OTTAWA – The CRTC today announced it will hold a hearing Nov. 18, 2022, at 11 a.m. to consider applications from Stingray Group Inc. and Douglas Martin (on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated).
The Stingray application is for a broadcasting licence to operate Stingray HITS, its national English-language discretionary service devoted to music television programming with a focus on popular music videos from the past 20 years.
The CRTC’s notice of public hearing explains the service, which has been operating since July 2021, has had more than 210,000 subscribers for over three consecutive months, which makes it ineligible to operate under the CRTC exemption order (Broadcasting Order 2015-88) for discretionary television programming undertakings that serve less than 200,000 subscribers.
The notice of consultation indicates when it initially began operating the service, Stingray did not provide the CRTC with the information it requires of those operating under the exemption order.
Stingray is now seeking a five-year licence term and says it will adhere to standard conditions of licence for discretionary services.
Stingray also “proposed to devote at least 12% of the previous year’s gross annual revenues for the first three years of the licence term to the acquisition of and investment in Canadian programming (CPE) and 10% for the remaining two years of the licence term,” the notice of consultation says.
“The applicant indicated that it proposed the increased contribution to CPE in the first three years of the licence term to compensate the broadcasting system, since the applicant initially failed to register the service and failed to file a licence application for Stingray HITS – English when the service went beyond the threshold of 210,000 subscribers that rendered it ineligible to operate under Broadcasting Order 2015-88.”
Douglas Martin (on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated) meanwhile has applied “for a broadcasting licence to operate a low-power Indigenous (Type B Native) FM radio station in Gesgapegiag (Quebec),” says the notice of consultation.
“The station would operate at 101.7 MHz (channel 269LP) with an effective radiated power of 50 watts (omnidirectional antenna with an effective height of the antenna above average terrain [EHAAT] of -14.2 metres).”
The applicant proposed to broadcast 126 hours of programming per broadcast week (including 60 hours of spoken-word programming and 66 hours of musical content). In the broadcast week, the applicant proposed to air 45 hours of local programing and proposed to include 50 hours of English-language programing, five hours of French-language programming and five hours of Indigenous-language (Mi’kmaq) programming.
The deadline for interventions, comments or answers on these applications is Oct. 20, 2022.
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