| CJSW, the University of Calgary’s radio station, is joining the chorus of broadcasters protesting the CRTC’s recent approval of two satellite radio services.
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) decision has sparked intense backlash from campus and community broadcasters across the country that are worried satellite radio will crowd them out of the market, and that the decision will diminish Canadian radio content.
Satellite radio is a form of digital radio that isn’t restricted by geography, like the AM or FM bands are, since the radio picks up signals from a satellite. Listeners subscribe to a satellite radio service in order to pick up the digital channels.
The two newly licensed services can provide a total of 72 channels, of which only eight must be Canadian – nine foreign channels for every Canadian one. Since both of the satellite services involve American companies, many are worried that there could be nine times as much American content as Canadian content on the services.
"What the CRTC has done is basically taken all of their credences in protecting Canadian culture and basically limited accessibility to those who have the dollars to launch the satellite, and the dollars to control who is on that satellite network," says Chad Saunders, CJSW’s station manager.
CJSW has a total of four full-time staff and a budget of about $300,000 a year. Saunders is worried that CJSW and other campus stations could be left behind if satellite radio takes off and starts to replace the FM band.
"Our annual budget is probably the equivalent of one day’s advertising sales at CJAY 92," says Saunders, who is also the prairie rep for the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA). "(A satellite) is never going to be on our radar."
The NCRA has strongly denounced the decision as an insult to the Canadian industry. Saunders and the NCRA acknowledge that satellite radio is going to have a presence in Canada sooner or later, but they want the CRTC and the public to take more time to consider its impact on community radio before it’s approved. The CRTC has policies on commercial and community radio, but it currently has no policy on subscription radio.
"(The CRTC) has made these decisions without taking the time to develop a policy and what they should be concerned about," says Melissa Kaestner, the NCRA’s national co-ordinator. "Basically, I see the same kinds of problems 20 years down the road facing us as what happened to community television."
The CRTC says the decision is a balanced one that will offer more choice to consumers.
"These decisions foster the objectives of the Broadcasting Act and balance the interests of Canadian consumers, the radio industry and the music industry," says Charles Dalfen, the CRTC’s chairman.
The NCRA has banded together with other Canadian arts and broadcasting organizations to call on the federal government to reverse the decision. Under the Broadcasting Act, the government can throw away the decision or put it back to the CRTC for reconsideration within 90 days.
Ian Morrison, a spokesperson for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (who is part of the coalition), says the CRTC has done well in encouraging Canadian content on commercial radio stations, but he’s worried the decision on satellite radio could undo much of that.
"What we see is that all of the sudden the CRTC is licensing a competitor to those (commercial) stations, a competitor for the ears of the listening audience that has a requirement, effectively, of only eight-and-a-half per cent Canadian content," says Morrison.
Morrison is worried that if satellite services are permitted to broadcast such a small amount of Canadian content, commercial stations will ask for the same. Currently commercial stations are required to broadcast at least 35 per cent Canadian content.
"We see the whole thing kind of tumbling down if this is allowed to happen," says Morrison.
While the different groups of the coalition have different reasons for wanting the CRTC decision to be overturned, they agree on at least one fundamental thing: Canadian content and community broadcasting should be better protected.
"We just want to argue that the airwaves belong to everybody," says Saunders. |
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