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CRTC wants to clamp down on 3 U.S. South Asian border stations targeting Vancouver

Yeziknoradio said:
Is WTOR operating as a commercial station or a community station?
http://www.birach.com/application.html
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A Commercial station, but not in the usual sense.

WTOR (as many Birach stations) is what the broadcast industry (not the FCC nor the CRTC) calls a "brokered" station. Prospective broadcasters apply to the station for airtime slots, but the "winner" of a slot has to PAY birach for the airtime. This makes sense if a market can't support a full-time Punjabi, Telugu, Wolof, Polish.....or whatever, station , but could support an hour (per week or per day) ethnic program on a regular schedule, e.g., Hindi an hour a day, Spanish an hour a day, but Telugu an hour a week and Quechua an hour a week.

Toronto is THE best market anywhere for this type of operation. It has the greatest variety of languages spoken in one place in the World. No one language (not even English) is spoken at home by a majority. On the street, English is a lingua franca for all commerce and interaction between ethnic groups. Everyone knows some English or is quickly learning it.
 
fordranger797 said:
They are considered pirates in the eyes of the CRTC, which is rather strict on what programming hits the airwaves. The Washington broadcasters have a lot more leeway.
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I wonder if the CRTC consider CKWW (580 Windsor, Oldies) to be a "pirate"?, or, for that manner, CINA-FM (102.3 Windsor, Ethnic).

I don't think either side of 49° should be shutting down stations. The Washington State stations are catering to the desires of Vancouver listeners who speak languages of India and CKWW is catering to my desire to listen to oldies (It's second with me behind WWJ in my terrestrial radio listening. I only have XM in one car and not in home or at work. WOMC's 90s hits and long ad strings don't cut it).

I really dislike how corporations are getting countries to become "franchise zones", blocking content from crossing borders to protect oligarchies from competition. Even the very small competition from state-run international broadcasters has been silences in recent years.
 
1L6E6VHF said:
I wonder if the CRTC consider CKWW (580 Windsor, Oldies) to be a "pirate"?, or, for that manner, CINA-FM (102.3 Windsor, Ethnic).

I don't think either side of 49° should be shutting down stations. The Washington State stations are catering to the desires of Vancouver listeners who speak languages of India and CKWW is catering to my desire to listen to oldies (It's second with me behind WWJ in my terrestrial radio listening. I only have XM in one car and not in home or at work. WOMC's 90s hits and long ad strings don't cut it).

I really dislike how corporations are getting countries to become "franchise zones", blocking content from crossing borders to protect oligarchies from competition. Even the very small competition from state-run international broadcasters has been silences in recent years.
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No they wouldn't because they're based in Windsor, serve Windsor and transmit from Windsor.
 
1L6E6VHF said:
I really dislike how corporations are getting countries to become "franchise zones", blocking content from crossing borders to protect oligarchies from competition. Even the very small competition from state-run international broadcasters has been silences in recent years.
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It would be different if the studios for the Whatcom county broadcasters were actually located in Whatcom county. I thought the FCC required every radio station to supply some form public service programming (not to mention, a pubic file). Where can we these at KVRI and KRPI??
 
fordranger797 said:
It would be different if the studios for the Whatcom county broadcasters were actually located in Whatcom county. I thought the FCC required every radio station to supply some form public service programming (not to mention, a pubic file). Where can we these at KVRI and KRPI??
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Judging from what little "public service" programming I hear on local FM stations (and AM stations as well), I'm sure whatever thin file they may have would be quite adequate.
 
I partly agree with you on this one, though CKWW is also determined to serve the Michigan side (about 4 million in range) as well as their Ontario home audience (about 600,000 when Chatham and Sarnia are thrown in). Commercials for events and businesses that are not in Canada are a regular feature. Traffic reports cover the freeways on the US side, but do mention the 401 when something really bad happens on it. In the summer, a typical weather forecast will say "High about 80" - obviously not a Windsor forecast (that would be 176° Fahrenheit!).

True, there are a lot more English-speaking listeners in Windsor than there are Punjabi-speaking listeners in Blaine!

As for CINA-FM, during the day (and some other hours), they are in South Asian languages. That's for SW Ontario. However, in the evening, when far away WSDS gets drowned in skywave interference, CINA is in Spanish, and that's targeting Southwest Detroit.
 
By Law, CINA has to be in more than one language. There are Spanish speaking people in Windsor. That's who the programming is for. All ethnic stations in Canada have to serve a certain number of ethnic groups and languages. You can't have one station in a non-national language for it's entire programming day. That's why CHHA in Toronto has English, Italian, Tagalog, and Portuguese, although it's known as a Spanish language station.
 
I've been listening to CINA a little and looked at their website.

These days, Arabic seems to "rule". Spanish is now down to one hour per week.

While listening to CINA Saturday afternoon, ads for businesses in Sterling Heights and Troy (MI) were heard, and at 0100 Sunday, they said "Windsor-Detroit" in their ID.

Their website shows (519) and (313) phone numbers, with the next three of the 313 being 582. "LUzon" numbers are mostly in the Eastern part of Dearborn, so it seems likely they have at least a representative (and possibly a studio?) on the US side.

What you said about Canada demanding all foreign language stations be multilingual is true. I wonder if that policy gives the Stateside stations an advantage. Think of it this way: If I had to listen to WWJ in the morning for news, but had to switch to WDFN for news as WWJ could not be news, and only WXYT could be news late at night, and WOMC on weekends....and CKLW were to flip to all-news 24/7 serving Detroit, I'd be sticking with CK!
 
I don't think there's any rule against having a U.S. phone number for nearby listeners. I don't know about the rules for advertising. I'm not sure if there's a limit or if it's strictly forbidden. Someone else would have to answer that for me. I have in the past heard the occasional ad from across the border on both U.S. and Canadian stations, but it's not that common.
 
mimo said:
I don't think there's any rule against having a U.S. phone number for nearby listeners. I don't know about the rules for advertising. I'm not sure if there's a limit or if it's strictly forbidden. Someone else would have to answer that for me. I have in the past heard the occasional ad from across the border on both U.S. and Canadian stations, but it's not that common.
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It happens often on Seattle area television. Specifically the "Live Links Chat Line" commercial, which displays a phone number for the Seattle and Vancouver area. Of course, this is television, and these stations are controlled by the FCC. Nonetheless, I thought it was interesting.
 
One thing is certain, the engineer of these stations has one interesting job. Does anyone know if they have one engineer who works on the equipment at the station and then services the transmissions site?
 
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