDIE 88 had to get their permission to upgrade their signal since to do so would (or could) interfere with their signals. CHES is a small non-campus Community Station in the small town of Erin west of Toronto, CFRH is a French language community station in Penetanguishene. Both have been trying to get a signal upgrade for a few years now. To do so they would have needed the co-operation of the then holder of the 88.1fm frequency, CKLN. While I was working there back in 2008 there were working out a deal in which both CKLN and CHES and CFRH would be able to mutually support each other in getting signal upgrades for all of them. After the Ryerson Coup seized CKLN in 2009 the new supposedly community based leftist junta in charge of CKLN scuttled those agreements with two community stations in favour of a vague dream of getting a 1000 watt upgrade for themselves. Of course that was delusional since CKLN was at that point already busy being dragged in front of the CRTC hearings and have their license yanked.
Ironically it turned out that CKLN's shutdown was good news for everyone since once INDIE 88 got their application they quickly set to work on an agreement with CHES and CFRH which involved not only license upgrades for the two smaller stations but also INDIE 88 giving a large sum of cash to enable CHES to afford a more powerful broadcast antenna. CFRH has not actually applied for an upgrade yet, although they will probably do so at some point. CHES on the other hand has hit the ground running and applied for a signal upgrade simultaneously with INDIE 88. So I figured I might as well fire off a short support letter for them as well.
See below;
"I am writing in support of CHES FM's application for a signal upgrade. Although I am a resident of Toronto I have many years of experience in Community Radio and am well aware of the importance of such a station to it's local community. I am also aware that CHES has struggled to reach much of it's surrounding area with it's current signal and the requested increase seems both necessary and appropriate to it's mandate. A signal increase which allows CHES to reach the entire area would obviously be of benefit to that community as well as allowing CHES an opportunity to reach potential advertisers. I am also aware of CHES's previous attempts to address this issue were opposed by the now defunct CKLN. Since that station has now been replaced by CIND, a station which shown a greater ability to work with it's neighbors. This has allowed both stations to come to an arrangement which allows both station's to increase their signals for the mutual benefit of both audiences. It would therefore be wise to take advantage of this arrangement and grant both applications and I ask the Commission to do so."
(signed) Daibhid James
2012 has been a busy year for Community in radio in Canada, in fact the last few years have been busy, and not always in a good way.
In 2008 Winnipeg station CJWV, a privately owned Community Radio station went off the air and lost it's license after a years of infighting, money problems, legal problems and refusal to follow CRTC regulations. From what I know of the CJWV (and I have read the CRTC hearing transcripts and decision) that place was completely fucked up and got what they deserved. (Note the CJWV call letters have already been reassigned).
Then, disregarding this warning sign, Toronto's Ryerson University's Student Union jumped into bed with a group of way far left wacko political activists and seized control of radio station CKLN, taking it off the air for eight months and purging any dissenters and so incurring lawsuits and CRTC complaints. That resulted in a CRTC hearing in 2010 (which I testified at) and the loss of their license as well in 2011. From personal experience I can report that CKLN and Ryerson were REALLY fucked up and richly deserved to be put down.
Also in 2010 two other stations were hauled in front of the CRTC to answer for their myriad regulatory, financial, staffing and legal problems; CHSC, a small station in St.Catherines and The Aboriginal Voices Network. CHSC got shut down and AVN lost some of their network.
In 2011 CKRG, the tiny radio station at York University (with only a few watts) decided it was simply too much trouble and cost to keep broadcasting and gave up their license. But on the other hand CARN, the application for a Black/Caribbean station finally got their license, which was seen as a good thing until people actually heard it. Oh well.
That brings us to 2012. This past year started out with a feeding frenzy as the old 88.1fm frequency came up for tender and 22 groups applied, including a bid by Ryerson to take back the license. Besides the usual corporate suspects and The CBC, there was a small group which owned two other small town stations for a all-indie radio station called "INDIE 88". I wrote a lengthy brief for their application which I and most other people assumed was a longshot. In the end the CRTC gave the nod to INDIE 88, which is has gotten generally good feedback from the local music scene. So that's good news. Also Vancouver's CO-OP Radio managed to keep it's license after some serious problems which landed them into hot water with the CRTC as well. In the end they were bale to reassure the CRTC that they were able to fix their problems unlike, say, CKLN, CHSC and CJWV. (Note; I wrote a letter of support for their hearings as well)
So far so good. But of course you might have expected that there would have to be some serious fuckups to ruin things. That brought us back to Winnipeg to watch the jaw-dropping spectacle of Red River College's CKIC (AKA "KICK FM")getting in a completely unnecessary public spat with the CRTC and refusing to renew their license. Then days later they changed their minds and deleting their earlier comments. Then a few months changing their minds back again and going off the air in a snit. I have written fairly extensively about KICK FM an this blog.
And a just few months back I reported that another small privately owned station, CJRN in Niagara Falls, lost their license for blatantly flaunting CRTC Rules.
And then out of the blue came this posting from The Northwest Territories;
Posted on Airchecker Saturday Dec.29 2012
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CKLB RADIO NWT WILL BE
OFF THE AIR UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Here's the short bio on CKLB from their website;
"Under the mandate of the Native Communications Society of the Northwest Territories (NCS NWT), we deliver aboriginal language services to 32 different communities and 3 diamond mines as well as into Alberta.
The First Peoples of the North have historically relied on oral traditions to pass on stories, culture and information. NCS continues to reinforce the oral traditions of the past by using the technologies of today to bring CKLB-FM 101.9 to all the communities of the NWT and beyond.
CKLB radio has formed a strong personal relationship with the people of the NWT since it’s inception in 1982.
Northerners start and complete their day with CKLB because we offer the most unique radio programming available in the Territories…We’ve become like part of the family!
Here at CKLB we present a great mix of music: from contemporary and traditional Aboriginal music to country. We also have daily insightful interviews from the communities and live special event broadcasts. This is done in one of the six languages that we broadcast, which are:
English, North Slavey (Sahtu), South Slavey (Deh Cho), Denesuline (Chipewyan), Gwich’in & Tlicho Yati."
From what little I have been able to find there seems to have little or no advance warning (at least on line) so there is no way of knowing what exactly is going on here. But clearly this is not a problem with the CRTC, yet. It has been in the news that the various Aboriginal Communities are in a contentious battle with the Harper govt. over budget cuts and it would appear that CKLB's money problems stem from this dispute.
However, keeping in mind that I don't know exactly what the financial situation of CKLB is, I can't help but wonder if they could not have kept something on their air through volunteers.
There are basically two types of costs for any Community Station; those which absolutely have to be paid, which include rent and power to the transmitter, rent and power for the station itself (unless they get office and studio rent free) and various taxes (which may not apply to a station on native land) and fees to Banks, Socan and The NCRA. Then there are the expenses which can be deferred which is everything else, including staff wages. It should be possible to delay at some of these costs and work with volunteers while some quick fundraising is done, especially if they had several months to get ready for this.
If CKLB is going off air as a sign of solidarity (there is also a hunger strike and protests going on over funding cuts) then they are taking a huge risk. As we learned from CKLN and CJWV, going off the air is the swiftest way to provoke the wrath of the CRTC and end up on the wrong side of side of some CRTC hearings which could cost them their license for good. The CRTC has little patience for stations that can't stay on the air whatever the reason. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Besides; staying onair would enable the community to get it's message out themselves rather than relying on outside sources like, even relatively friendly ones like the CBC. Let alone hostile press like SUN News, which has already denounced the native protestors as "terrorists".
In the meanwhile if you want to fire off a letter of protest/concern to the Harpercons you should probably get right on that, the longer this drags on the harder it will be for them to keep their license.
Their website is at;
http://www.ncsnwt.com/
With a Facebook page at;
http://www.facebook.com/cklbradio.radiocklb?ref=ts&fref=ts
UPDATE: As of January 3 this posting went up on their Facebook pages;
"The world is right again - Cklbradio Radiocklb is back on air! Denendeh Sunrise tomorrow at 7 am :D."
I can find no other explanation nor is there any on their official website either. For that matter the previous off-air notice has been deleted from their web page, although not from their Facebook or Twitter pages. Apparently cooler heads prevailed somewhere.
Although they are apparently still having a few problems as the following Facebook exchange shows;
*Gina Migwiposted toCklbradio;
"cklb is not working in behchoko still been 2weeks"
*Cklbradio; "The community's transmitter at the Edzo Fire Hall is not working. As soon as we get one, we'll set it up. This is the second time we have done this in the last three months."
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.
I have already written extensively about how the CRTC awarded the 88.1fm frequency lost by CKLN when they had their license revoked to a small group calling themselves "INDIE 88". They caught many by surprise when they beat out 21 other applicants most of which had bigger names and more money. Among those other applicants shocked by the results were PROUD FM, a gay themed radio station owned by the giant Evanov group who were the first to apply and Ryerson University who were expecting to get the license back and former City TV and Much Music Head Honcho Moses Znaimer.
First PROUD FM; Their application was to move from their current frequency at 103.9fm where they are limited to 60 watts and get a power upgrade which which they could reach the entire city. Evanov has insisted that without that increase PROUD FM can not stay in business. In the weeks before the decision was announced Evanov announced they were closing their Downtown offices and consolidating in their Mississauga office (Evanov owns a station in 905 country already; Z103fm, along with dozens more across Canada) and they were also laying off most of their staff. Some staff were willing to stay on as volunteers.
As one report in "XTRA" put it;
"In February, management decided to move administrative staff out of its Wellesley St location because of the neighbourhood’s increasingly high rents. The business side of Proud FM is now located across town, at Evanov’s headquarters at 5312 Dundas St W.
In 2010, Proud FM let go of four popular on-air hosts — Deb Pearce, Patrick Marano, Shaun Proulx and Mark Wigmore. Earlier, in November 2007, the station fired popular talent Maggie Cassella, Richard Ryder and a number of staffers. Ryder was eventually rehired."
"Willette says so much depends on the application for university radio station CKLN at 88.1 FM, which was owned by Ryerson University for almost three decades.
CKLN is bidding to get the licence back, but it has stiff competition: 27 groups applied for it last year, and 22 made the first cut in March, including Proud FM.
Since Evanov first won the licence for Proud FM in 2006, the station has been plagued by a weak frequency at 103.9 FM, says Evanov VP Carmela Laurignano.
The problem is Proud FM sits too close to Z103.5 on the dial, so they risk interfering with each other. As a result, Proud FM’s downtown transmission has been limited to 50 watts — too weak to penetrate downtown buildings. That means listeners can’t get a good signal, even in Toronto’s gay village.
“They can’t sell any ads now because of the signal strength,” Bellini says.
A move to 88.1 FM would entirely eliminate the problem, Willette says, noting that 88.1 FM is 128 watts, with a tower at First Canadian Place. “If we get 88.1 FM, then all of a sudden people who couldn’t hear us before can hear us. That means more listeners, so hopefully that equals more money.”
A lot has changed since 2006, she says. Although Evanov was well aware that Z103.5 bumped into 103.9 FM, they didn’t anticipate Toronto’s condo boom.
“We need that stronger signal to bring in more advertisers and grow,” she says.
Laurignano says the CRTC may also look favourably on the Proud FM bid because the station has fulfilled all of its application expectations, which Evanov agreed to when it bid for the licence. “We have fulfilled every single one,” she says.
But Proud FM falls short on programming — seven hours per week of newscasts and 21 hours of talk — which is a result of the staff cuts, she says. The station maintains its commitment to play 40 percent Canadian music.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s Proud FM is still alive, Willette assures, but the station is on life support and the future is uncertain. “Proud FM will always be around in one capacity or another. To what extent we can maintain live shows and a presence on the street? That is a valid question. I don’t know.”
Note; One important item left out of the report (and others) was the fact that PROUD FM recently got a power upgrade that they have yet to implement. At the hearings the CRTC took some exception to this and it alone was probably enough to deny them this upgrade. There has been little post rejection reaction as of yet from PROUD FM although I did notice some new ads in Now Magazine so I guess they aren't ready to give up the ghost yet.
Meanwhile back at Ryerson we can safely say that they are not pleased. And the NCRA are REALLY not happy;
(From a Trent University Paper);
The NCRA and Rodney Diverlus, President of the Ryerson Student Union, used the application process to emphasis the importance of community radio in general:
“We sent a clear message to the CRTC that we, as the future leaders and community members, see value in a radio station that is for our community and the broader Toronto community. Unfortunately this means less young voices and community voices will be heard on the airwaves.”
The diversity of voices requirement is based on a CRTC mandate and was interpreted by the NCRA’s Executive director Shelley Robinson as a diversity of voices participating in radio, not just represented by a radio station’s demographic or listenership:
“There is already so much commercial radio available,” she said. “This was a chance for something different. Radio Ryerson was a place where people would get to be citizens and creators, not just passive consumers of a set format.”
Trent Alumni and BCIT radio broadcasting student Philip Benmore noted a larger trend at the CRTC “away from grassroots, not-for-profit media, towards corporate controlled and heavily formatted commercial radio.”
Wait! Then there's my personal favorite part;
"Local NCRA member Trent Radio weighed in on the consultation process to lend support to campus/community radio in general. At an April 1st, 2012 meeting of the board, Trent Radio decided to support Radio Ryerson’s application, not with “cogent and winning arguments,” (since the application was deemed to be sufficient in such endeavours) but with a short statement of approval that included the quip: “Toronto needs all the community it can get.”
Umm...Yeah, Right. Good Call. Who needs "cogent and winning arguments" anyway when you have endorsements like that? And speaking of useless know-it-alls; what does the NCRA have to say about this?
From Vanmusic;
Radio Ryerson did not get their license back
15 September 2012
Despite public access option, CRTC decides to licence yet another commercial radio station.
Toronto is less indie now as they lost a campus-community radio. The CRTC has decided not to award 88.1FM to a campus-community radio licensee. The slot was given to commercial radio station Rock 95 . Its a great loss not only to Toronto but to the indie radio community.
“We sent a clear message to the CRTC that we, as the future leaders and community members, see value in a radio station that is for our community and the broader Toronto community. Unfortunately this means less young voices and community voices will be heard on the airwaves.” said Ryerson Student Union President Rodney Diverlus who also praised student efforts to win 88.1. “Students voted overwhelmingly in favour of funding a campus-community radio station through a referendum. We sent a clear message to the CRTC that we, as the future leaders and community members, see value in a radio station that is for our community and the broader Toronto community.”
"The National Campus and Community Radio Association also appeared in support of a campus-community radio license for 88.1FM over a commercial license.
“I am very disappointed in this decision,” said NCRA’s Executive Director Shelley Robinson. “There is already so much commercial radio available and now there is one less opportunity for people in Toronto to directly access their local airwaves and represent their communities. Radio Ryerson was a place where people would get to be citizens and creators, not just consumers.”
"Press release from NCRA;
Today the CRTC licenced a commercial radio station for the last viable frequency in Toronto and denied the application of Radio Ryerson, making one less space available for community access to public airwaves.
Competing with dozens of prospective commercial radio stations, a group of Ryerson University students, faculty and community supporters proposed a station where the city and its many communities could speak for themselves and to their neighbours, sharing stories and music under-represented in other media.
Rodney Diverlus, President of the Ryerson Student Union, says the loss stretches beyond the campus.
“We sent a clear message to the CRTC that we, as the future leaders and community members, see value in a radio station that is for our community and the broader Toronto community. Unfortunately this means less young voices and community voices will be heard on the airwaves.”
Shelley Robinson, Executive Director of the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) agrees.
“There is already so much commercial radio available,” she said. “This was a chance for something different. Radio Ryerson was a place where people would get to be citizens and creators, not just passive consumers of a set format.”
Jacky Tuinstra-Harrison was acting Station Manager and led Ryerson Radio’s application. She says she’s not sure next for the station, given the loss.
“There was such momentum. I had new students, up-and-coming musicians, senior citizens and my own neighbours asking how they could be involved,” she said, noting that the Broadcasting Act recognizes three pillars of Canadian broadcasting: commercial radio, public radio and community radio. “88.1FM ought to have been the place where we could live up to that ideal.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah yes; all this misty eyed eulogizing of the Golden Age of CKLN when it was an open and accessible place rather than a hothouse of extremist politics and vicious turf wars is almost enough to make you forget the last several years of scorched earth warfare. Not to mention the roles that the Ryerson Student Union and the NRCA played in encouraging that strife in the furtherance of their own power hungry agendas that eventually led to the RSU's forcible seizure of the station. But not quite.
The various rejected other applicants which included the likes of The CBC, CHOQ, CARN CHIN and various heavyweights have been pretty quiet. Although one applicant; LIFE 100.3, a Christian Radio station based in Barrie who applied for a religious station, did send out a more gracious concession on their website;
September 11, 2012
The CRTC has denied our application for Christian radio at 88.1FM. The commission approved the application by Rock 95 Broadcasting Ltd.
Thank you to all who prayed and supported Trust Communications Ministry through this process."
But then again Trust Communications were always more realistic about their long shot status.
An applicant from Larche Communications inc. for an Easy Listening station to be called "Metro 88" has completely pulled their website without explanation although oddly their Twitter page is still up for now. Albeit there hasn't been a posting since spring.
And then there Moses Znaimer. He also put in an application to add 88.1 to their existing AM station. He is not a happy camper;
MONTREAL – Zoomer Media president and CEO Moses Znaimer was in Montreal Wednesday to watch the CRTC in action as it considers the proposed purchase of Astral Media by Bell Canada, but he was still shaken by Tuesday’s Commission decision on the 88.1 FM frequency in Toronto.
To say he’s not happy is an understatement. Znaimer told Cartt.ca in an interview the decision to grant the license to Rock 95 so it can launch a station with an independent music format was “appalling. It was stunningly insensitive and entirely inappropriate – and it’s galling to hear them talk about diversity in there (during the ongoing hearing here) as if they are protectors of it in the light of that decision.”
Znaimer says the rock genre – even if this one is aimed at indie acts and emerging Canadian artists – is very well represented in and around Toronto and another station hitting the same demographic is a mistake. “There are a handful or rock radio stations in Toronto today and if you add the ones on the periphery, there must be well over a dozen,” he added.
Zoomer media was one of 22 applicants to appear at the CRTC hearing in May hoping to gain the licence to operate at 88.1 FM, the license the CRTC revoked from Ryerson University in 2010 due to various infractions over a number of years. Some applicants wanted to launch new stations while others, like Znaimer, wanted to take an existing AM station to FM.
Znaimer wanted to move The New AM740 Zoomer Radio, his station aimed at the 45 and older demographic that suffers from, well, being an AM station and all the sound quality and interference challenges of that brings, to FM. Zoomer also owns another Toronto FM station, The New Classical 96.3 FM as well as Vision TV, JoyTV, One: Body Mind and Spirit, Zoomer Magazine and other assets.
The long-time broadcasting executive whose whole business is aimed at the 45-and-up set is very angry that with this new station a demographic which he and many others say just don’t listen to radio any more will still get another station.
“We brought forward evidence that was overwhelming to demonstrate that the largest percentage of the population throughout Canada today is what we identify as Zoomer – 45-plus – and we brought forward overwhelming evidence that all the radio stations currently are piled up in the demos that lie just younger than that,” said Znaimer.
“Even though there are one or two other stations that acquire an older audience, they don’t do that with a view of serving the older audience with information to make their life better, to give them advice on health and wellness, financial security and so on,” he added.
But why can’t that be done on the AM dial? “Every other station over the last 20 years has made the transition because AM is a medium in decline and in downtown Toronto it’s impossible to get (740) with any clarity because of the wiring and the high-rise buildings,” he noted. It was a main point the company made during the hearing in May in Toronto.
“It is galling to hear the Commission posture as some kind of defender of diversity in the face of a decision which is doubly stunning, doubly insensible because it was discussed at the hearing that the younger generation, the 18-34 demo referenced in the decision, no longer listens to radio,” he added. “This Commission went out of its way to deny a life raft to a station that is the sole provider to a considerable audience.”
Znaimer insists it’s not sour grapes that is driving his ire because he would have accepted a decision which didn’t go his way if the license hadn’t gone to a rock station. “If they had brought forward a decision that favored an ethnic station, or if they had gone with the business news one, I would have been disappointed but I would have understood. But to hand it to another rock station, to a demo that’s already wildly over-served, just seems to be preposterous. The economy is not great and every story you read in the business press says it’s not going to get better any time soon so we came along and we said this is the goldilocks solution. We’re not really bringing in any new financial pressure on the market, we’re simply securing distribution to a large audience that’s got nowhere else to go,” said Znaimer.
“I can only conclude that it is a stunning case of age discrimination. There is no other word for it because they had the evidence… They turned their backs on themselves,” he added, alluding to the ages of the CRTC commission panel members. “They are all in the demo, every one of them.”
The CEO added his executive team will be meeting within the next week to decide whether or not to appeal the decision to federal cabinet."
WOW! And I thought the NCRA were crybabies. He even manged to pull the "ageist' card. And I didn't even know there was one in this deck. Remember when Znaimer brought you "MUCH MUSIC" and "The New Music"? Well now he wants you all to; "GET OFF MY LAWN YOU DAMN KIDS!"
Oh and by the way that threat to appeal to the Federal Cabinet? It's total bullshit. The Federal Cabinet is barred by law from interfering in the licensing process. Even CKLN had their lawyers explain that to them (probably very slowly) when they made the same empty threat. Given his years of experience you would have though he would have known about that already but never having people so no to you must get a little addictive. It's never a good sign when you are dumber than CKLN.
