Only One Application for 580 Edmonton

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Only One Application for 580 Edmonton

Postby jon » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:55 pm

Well, it is official. The CRTC today published the only application they have received for 580 in Edmonton, the frequency surrendered by CKUA last month.

That, of course, is the existing offer from South Fraser Broadcasting Inc. (one of the letters to the CRTC is signed "Suki S. Badh, President") to transfer the license from CKUA for $1 million. Of which, $750,000 is a donation, and $250,000 is a purchase of existing equipment.

Morning Show would be 7-10am in Cantonese. 10-11am in Mandarin. 11-noon Latino. Lunch hour in English as a Multicultural Women's Show.

Afternoon Drive appears to be a trilingual mixture of Punjabi, English and Hindi. 7-8pm is in English on Multicultural Public Affairs. 9-10:30pm is Arabic. 10:30-midnight is Latino.

All other time periods vary by the day of the week.

It appears as if the station will sign off at midnight and sign on at 6:00 am, but it may just mean that they haven't decided on all night programming yet.

There has not been a change to the original plan to run the existing 10,000 watt patterns and transmitter site that CKUA used, though obviously it has to be upgraded very soon to meet Industry Canada requirements.

Hearing is scheduled for February 26th in the Ottawa region.
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Re: Only One Application for 580 Edmonton

Postby freqfreak2 » Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:48 pm

Ummm ... does that $1 million go towards upgrade costs to the existing transmitter (the cost claimed by CKUA to make the tower compliant with Industry Canada Safety Codes)?

The current site is leased year-to-year and may fall within the area Edmonton is now seeking to annex. Does South Fraser Broadcasting Inc. have the $5 million CKUA claims it would cost to build a new site should the lease be terminated?

I can see Rogers/CKER filing against the application. And I'm still wondering why they didn't apply for an all news/sports outlet (after all, didn't Rogers recently pick up broadcast rights for a major sports league). Just saying.
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Re: Only One Application for 580 Edmonton

Postby jon » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:36 pm

freqfreak2 wrote:Ummm ... does that $1 million go towards upgrade costs to the existing transmitter (the cost claimed by CKUA to make the tower compliant with Industry Canada Safety Codes)?

The current site is leased year-to-year and may fall within the area Edmonton is now seeking to annex. Does South Fraser Broadcasting Inc. have the $5 million CKUA claims it would cost to build a new site should the lease be terminated?

I can see Rogers/CKER filing against the application. And I'm still wondering why they didn't apply for an all news/sports outlet (after all, didn't Rogers recently pick up broadcast rights for a major sports league). Just saying.

As a caveat, I should mention first that "everything has changed" since all of the documents in the CRTC application by South Fraser were originally written. Other than the two responses to CRTC questions. At the time of writing the original documents, Mr. Badh expected to simply "buy" the license from CKUA.

With that in mind, the $1 million stated as to be paid to CKUA was solely for $250,000 of equipment and facilities related to the AM transmitter site. For example, remote control equipment in the studios for the AM transmitter, and the STL unit at the FM transmitter site that transmits the audio to the AM site would be included, even though they are not installed at the AM transmitter site. The other $750,000 is a straight out donation to CKUA, with no strings attached, i.e. - no requirement to add any value to the $250,000 worth of equipment and facilities.

I cannot say if CKUA explored the option, but one potential cost savings for a new 580 site would be to explore a "site share" with CJCA in Devon. As you may recall, CJCA was more or less forced out of their current site just past Edmonton City Limits, and has already got the towers in the air in Devon. Things may have changed, but the original budget for the Devon site was only $275,000 for four towers, transmitter, STL and whatever other infrastructure is required there. I am not counting the land as Touch owner Charles Allard, Jr. purchased a huge parcel to eliminate the possibility of neighbours close enough to complain, as he is running into in Calgary for the proposed CJLI-700.

Plus, I have long argued that 580 could be licensed non-directional in the daytime and only a single null at night towards two stations in the same direction, in Idaho and Fresno, on 580. I'm not aware of any co-channel requirements. Mainly as a result of Salmon Arm and Winnipeg stations on 580 moving to FM.

Those pattern changes could help reduce costs in both cases. Making tower/site sharing with CJCA more feasible. And reducing the number of towers in a stand-alone site.

As for Rogers, I can see them vigorously opposing Badh's application from the perspective of lost revenue for World-FM CKER. But I think that it is now too late for them, from a CRTC procedures point of view, to propose their own News-oriented station on 580. At least, that is how I interpreted the scheduling of the Badh application at the upcoming CRTC hearing: they had waited for any other 580 applications to come out of the woodwork, and the window of opportunity has now passed. (Hmm, I must have read the thread about writing cliches)
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