OTTAWA – One might not think that an application to set up a community radio station in Chibougamau, a small community about 475 km northeast of Quebec City, would draw much attention.
But the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) has intervened before the CRTC to ask that the application from Radio Matagami be rejected. The CRTC will hold a public hearing in Gatineau Dec. 12th.
The proposed community station would serve both Chibougamau and the smaller town of Chapais 50 km away, a market of about 7,000 people. It would provide community news and play a broad range of music.
The CAB draws the CRTC’s attention to the “precarious” situation faced by many small commercial French-language stations, among them Radio Chibougamau’s CJMD, serving both towns.
Many of Quebec’s small-market stations have a population base of less than 50,000, but the CAB says that in the case of CJMD, it’s barely over 7,000.
Moreover, it says, figures show commercial francophone stations serving less than 100,000 people generated an average $670,000 in revenues in 2004, and recorded a net benefit after taxes of $43,000.
“If it wasn’t for its isolated geographic position, it is strongly likely that a market as small as that of Chibougamau would never be able to support the presence of local radio financed solely by publicity, mostly local,” the CAB writes in the French-language submission.
And given that CJMD is a primary service station, providing a broad range of information to reach as much of the community as possible, it could not survive “the addition of any station, even a community one.”
Glenn Wanamaker is cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor.
