I told them what I think about adding more new programing on HD subchannels.
It should be manditory that broadcasters using HD radio: have different programing than their am radio stations on a subchannel, premote HD radio and for ethnic broadcasters, have hosts and news/talk/community programing on their ethnic subchannels.

paterson1 wrote:

Need I remind you, It was the CRTC that licensed cable companies to carry CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS and later FOX across the country, 50 years ago.  We had better picture quality and more variety of programming and channels than much larger US cities for years.  And these stations were available in communities that they never would reach off air.  The CRTC in fact 50 years ago opened up the US OTA networks across the country.

   
While there is some truth to what you say, here's another fact you might not like quite as much. In the early days of cable, I would argue that no one would have paid for TV if the American signals were not included. They brought them in clearly with no snow or fading, as was often common in the analogue days. I'm not sure it's correct to say that this was an add-on bonus, as you infer. It was THE reason most got cable in the first place.

No one, at least not in Toronto, would have paid extra to get CFTO or CBLT when they could already receive them perfectly. Small towns may have been different. But it seems obvious the U.S. signals were the big selling point. And that's why they had no choice but to include them.   

paterson1 wrote:

Typical of your smug pro US, anti Canadian broadcast bias.  Seems like you are trying to spin negative on this survey before even knowing much about it or what you are talking about.

   
I don't have an "anti-Canadian bias" as you suggest. I have an extreme anti-government-controlling-broadcasting bias. I suppose it's only fair to say I don't entirely blame the CRTC. They are only "following orders" of a controlling Canadian government, who don't want to give you choice on what you can see or who you can get it from. I happen to resent that mightily and will fight against it until they take the clicker out of my hand in a pine box. 

Why should Canadians be denied the right to access some of the best American channels just because of a border? Yes, I get the rights argument, but they could purchase North American rights and give us access to everything. I once owned one of those C-Band satellite dishes. Man, that was true TV heaven!

I got it because of a) the choices it opened up and b) because I was making a statement about government control of our media choices even then. 

And don't get me started on that dreaded buzz word "discoverability." One of the CRTC mandates is that you should be able to find every single Canadian show available, even if you're not interested in it. I'm still not sure what form this will take - will it mean shoving Canadian titles or Indigenous shows you have no interest in to the top of the guide or list? That's what it sounds like. 

Hey, CRTC - I'll make my own list and decide what I want to see without you pushing it on me. In fact, your "discoverability" will likely make me less likely to watch anything you want me to find.   

paterson1 wrote:

I seem to remember you trying to trivialize the results of a CRTC survey on radio a few years back.  The survey confirmed that cancon on radio didn't seem to be that big a deal for the average listener, and most were fine with the current levels of domestic music on radio.  Not the answer that industry people were looking for.

I have no memory of this but it sounds like me. I have never believed government should dictate what is played on the radio, no matter the reason. Let the damn audience decide! If a band or a song is good, it will break through. That said, I will admit that the Cancon rules worked and that the Canadian music industry is thriving. So they got what they wanted. Maybe that's reason enough to cancel the damn thing already. 

paterson1 wrote:

I hope this survey is well received and thousands take the time to help improve and update the Broadcast Act. More important, I hope that the CRTC actually does update the Broadcast Act.  And I do thank you for posting this.  But it would be nice for a change if you didn't feel necessary to always try and spin negative on almost anything about Canadian broadcasting.   

Again, it's not Canadian broadcasting I have an issue with. It's government interference in programming and choice on any level that I have railed against for years. It simply isn't necessary and it's not right. What the hell is wrong with freedom of choice? We no longer really have it the way we once did since cable reared its ugly wire head and the powers-that-be discovered they could decide which channels were allowed to come into the country. 

Do you really want any government to have that power? I think I've made it clear I don't, especially since they can't resist in meddling in the business I made a living from for so many years. 

This is why I still have an antenna. Free to watch and freedom to watch. And best of all, they can't do anything about it. I highly recommend it. 

They also nead to increas cancon for cat3 music like folk and traditional music.
That's whare a lot of the unknown and regional groups are.
Examples, the fables, harry hibs, roy pain and eddy coffee.

We always get into long over-drawn arguments over this issue, so to save everyone's time I'll just make some bullet points. 

-I don't hate Canadian broadcasting or its stations, despite your contentions. My main belief is, and always has been, that they could get along just fine without any government interference or onerous regulations. The CRTC and the feds are NOT broadcasters. Leave us alone and let those who understand the biz do what they do best. 

-There's no arguing that American stations were the real draw for cable companies in those early years. Yes, small towns benefitted from clearer pics from some Toronto and other stations, but without Buffalo (or Detroit, depending on where you grew up) no one would have forked over the money every month. Sorry, but I find it hard to believe anyone would willingly spend whatever dollars it was in those early days to see CKNX-TV in Wingham. 

-Yes, I fundamentally dislike the CRTC, and from what I've heard from those who appeared before them for various reasons, including licence renewals, they are often a bunch of arrogant know-it-alls who are experienced in regulating but not in broadcasting. And boy does it show. Leave the programming to the programmers and get out of our business. It's like going to a pharmacist to get your car fixed or an auto mechanic to get your prescription filled. Neither know the other's business. Leave them to their expertise and keep away from mandating what must be aired. 

-The CRTC should be for awarding licences and preventing interference. Never, ever for program decisions. They're appointed bureaucrats not broadcasters and in my observations over a lifetime of watching them, almost always make the worst decisions possible. 

-"Our freedoms and choices aren't always the same as south of the border.  It has always been this way, and hopefully always will be." God I hope not. We have fewer "freedoms" and far less choice. Why would we want to keep it that way? Let broadcasters free of some these ridiculous rules and see what happens. 

-Contrary to your assertions, I love broadcasting, Canadian or otherwise. That's why I devoted my entire life to it. I just wish they would stop clipping its wings here in Canada so we could see how high it could really fly without all those unnecessary and often idiotic rules. 

Canadian media is fine. If they would just let them do what they know how to do best.

If I had a choice between listening to a radio station programmed by a J. Robert Wood or a Rick Sklar or one with a CRTC drone at the helm, you know which one I'd have my dial tuned to. They don't know radio. Regulate who gets what frequency. Decide who gets awarded a licence.

But for God's sake, let the pros do what they do best and keep the government bureaucrats' noses out of programming. Period.

Why is that so hard to understand?

splunge wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

If I had a choice between listening to a radio station programmed by a J. Robert Wood or a Rick Sklar or one with a CRTC drone at the helm, you know which one I'd have my dial tuned to. They don't know radio. Regulate who gets what frequency. Decide who gets awarded a licence.

But for God's sake, let the pros do what they do best and keep the government bureaucrats' noses out of programming. Period.

Why is that so hard to understand?

WTF are you talking about constantly.... the CRTC DOES NOT regulate mainstream commercial radio programming other than 35% Cancon, which has been debunked as a threat.

I guess I'm the only one who feels that any government intrusion in broadcasting is too much. 

And it's not just CanCon. Anyone remember when hits were restricted on FM? How about that ridiculous foreground programming FM stations had to do, which chased listeners elsewhere for the most part? While WBEN-FM in Buffalo was attracting ears from this side of the border, station owners panicked and pleaded with the CRTC to do something. They could have easily allowed Top 40 on FM. But no. They had their rules, and we had to protect AM stations. So they made it impossible for Canadian companies to advertise on Rock 102, instead of just allowing competition. 

This is the kind of thinking I'm referring to. No government agency tells Tom of Tom's Place how much Canadian cloth he needs in one of his suits. Why is a government agency allowed to continually stick its fingers into broadcasting and almost always come up with the wrong answer?

Anyway, that's my response and I'm done with this argument. The CRTC should stick to what it's good at (although I'm honestly not quite sure what that is) and leave radio to the professionals. 


Standing in the way of competition, again. 

paterson1 wrote:

Toronto broadcasters were never interested in selling ads in the Buffalo market, which was shrinking and in steep economic decline in the 70's, 80's.  Meantime the GTA was booming and growing quickly.  So why would Toronto stations discount their rates just to actively sell ads in Buffalo?  That makes no sense.

Which conveniently ignores the fact that Toronto advertisers were spending money buying commercials on the Buffalo station, potentially taking revenue away from broadcasters here. That's why so many complained and that's why the government acted. But if they'd just let Canadian stations compete by losing some onerous regulations, it might not have been necessary in the first place. 

Again, my point - holding Canadian stations back instead of allowing them to compete on a level playing field. 

I don't get your reasoning. Why would the CRTC have to intervene on the WBEN-FM case if stations here weren't worried about it? They never did that before. I remember those days well and there were lots of newspaper stories (back in the day when they actually carried radio stories) about how irate the Toronto locals were - especially the rockers - about losing potential customers to the high powered Buffalo upstart. 

You don't take such action unless there's a reason. If they had nothing to fear as you imply, then why intervene?

But if the government had just let Canadian stations compete, we might have had our own Top 40 stations on FM way back when, and maybe advertisers would have been attracted to that alternative. But they had needless regulations in place to prevent that. So they resorted to other more Draconian measures instead.

I was around when Rock 102 was attracting big numbers from Southern Ontario. There was nothing great about WBEN-FM, except that it was playing Top 40 on FM in stereo, something our guys weren't allowed to do by CRTC fiat. 

None of it would have been necessary if they just let broadcasters decide what works. Encourage competition, don't blunt it. Stop imposing unnecessary rules that hold them back. I'm not sure why you're defending the indefensible. Competition almost always benefits the listeners. Protectionism rarely does.  

The countries with the best english language radio formats that I explored on radiomap.eu are, Croatia, they still have a soft AC formated station, Hungary, They have a station playing 90s and 00s music in english with some hungarian music And the UK, A huge variety of DAB stations in formats the CRTC won't get licenced in Canada like Soft AC and a lot of nostalgia stations.

I believe the pending FM decision they're talking about in this 1976 story may have been for CKO. Anyone know?

Ok, I'll be trivial and stupid one more time.  The general manager of WBEN "guesstimates 500,000 listeners per week" mostly from Canada.  Wow, wonder why he doesn't have better information than just guessing.  And the fact that they are taking in $250,000 a year in advertising and doing so well makes it even more curious why all the Canadian advertising dried up after the tax write off was closed.  If the ratings were so great and they were bringing in all this cash from across the border, some of it especially national advertising should have continued.  HHHmmm, maybe Paul Butler exaggerates a bit too, station managers have been known to do this...

Lorne wrote:

I was in high school from 1973-78 and listened to Rock 102 a lot, as did many of my friends ... and although market research was still in my future, it was obvious from the number of Canadian ads that they were getting a significant number of Canadian listeners. But while I liked the superior sound quality of hearing the hits on FM, I also liked the fact that they were playing songs I wasn't hearing much or at all on Toronto-area radio. An obvious reason for that is that they were playing songs that were making the US top 40 but not the top 10, and so it only made sense that some of those records wouldn't get as much or any airplay here because of the need for our stations to play 30% Cancon. But on top of that, the type of songs that were mentioned earlier didn't get as much or even any airplay on Rock 102. In particular, as someone who didn't like Donny and Marie's songs, I don't recall Rock 102 playing them at all -- I think because they were more oriented towards songs that would benefit more from the "Dolby FM" sound that they regularly mentioned in their IDs.

I have a very odd memory of Rock 102 and I still think of it to this day. They were playing "Photograph" by Ringo Starr, but for whatever reason, the record they were using that was dubbed to those large reels had a flaw in it. At the part where Ringo sings "And we grow old and grey" had a warp or something wrong with it.

The song was in high rotation on the station and every time it played, we heard "grew old/grey." It skipped on the word "and" and always played that way. To this day, whenever I hear that song, I always brace for that glitch, even though it's not there. I just heard it that way so often on 102.5 that even now, I expect to hear it happen again. 

From the television side, the CRTC has done several things correctly. We have timeshifting of both Canadian and U.S. networks, which in the case of the American nets allows me to escape almost all simsubs. The Buffalo stations would go on spin cycle if out of market signals from different time zones were permitted. Canadian viewers also don't have to worry about signal disruptions because of local channel carriage fee disputes.