Political pressure not a factor in granting French radio licence, CRTC vice-chair

CRTC vice-chair Michel Arpin says it was a convincing business case – and not political pressure – that prompted the regulator to change its mind and grant a licence to a French-language community radio station in Ottawa. “I am not saying that we have caved in. To the contrary, I think it is a legitimate decision and it is because the (applicants) came with a better proposal and also through negotiations and agreements, a frequency was found,” the vice-chair of broadcasting told Tech Media Reports. Last August, the CRTC rejected an application by the Radio de la communauté francophone d’Ottawa (RCFO) to operate a French-language community station on the basis that the owners did not present a compelling business case. In response, RCFO wrote to Heritage minister James Moore last September, urging him to intervene. Two months later, Moore wrote to the CRTC and ordered a review of RCFO’s application. At the new hearing, held in March, Arpin says RCFO presented more evidence regarding its financial ability to build and launch the station, something he says was absent during the first hearing held May 13, 2008. “And, also, they identified a long list of volunteers and agreements that they had with Cité collégiale and the University of Ottawa regarding the availability of volunteers to work at the station. This was not part of their original submission. It only came through in the second round,” says Arpin. As well, Arpin says a new frequency—94.5 MHz—was identified by several interveners and engineers as feasible for use by RCFO. In its initial application, RCFO had proposed that it would use 101.7 MHz, a frequency which had been granted to another applicant. Lucien Bradet, president of the RCFO, welcomed the CRTC’s decision to grant the licence but insisted that nothing changed in the proposed station’s ways of doing business. “I don’t think there was a big difference. We gave them more information, more details but the business plan was not changed. But we gave them the list of experts we are going to have, we gave them the list of volunteers we are going to have, and we explained more about the numbers. But the basics of the business plan didn’t change,” he said at a press conference, held two hours after the CRTC made the decision public. “Whatever the reason is for granting the licence, we are very pleased with it.” When it starts operations next spring, the station will air 126 hours each week of programming, most of which will be produced by volunteers from the Franco-Ontarian community. While the addition of another French-language station means that the Ottawa-Gatineau region will become a little crowded—there are already five French-language FM stations in the region—figures from the CRTC show that the radio market in the region is still quite healthy. The region’s gross domestic product has been higher than that of Quebec and Ontario since 2005 and higher than that of Canada since 2006, according to CRTC figures released last year. In addition, the Ottawa-Gatineau French-language radio stations raked $15.4 million in revenues for 2007. This is a 3% increase over the $15 million these stations garnered in 2006. “From 2002 to 2006, radio advertising revenues grew by 9.8% per year on average. In 2007, these stations earned a combined profit before income taxes (PBIT) of $3.2 million for a PBIT margin of 21%, which is higher than the PBIT margin of 18% recorded for 2006. This level of profitability compares favourably with the PBIT margins of 14% for Quebec and 20% for Canada in 2006,” according to the CRTC figures.

Political pressure not a factor in granting French radio licence, CRTC vice-chair

Broadcast | August 12, 2009

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