I've kind of lost track of what the CRTC requires of radio stations as far as news goes these days.
But at one time a radio station had to sign an agreement about foreground programming, music etc.
The CRTC always required some sort of commitment to news.
But it seems to me that's all fallen by the wayside because radio is no longer a vital source of news for the communities it serves
Or at least the CRTC no longer requires radio stations to tell residents about the latest decisions made by city council.
As an old fuddy duddy I came up in radio at a time when it was unthinkable for a radio station to not have reporters at every city council meeting, if not school boards and police commissions too.
When I worked in Vancouver almost every city council in the region held their city council meetings on a certain day of the week, and it was suicide if a radio station didn't cover all of the meetings without fail.
Also it was required for radio to do hospital checks to see who had been released from hospital if they had been admitted from a car accident etc.
When I got to Toronto we had police and fire department scanners crackling in the newsroom 24/7.
Not to mention at least two or three news cruisers roaming the streets constantly.
But at least there are still some vestiges of that left, like an example this weekend with most radio stations covering the disappearance of a three year old boy.
And at least AM radio is still covering such issues as the terrible traffic problems in Toronto and even something silly like creating Taylor Swift Way to mark the mega star's Toronto concerts.



 

Last edited by newsguy1 (July 26, 2024 5:57 pm)

Didn't work too well for Corus' CHQR on 107 FM in Calgary. But yeah, Corus did it anyway, despite knowing they weren't supposed to. 

Well for years, broadcasters were yelling about the CRTC being too heavy handed, too inflexible about formats and telling stations they had to have x number of minutes of foreground programming, news, only 51% hits on FM even regulations on how many commercial minutes they could have in a day.

Other than cancon they did deregulate years ago.  The CRTC encourage stations to have news but there doesn't appear to be any guideline other than what the station says they will do at renewal or applying for a new station license.

Today it is easy to change music formats, no commercial limits for AM or FM, and no regulation regarding foreground programming and news.  It is up to the station, and that's what broadcasters asked for many years ago. 

So this isn't really on the CRTC.  Maybe this is why they have kept cancon.  The feeling might be that stations would stop playing any homegrown music other than the Billboard cancon and largely go back to ignoring domestic artists.  Sort of like what they have done for news. 

paterson1 wrote:

So this isn't really on the CRTC.  Maybe this is why they have kept cancon.  The feeling might be that stations would stop playing any homegrown music other than the Billboard cancon and largely go back to ignoring domestic artists.  Sort of like what they have done for news. 

This.

While program directors and jocks have whined for years about Cancon, the suits that run the business have been happy to let it stay in exchange for easing the rules on spoken word content and most importantly, previous regulations that limited the number of stations that a single entity could own in one market.