The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » CKNT Wants To Air More Ethnic Programming, As Rivals Rush To Stop Them

RadioActive · August 26, 2020 4:56 pm

CKNT, every SOWNY-ites favourite whipping boy, has applied to the CRTC for permission to increase the amount of ethnic programming it airs from 15% to 22%, with most of it apparently airing between 7-10 PM Monday-Friday.

But its explanation, like so many things about the station, is very odd.

“The request is being made in order to better connect and target Mississauga’s culturally diverse population. If approved CKNT will be enabled to provide the Mississauga community with programming in English and the use of foreign words along with world music to better connect the English-speaking ethnic newcomers.”

I’m not entirely sure I understand this request. They want to “use more foreign words” in their average day and air world music? Aren’t they a talk station? And what does “use more foreign words” for English-speaking ethnic newcomers mean exactly? Is that supposed to say they’ll program in English but drop in foreign phrases every now and then? And they don't play any music now. Where would that be used? Very bizarre.

Needless to say, their competition in Mississauga, CJMR at 1320 – which broadcasts in foreign languages – isn’t having any of it. In an intervention filed with the CRTC, they say this:

“Trafalgar Broadcasting considers this…to be nothing less than an attempt to be an ethnic broadcaster, deviating substantially from the original intent of offering a news/talk format dedicated to Mississauga…The applicant seeks to change the very definition of “ethnic” to reaching out to an ethnic audience in English.”

And then it adds:

“The Applicant has been on air only within the last year after a 7 year delay from the original licence in 2011 and has seemingly concluded that the format enunciated in the original application isn’t working.”

They also claim there would be substantial harm to CJMR if the CRTC grants the request, noting it’s a very crowded market and advertising revenue is already a challenge.

Evanov’s CHLO, the ethnic station from nearby Brampton at 530 AM, is also opposed, accusing CKNT of trying to muscle into its territory. And CINA, the South Asian station at 1650 on the X-band, has its own strongly worded objections in a 5-page complaint sent to the CRTC.

It’s also interesting to note that CKNT is using the law form of KPA Lawyers to represent the station – the same legal firm that regularly advertises on its airwaves.

It’s not the biggest battle in the GTA you’ll see, but it’s definitely different.

Much like CKNT itself.

And by the way, how do you say “Sauga 960” in another language?

Chrisphen · August 26, 2020 5:39 pm

I listened once! Whoever was hosting was just awful. Stammering, Repeating. Repeating her sentence. REPEATING HER SENTENCE FRAGMENTATION WITH CONVICTION.

paterson1 · August 26, 2020 7:37 pm

To me it sounds like CKNT is trying to be an english licensed radio station that is free to go in and out of other languages when they want, even during an english talk show. They likely want to increase the amount foreign language commercials all through the day and the ability of hosts to communicate in various languages. Likely they have some hosts that can speak 4 or 5 languages.

This is sort of what some of the anglo stations in Montreal were doing back a few decades ago. CKGM and CHOM both english stations had bilingual announcers that were regularly going in and out of french a fair bit on their shows. And they would slip in some french hit songs as well.

This actually went on for a few years but eventually the french stations in Montreal started to complain since they felt they were at a big disadvantage. No doubt CKGM and CHOM were seeing a big increase in francophone listeners.

French broadcasters told the CRTC that if the english licensed stations could have announcers going in and out of french and playing some of the most popular french songs along with all the english songs was unfair. If this was the case then their 60% french quote of music should be drastically lowered and they should be allowed to play a lot more english music, at least more than 40%. CKGM and the other stations were told to stop speaking french as part of their shows on air since they were an english licensed station.

So it will be interesting to see what happens with CKNT.

tvguy · August 26, 2020 8:15 pm

If memory serves me well, the KPA law firm, and signatory of the reply to the CRTC is Ms. Pannu, who has represented Ravinder Singh Pannu - before the CRTC - as recently as a few months ago.

Mr. Pannu is "well known" to the CRTC. Have a look at Broadcasting Decision 2016-421 - where Mr. Pannu "morphed" a licence exempt travel info station into a commercial ethnic station. Doesn't CKNT broadcast from his facilities????

The intervenors have a point....the CRTC will probably take 6-9 more months to render a decision...given the issues that have been raised.

BTW - what a coincidence. CKNT's address on their website 2-130 Westmore - is the "same" address as Mr. Pannu's Sur Sagar (punjabi) radio station. Small world eh?

here's the link to the 2016 Surrey BC decision. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2016/2016-421.htm?_ga=2.183945060.374612127.1598446898-1460994140.1593865737

splunge · August 26, 2020 8:46 pm

the CRTC is also confused about the application. is it to increase ethnic programming, or third language programming? in other words, english spoken word directed at minorities, or programming offered in a language that is not english, french, or indigenous.
Commisson sent this letteryesterday and is waiting for a reply. sounds like CKNT doesn't know what it's asking for or how to interpret the Policies.

RadioActive · August 26, 2020 8:58 pm

Wow. Nice to know I wasn't the only one who was confused by the rather bizarre request. My bet is they want to go after the large ethnic audience in the area, which would not only bring in ad dollars they can't get now, but also allow them potentially lucrative paid time shows.

No matter how I try to twist it around in my already twisted brain, applying to use multiple foreign languages in an English broadcast makes absolutely no sense.

Radio111 · August 31, 2020 8:33 pm

This is one thing I have never liked about the CRTC. I say let them do it and the market will decide. Likewise, other stations could do the same.

I believe a bilingual station would work in Montreal or even Sherbrooke, but the only station actually doing that is from upstate New York, where there are no restrictions on language.

darcyh · September 1, 2020 11:58 am

Didn't the former CHSC 1220 AM get into some conflict with CRTC over this?

paterson1 · September 1, 2020 2:26 pm

Radio111 wrote:
This is one thing I have never liked about the CRTC. I say let them do it and the market will decide. Likewise, other stations could do the same.

I believe a bilingual station would work in Montreal or even Sherbrooke, but the only station actually doing that is from upstate New York, where there are no restrictions on language.

94.7 Hits FM WYUL out of Chateaugay NY bills itself as Montreal's Hottest Music Station, and The Station That Sounds Like Montreal. WYUL makes no references to Chateaugay and rarely New York other than in commercials. They also target Cornwall ON for audience and commercials. They have focused on Montreal and Cornwall for over 10 years.

Weather and traffic reports are sometimes done in french, but when I heard them and listening on line doesn't sound like they play any french songs and I never caught any of their live announcers speaking french.

Some commercials are in french. Last commercial break I heard had four spots, two US national commercials and one each for businesses in Cornwall and Montreal. Another commercial break all 5 ads were geared for Montreal and two ads were in french. Listening for about 70 minutes this has been the only french I heard.

Two o'clock top of the hour they identify as a Montreal station in their legal id, and are kicking off 20 songs commercial free.

The station operator (Martz Communications) is owned by a Canadian and have 5 stations. Four of these are along the NY, Ontario/Quebec border in three small communities. They own a larger station in Pittsburgh WAMO.

Martz has sold or closed 8 stations since the formation of the company in 1986.

It would be interesting to see how successful they actually are and where they sit in the very competitive Montreal ratings, where there are 5 stations english and french with a similar format. 94.7 doesn't need to play any cancon and are not bound by any CRTC regs. They aren't in Numeris ratings for Montreal and I couldn't find anything for them on Arbitron. WYUL claimed six years ago that 90% of their revenue comes from Canada which wouldn't be surprising since Chateaugay has a population of less than 2,000. They do have a sales office in Montreal and contest winners can pick up prizes there too. i believe they also have a Montreal studio, don't know if this is actually on air or for production.

Last edited by paterson1 (September 1, 2020 5:36 pm)

darcyh · September 1, 2020 9:12 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Radio111 wrote:
This is one thing I have never liked about the CRTC. I say let them do it and the market will decide. Likewise, other stations could do the same.

I believe a bilingual station would work in Montreal or even Sherbrooke, but the only station actually doing that is from upstate New York, where there are no restrictions on language.
94.7 Hits FM WYUL out of Chateaugay NY bills itself as Montreal's Hottest Music Station, and The Station That Sounds Like Montreal. WYUL makes no references to Chateaugay and rarely New York other than in commercials. They also target Cornwall ON for audience and commercials. They have focused on Montreal and Cornwall for over 10 years.

I used to spend a lot of time in Ottawa. Around 2010 there was a station located around Ogdensburgn NY at 101.5 FM that targeted the Capital. They would occasionally make reference to their competition CHEZ. Like the station mentioned above they had local traffic reports and reported the weather temps in degrees celsius. Most of the news coverage was geared to Ottawa too. They played classic rock and would mention from time to time they were not forced to play Canadian songs. They also had a fair amount of Ottawa advertisements. I quite enjoyed it.

They were running 50KW and got a reasonably good signal into Ottawa given the distance. But the signal lacked the penetrating power to get into office buildings and low sensitivity radios. They tried this for a year or two but the effort must not have been as successful as they hoped.

RadioActive · September 1, 2020 9:16 pm

There's a station near Buffalo that does that here, but because it's ethnic, most people aren't even aware of it. WTOR 770 AM IDs itself on air as "Youngstown-Toronto." All of its programming is sold time and targets only the GTA. It's an increasingly rare daytime only outlet, which means in the winter, it's gone by 4:30 PM to protect WABC.

paterson1 · September 1, 2020 10:20 pm

I remember that station in Ogdensburg, they had five others in the area and all were owned by Martz but sold them to Stephens Media Group about 12 years ago. Like WYUL all six targeted larger markets in Canada.

The Martz station in Morristown NY which is directly across the St. Lawrence from Brockville made comments too about not having to play Canadian music and vague things about your freedom etc. The Brockville radio station BOB FM actually countered with how they played all the songs that their competitor played...but the other guys never play great songs like this...which would always be a strong cancon cut.

So who knew that Brockville of all places was a hotbed of cross border radio?? Brockville has six stations licensed to the city and there are about the same number just across the border in various small communities!

Overall it appears that other than the Montreal/Cornwall station, Martz Communications hasn't had a lot of success with their border stations over the years. They had an internet station in Detroit for a few years to do battle with Bell's 89X who at the time was doing fairly well in Detroit. The station didn't last and was closed.

Last edited by paterson1 (September 1, 2020 10:21 pm)

darcyh · September 2, 2020 2:07 am

RadioActive wrote:
There's a station near Buffalo that does that here, but because it's ethnic, most people aren't even aware of it. WTOR 770 AM IDs itself on air as "Youngstown-Toronto." All of its programming is sold time and targets only the GTA. It's an increasingly rare daytime only outlet, which means in the winter, it's gone by 4:30 PM to protect WABC.

That station gets out quite well. I can easily hear it near Grand Bend.

Another great daytimer from Sandusky Michigan at 660khz is WMIC. Classic country in the AM, swap-shop and Rush Limbaugh in PM. They broadcast Limbaugh from 14:00 - 17:00 and are the only station I know of that time shifts the show. When the days get longer they play new country until sunset. It's amazing how far the 1000 watt signal travels on this mostly clear (through the day) frequency. The station does not stream and seems perfectly happy with its daytime status.

mace · September 2, 2020 7:39 am

paterson1: Regarding WYUL, their choice of call letters is interesting since YUL is the airport code for Montreal's P.E.T. airport. I also looked the station up on Radio Locator and it has a monster signal in Cornwall and a reasonable signal in parts of Montreal. However, CHEY in Trois Riviere also operates on 94.7 which is 80ish miles east of Montreal. I don't know if their signal reaches Montreal as I couldn't find them on the Radio Locator site.

mace · September 2, 2020 7:47 am

Several years ago WTOR would sign off but the signal with dead air would sometimes remain on for 30-45 minutes. You could still hear WABC, but its signal was somewhat muffled. I suspect someone complained, and several phone calls were made. Now WTOR shuts down completely at the required time.

Radio111 · September 2, 2020 3:25 pm

Martz’s station in Detroit was actually an FM translator and yes, it did battle 89X. They had another translator with a smooth jazz format, until it was shut down for interference issues.

There are also a few stations north of Bellingham, WA that clearly target Vancouver.

brian451 · September 2, 2020 3:27 pm

There is a rock station from Burlington VT I believe that targets the Montreal area. I listen to that station when I am in Montreal because less Cancon and better music variety.

paterson1 · September 2, 2020 9:48 pm

brian451 wrote:
There is a rock station from Burlington VT I believe that targets the Montreal area. I listen to that station when I am in Montreal because less Cancon and better music variety.

I forgot about them! I think that may be WBTZ (The Buzz) out of Burlington VT. They are 100,000 watts and do reach Montreal. I do remember listening to them years ago as well, and they were a good station, and in the car came in loud and clear.

Montreal is a very competitive and unique radio town, and always had real American competition. Toronto has never had anything comparable from Buffalo or WNY . And the thing is all of these stations over the years were specifically set up to skim off ratings and revenue from Montreal/Cornwall/Brockville/Kingston/Ottawa etc. Often originating from small towns of just a few thousand people right near the border. They weren't set up to serve their local US communities but focused almost exclusively north of the border.

Actually it has been surprising that their impact over the years wasn't greater than it turned out to be. I think their window of opportunity closed years ago since radio in general is in a real uncertain time both sides of the border. And unfortunately younger people and the general population have so many more options now, that don't include radio.

If you are counting on surviving only with music, the clock is quickly ticking away.

splunge · September 14, 2020 9:47 pm

That application ended public comment on or about Sept. 11. There were several negative CRTC interventions by established broadcasters .... LISTED HERE.

Last edited by splunge (September 14, 2020 9:48 pm)