CFRB

[Scott Fybush]

At 12:05 PM 11/18/2003 -0800, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>860 is a sticky wicket for CBC/SRC I suppose. I can not fathom SRC setting 
>up a FM repeater system in french to cover Ontario but they did blanket 
>Quebec with the english service so who knows.

Actually, SRC does have a network of FM repeaters in Ontario! They're on AM 
in Toronto and Windsor, but it's relayed on FM in places like Kingston, 
Peterborough, London, Chatham-Kent, Sarnia, and so on. And up in Sudbury, 
which has a fairly large Francophone population, SRC's CBON originates some 
local programming and is heard on a network of repeaters across northern 
Ontario.

And it gets even better - the CRTC wants every provincial capital and a 
certain percentage of each province's population to be able to hear not 
only CBC Radio 1 and Radio-Canada's premiere chaine - they also want CBC R2 
and R-C's chaine culturelle to be available there. So the CBC is building 
Radio 2 outlets in places like Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres where nobody 
will be listening, and R-C is expanding CJBC-FM (la chaine culturelle) from 
Toronto over a relay network that will eventually include London/Paris and 
other outlying areas. And sure enough, statistically, NOBODY is listening. 
There are probably a dozen languages, at the very least, with more speakers 
in southern Ontario than French - but those listeners have to be content 
with what commercial radio (CHIN's two stations, Fairchild's two 
Asian-language outlets, CIAO 530) offer them, since the CBC/SRC is mandated 
to do just English and French.

>That said I still do not follow the logic of moving the CBC to FM. You 
>would think the government would want to allow a Canadian viewpoint to be 
>heard in the US and that the AM blowtorch signals could cover the holes of 
>the repeater system.

The CBC is sincerely focused solely on its domestic audience. They believe 
ANY service beyond the borders should come from Radio Canada International, 
which (though operated by the CBC) comes from the Montreal headquarters 
instead of from the Toronto English network HQ and is therefore viewed as a 
completely alien institution by the Toronto bureaucrats. And CBC mgmt 
believes that they need to reach a younger audience and the way to do that 
is on FM. Logic has no place in this argument :-)

s