Four License Applications for Edmonton

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Four License Applications for Edmonton

Postby jon » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:36 pm

The CRTC announced today that they have received four license applications for a new Ethnic Commercial station in Edmonton.

This all comes out of an agreement from several years ago where South Fraser Broadcasting, owned by Sukhvinder (Suki) S. Badh, would pay CKUA $1 million if they can get CRTC approval to replace CKUA on 580. CKUA vacated the frequency in late 2013 and now only has FM transmitters across Alberta.

Two applications are for what is currently considered the last available Edmonton FM frequency, 106.5 MHz. Obviously, if AVR loses its national license, and no one else picks it up, a full 100,000 watt FM station will be possible here. On 106.5 MHz, both applicants are asking for 9-10KW.

The final application is a bit of a shocker, at first glance, as it represents, if approved, the first license for the Nosebleed section of the AM band in Western Canada. Admittedly, we used to have a station on 530 in Alberta, which is also an extension of the Broadcast Band as it was since 1941 (540-1600), but is severely restricted in terms of power and potential interference with Aircraft Navigation beacons.

There is a lot of wisdom to the plan though. Although I have not seen the technical details, other than the fact that they are asking for 10,000 watts on 1650 KHz, I strongly suspect it will be non-directional, which really reduces the costs of a transmitter site, since they only need one tower.

This is only the beginning, however. In the words of the CRTC "the Commission calls for comments on the capacity of Edmonton to support a new station and on whether it should issue a call for applications for new radio stations to serve that market." I am sure that that we will see lots of additional applicants, and not just for Ethnic service, if the CRTC decides to allow more stations in Edmonton.

As you will see in
http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2015/2015-135.htm
the CRTC only shows the financial numbers for the entire market. Which, to me, would seem rather irrelevant for Ethnic station applications such as these. Hopefully, they will make that decision based on the financial numbers for Rogers' World-FM and W-14-40's ethnic block programming, which are currently the only game in town.

There really are two decisions that the CRTC needs to make here, and they are not at all related in my opinion: can Edmonton support another Ethnic station? Can Edmonton support another English language radio station? Currently, with the job losses that we have had and the more that will come if Oil prices stay low, I doubt the market could handle another English language station, but there seems to be room for at least another Ethnic station.
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