I was surprised to read that the owners of CINA - the Mississauga-based South Asian station at 1650 AM - had applied to the CRTC to reduce their daytime power to just 400 watts from the current 5,000, and turn down the juice at night from 680 to the same 400. 

The Commission agreed to the request and I'm guessing few of us will even notice. But the question remains - why would they do this? According to the release issued on Monday, the reason is "urgent."

The owners "indicated that the proposed amendments are both necessary and urgent due to the unexpected end of the lease for its existing transmission site. The licensee proposes to move its operations temporarily to an auxiliary transmission site with different coordinates until a permanent suitable location is established."

So for whatever reason they have to move their transmitter location. (How, exactly, does the end of a transmitter lease come "unexpectedly?") And they have until November 2027 to fix this mess. I suppose that date is just the last resort - it's almost impossible to believe they won't have found a new spot by then. 

Still, I wonder about this request. This is a huge power decrease that's bound to drop the station's reach significantly. Why would they have to go so low? And also how did they let it go this long without finding another location? I don't listen to them, but 400 watts day and night? I wonder if their target audience knows what's coming and why some will no longer be able to get them clearly. 

CINA is owned by Neeti Ray, who was up for discussion here quite a bit in the past, after he took over Bell's Funny 820 CHAM and turned it into a strange English-Punjabi music hybrid. That station's power remains untouched. 

CRTC CINA release