CRTC urged to mediate dispute between U of T radio station and community groups

When the CRTC’s public hearings get underway in Hull PQ next week, the renewal of University of Toronto Community Radio’s licence (CIUT FM) will not be a mere rubber stamp. Next to the merger of BCE Inc and CTV Inc, which are also on the same agenda, campus-community radio might seem like a mundane affair, but the battles at CIUT point at several new regulatory issues when it comes to the development of community-based campus radio. This hearing may be one of the first times that the federal regulator is held to task to enforce their new campus radio policy regulations (CRTC 2000-12) issued on January 28, 2000. Appearing at the hearing into CIUT’s licence renewal will be representatives of the Volunteer Action Committee to Save CIUT (VAC), consisting of former programmers and representatives from the community. In their intervention, VAC requested that the commission place "strict remedial conditions on a short-term license in order to compel CIUT to fulfill its mandate and the purpose for which the CRTC awarded it a license." The worst of the internal conflicts at CIUT got their start on October 2, 1999 when the Student’s Administrative Council took control of the campus station, locking out the programmers and instituting their own programming. SAC retained the services of Toronto-based Iceberg Media, (Virtually Canadian) an Internet broadcasting company, and sold the company the station’s airtime between midnight and 6 a.m. As well, some volunteer programmers were banned from the station altogether, and a democratically elected committee consisting of programmers, the Spoken Word Committee, was abolished. Nick Ketchum, a chief policy analyst with the CRTC says, "any broadcaster can choose what they do during non-regulated hours between midnight and 6 a.m." That freedom includes renting out the airwaves during the non-regulated hours. Eric Mills, a representative of VAC and a former programmer at CIUT, says, "the community and volunteers have been denied access to the democratic participation in the station and the community representatives that now sit on the board of directors are closely aligned with the student council and the university." But Ketchum says the CRTC doesn’t get involved with the internal battles of radio stations like CIUT. "Two major concerns are that the licensees’ board of directors are in line with the campus-community radio policy and that all members of the board of directors are Canadian citizens as is stated in the Broadcasting Act." The battle over governance at CIUT isn’t unique. Most campus-community FM radio stations serve both the campus and community, reflecting the needs of the communities and audiences they represent. Like many other student-based organizations, part of their annual budget comes directly out of a levy either direct from the student population, university or students’ council. Since the early eighties when the majority of campus radio stations in English Canada first started to get their FM licences, many of these stations started to develop into community radio stations reflecting the interests of the surrounding neighbourhoods beyond the universities or institutions where they were based. In English Canada, few community radio stations are owned and operated by local organizations independent of post-secondary institutions. According to Bridgitte Davlut, a policy analyst with the CRTC, of the 52 licensed community radio stations in Canada, only 11 are English. Of the 49 licensed campus stations, 39 are English. They’re also classed as "community-based." The current campus radio policy expects the board of directors of a campus radio station "to include balanced representation from among the student body, the associated college or university (for example, faculty or administration), station volunteers, and from the community at large." As such, groups like VAC say takeovers of the board of directors of community-based campus stations by student councils such as what took place last October at U of T, violate CRTC regulations.

CRTC urged to mediate dispute between U of T radio station and community groups

Broadcast | September 14, 2000

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