CRTC hears from stations on non-compliance with licences

Canadian content regulations were front-and-centre at a CRTC hearing Monday morning to review licence renewals for CFQR-FM in Montreal and AM station CJMS in Saint-Constant, Que. The licences for the stations are due to expire Aug. 31, 2010 and both came under scrutiny by the commission for failing to abide to certain licence conditions. CFQR-FM, an adult contemporary station in Montreal, owned and operated by Corus Entertainment Inc., was found to have failed to meet Canadian content requirements during a jazz program in July 2009. Brian DePoe, the station’s program director, told the commission Monday that the failure to meet Canadian content requirements was due to a music-labeling problem. He said the “smooth jazz” program, Chill, used a faulty music database purchased from another station. “In importing this music database, when the file transfer was done, the labels and numbers didn’t match,” DePoe said. He added that the station went through the entire database, labeling each song individually, to learn which ones were Canadian. DePoe said the labeling error resulted in the station’s non-compliance in 2009, but that the station has since labeled the music correctly to meet Canadian content regulations. The CJMS station was before the commission Monday because it did not meet its obligations to contribute to Canadian talent development (CTD) by the station’s deadline. The commission said this was the second time the station was found to be in non-compliance with radio regulations set out in 1986. Alexandre Azoulay, general manager of CJMS, told the commission that, while his CTD payments were delayed, he eventually met the obligations. “We have done everything the CRTC has asked of us to the best of our abilities,” Azoulay said. The commission will determine whether the station’s licence should be revoked or renewed. If the licence is renewed, it could be for only a two-year period instead of the seven years CJMS had requested.

CRTC hears from stations on non-compliance with licences

Brief | May 10, 2010

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CRTC hears from stations on non-compliance with licences

Brief | May 10, 2010

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