Does the CRTC really think there's a commercial model for this?

Seems to me that Canada's urban Indigenous population listen to pop, country, rock, CBC, classical, sports, or none of the above, just like everyone else.

Isn't the presumption that "aboriginal" is a format kind of racist?
 

The problem with indigenous broadcasting in Canada - is very simple.  Commercial advertisers have never really embraced the TV or radio media that provide these services.  Aboriginal People's TV Network was not financially viable until the CRTC levied mandatory carriage and a significantly increased subscriber fee payable by every Cable, Satellite or IPTV subscriber.  The network has diversified its programming and has some movies and other strands of programming that attract some advertising but it is not reliant now or will ever be reliant on advertising for success/survival.  Other aboriginal radio stations have relied on government grants, contributions and I believe some may benefit from the Community Radio Fund.  But AVR has never earned much in the way of advertising revenue for its Toronto station (let alone other markets).  I could write a text book on what went wrong at AVR - but I won't.  It's a failed enterprise.   Most of AVR's funding for its network was derived from "tangible benefits money" that the larger broadcasters paid when they acquired radio, TV, or specialty TV stations.  Those benefits were paid out over 7 broadcast years from the time of acquisition, so for example, payments made by CHUM at one time, provided (reliable) annual cash-flow for more than 1/2 a decade..  Those benefits either ended, or have been curtailed by the CRTC, so that aboriginal stations cannot benefit from the large % of tangible benefits dollars - which have been re-directed by the CRTC to (only) FACTOR, StarMaker, Community Radio Fund of Canada.  Even though TV transactions throw off 10% of the purchase price in tangible benefits, the CRTC also disqualified aboriginal broadcasters from being recipients of most of this money unless it ended up "on the screen".   That leaves radio out in the cold.

Now here's the difference with other forms of broadcasting directed to minorities in Canada.  With ethnic radio there are hundreds and thousands of shop keepers, immigration specialists, cell phone resellers, restaurants, car dealers,  etc, that are the lifeblood of local and regional advertising.   Ethnic radio is vibrant and highly profitable, because the businesses in their communities, support ethnic broadcasting.  Ethnic broadcasters are particularly savvy in selling at the grass-roots local retail level.  

And that is the problem that impacts aboriginal broadcasting.  There isn't the same dynamic within aboriginal broadcasting - relative to the base of local advertisers, and unfortunately most native communities have a host of economic problems - as well as social problems, that does not result in the listener base being particularly sought after by local merchants let alone national or regional advertisers.  You might well observe that this analysis is not "politically correct" but those are the facts.   And further, across Canada governments have slashed what little money they used to devote to support aboriginal broadcasting, so to the extent that some of these stations relied on government grants, via cultural or social service ministries, those dollars have vaporized as governments have re-directed spending - often to initiatives that are vote-getters and will get their members re-elected.  The aboriginal community thus far, has not been able to re-direct or re-engage with those funding agencies to support their media outlets.  Final comment, I know it has been argued on this forum by some that aboriginal radio listeners have the same tastes that non-aboriginal listeners have.   And in a city like Toronto, many potential aboriginal listeners have chosen to listen to mainstream radio, or perhaps have assimilated to the point that they have little interest in programming in their own dialects.   That too has fragmented the potential for success of aboriginal broadcasting.  It's a very different dynamic when the matriarch or patriarch of a S. Asian family arrives in Toronto and has a strong cultural connection to the various ethnic broadcasts in their mother tongue that are available across the AM and FM dial.  I'm not diminishing the importance or the "right" of the aboriginal population to have media that address their needs.  But it is a rather complex problem, that is not going to be solved by issuing new licenses to another player for the AVR frequencies.