Ryerson University pleas for new radio licence

New governance and a new student “fee agreement” will ensure a future community radio station at Ryerson University will not face the same troubles as a previous station whose licence was revoked last year, CRTC commissioners heard at a Toronto-area hearing Monday. Representatives of Radio Ryerson Inc. appeared before commissioners during the sixth day of the nine-day hearings to argue the organization’s case for a licence to operate an FM radio station on the city’s coveted 88.1 MHz frequency. The group is competing against 21 other applicants for Toronto’s last available FM frequency. The 88.1 MHz frequency was vacated by the former Ryerson community station CKLN-FM when the commission revoked its licence last February due to poor-quality program logs, paperwork problems and a lack of involvement from Ryerson students, whose fees make up a major part of the station’s revenue. Grant Buchanan, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP and counsel for Radio Ryerson, told commissioners Monday that the new organization would take steps to correct those issues if given the chance to operate an FM station. He said the new Radio Ryerson station would strive to improve its governance structure, which he cited as a cause of the old station’s difficulties. “Governance was obviously a cornerstone issue,” he said of the defunct CKLN station. “In fact, but for a governance issue, we would not be here today.” Buchanan said the new station’s board will represent members of the university’s administration and its student population. He said the heads of Ryerson’s schools for management, communications and design, and radio and television would fill the administration’s seats on the board. The Ryerson Student Union president and elected student representatives would hold student positions on the board, as would “an elected station volunteer representative, and two other community representatives.” Buchanan said the station’s total nine-person board will be able to remove board members and hire, or terminate staff. “Important events like changing the management, approving the annual budget, and the incurring of significant expenditures cannot happen without the positive vote of at least one student board representative and one administration board representative,” Buchanan said. Radio Ryerson said at the hearing that CKLN-FM failed, in part, due to a lack of student involvement and student funding. Jacqueline Tuinstra Harrison, Radio Ryerson’s president, said the university’s students supported the group’s efforts to get a new campus community station. She pointed to an October 2011 referendum, in which 84 per cent of students voted in favour of a $10.35 per student levy to operate a volunteer-run station. Buchanan said a “fee agreement” with Ryerson students will ensure the financial stability of Ryerson’s new campus station. Under that agreement, students will have to hold another referendum to withdraw funding from the station, Sheldon Levy, president of Ryerson University and vice-chair of the Council of Ontario Universities said. He said the university’s board of governors would have to authorize a referendum. “The students cannot have their own referendum without the board’s support,” Levy said. He added that it is “almost impossible for me to believe that the board would ever support a referendum” to de-fund the station. Buchanan said McCarthy Tétrault will help train Ryerson station volunteers on the intricacies of the station’s obligations under the Broadcasting Act. “If you give them a licence, this first wave of 150 to 200 volunteers, nobody’s going on air unless they pass through our sieve,” he said. Evanov Communications Inc. subsidiary, Dufferin Communications Inc., also appeared before commissioners Monday to argue why it should receive the sole available licence to operate on the 88.1 MHz frequency. Dufferin triggered the commission’s call for licence applications last September when it asked to use the frequency to boost the signal of its local PROUD-FM station. In its application, Dufferin said PROUD-FM, which caters to the region’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, has run into “very serious” problems associated with its current frequency due to its proximity to other broadcasting channels. At the hearing, Carmela Laurignano, vice-president and radio group manager of Evanov, said the 88.1 MHz frequency is needed to improve the existing station’s penetration and revenues. “Our inability to generate a profit stems from our advertising revenues that have fallen short of expectations,” she said in opening remarks. “This pervasive and ongoing problem is entirely due to the lack of our signal strength and resulting inability to reach listeners and advertisers.” The hearing continues Tuesday with presentations by MZ Media Inc., La Coopérative Radiophonique de Toronto inc., CBC/Radio-Canada, and Intercity Broadcasting Network Inc. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

Ryerson University pleas for new radio licence

Broadcast | May 14, 2012

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