CRTC grants non-profit new license on the AM dial after CKLN debacle, but critics say new board overseeing station’s operations shuts out community voices
By Anthony P. Gulston
December the 31st, 2014
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Three years after losing its broadcast license in a series of implosions at campus radio station CKLN-FM, campus radio is back at Ryerson University.
Radio Ryerson Inc., the non-profit that owned the CKLN license before it was revoked in 2011, obtained a new license from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) December 11 to broadcast at 1280 kHz on the AM dial. Yes, medium wave.
The Scope, as the station will be known, is expected to officially take to the air in January of 2016. It had been streaming online at thescopeatryerson.ca.
The terms and conditions calls for 126 hours of programming each week, with the bulk of that, some 120 hours, devoted to local and Canadian programming. The format will include a mix of music with a focus on emerging artists. The station will borrow space on the transmission tower at Unwin and Cherry now used by Voces Latina.
But while Radio Ryerson was able to obtain a license, it was not without opposition. Two former CKLN staffers, Greg Duffell and Daniel Besharat, urged the CRTC to deny the application arguing the Ryerson Students Union will exercise too much control over the station, including on the board charged with overseeing its operations. Of the board’s nine members, only two will be chosen from the community at large. Six will come from the Ryerson student body and administration, with the station director rounding out the complement.
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