CBC BLOCKS BLACK RADIO STATION, OWNERS SAY Too close on FM dial Allison Hanes – National Post A proposed commercial radio station aimed at Toronto's black community yesterday accused the CBC of blocking its attempts to move next door to it on the city's crowded FM dial.
The Caribbean and African Radio Network said the public broadcaster is the only thing standing in the way of plans to air reggae, soca, gospel and world music, plus international and community news or such sports as cricket, to a 600,000-strong target audience.
At issue is whether CARN, which is seeking to set up shop at 98.7 FM, will interfere with Radio One at 99.1. The CBC says it will.
But CARN's owners say there are steps that can be taken to reduce potential problems, and that its overtures to CBC to work together to resolve them have been rebuffed.
With its attempts to secure the last good real estate on the Toronto bandwidth slipping away, the nascent radio station's proprietors yesterday held a news conference vowing a "massive response," as their communiqué termed it, to the "appalling resistance by the CBC, who refused to co-operate in the best interest of the general public."
CARN was granted preliminary approval to set up shop from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in April, 2006.
But it was told it would have to find another frequency because current broadcast regulations allow the nearest neighbours within a certain proximity to veto the establishment of new stations.
From the very start, the CBC opposed CARN taking to the airwaves on the grounds that the signals would clash.
"Our only objection is 98.7," said Jeff Keay, a spokesman for the public broadcaster. "When you're that close together it would have interfered with our signal.
"We don't have any problem with the station or the creation of the station... We've offered them assistance in terms of training and technical advice - we've even offered to give them equipment."
But Douglas Kirk, the president of Burlingham Communications which has a stake in CARN, said the CBC's assertion that broadcasting at 98.7 would cause static for Radio One listeners is unfounded.
By moving the two transmission towers to the same location - the top of First Canadian Place, one of the tallest structures in downtown Toronto - interference would be virtually nil, he said, especially since the CBC emits a signal 100 times stronger than CARN would.
"Where you get interference is if you had a second adjacent station five kilometres or 10 kilometres away and their very high signal could cause interference to maybe even a bigger station and a stronger station," he said. "But by co-locating these two, 98.7 and 99.1, there is virtually absolutely no chance of interference."
Mr. Kirk said the new station promised everything from replacing complaining CBC listeners' decrepit tuners to fine-tuning its radiation patterns if tests showed any feedback.
But the CBC won't bite.
"The quote to us was that if even one CBC listener received interference it would been too many," he said.
In a letter to CBC Chairman Robert Rabinovitch in December, 2006, Mr. Kirk complained of "unreasonable and unexplainable objections by the CBC." He listed a number of channels that co-exist within a short space in the Toronto area.
Last January, CBC's chief technology officer and vice-president Raymond Carnovale wrote back pointing out that many of the stations close to each other on the dial have transmitters located more than 40 kilometres apart.
"The proposal would negatively impact the quality and extent of coverage of CBC Radio One in the Toronto area," Mr. Carnovale wrote.
"You have alleged that the Corporation is not being cooperative with you in identifying alternate frequencies. Let me state unequivocally that we find your characterization misleading and harmful to the ultimate resolution of the matter," he added. "Regrettably, CARN has taken the position that its service should only be provided in the FM frequency band. This has created a serious impediment to finding a solution."
Indeed Mr. Kirk said yesterday that 98.7 is essentially the last vacant FM channel in the greater Toronto area and is the only one that will allow CARN to evenly reach the urban-dwelling communities it is aimed at.
Alternative technologies are not acceptable, he said. There has been a major contraction in the AM radio market and the quality is less reliable. Digital radio has grown "sideways" and satellite remains an expensive subscriber service for people seeking specialty channels.
"FM is clearly the dominant technology now," said Mr. Kirk. "It's what most people have in their cars and their homes."
Despite the CBC's refusal to budge after years of wrangling, yesterday's press conference was perhaps CARN's last ditch chance at taking to the airwaves.
The temporary license has now expired, so the station would have to re-apply to the CRTC to get started.
But without the CBC changing its mind, its chances of launching remain about the same. |