....and meanwhile, In Other NW Radio News.......

[TVradioguru]

Guru: Multilingual stations fall into the "specialty format" class up here and do require CRTC approval to make changes. This rule does not apply to the majority of stations with more mainstream formats though.

Yes I know, that's essentially what I posted. The CRTC does regulate all programming on stations North of the border, which needs to still contain a certain amount of Canadian-created content.

Regarding Bong's assumption that if Mr. Gill were prosecuted, it would be a simple matter to 'restructure' the licensing corporation to protect it is a stretch. Changes in control to family members or other corporate officers happens all the time. Nobody anymore loses their license because of a brush with the law.

 

[Dan Sys]

Bongwater: The transmitter & towers for the ex-CJOR/CHRX/CKBD 600 are still sitting intact in a field in Richmond. There was a rumour last year about CJRJ 1200 purchasing the equipment and relocating to 600, but apparently owner Jim Pattison was asking for too much money. Hopefully someone will come along and get 600 back on the air before the towers end up in the scrap yard.

 

[Steenman]

We should be sure to mention to KVOS TV that this whole 'broadcast to another country thing" will never work. Since they make oh, what about 99% of their revenue doing it.

 

[Bongwater]

We should be sure to mention to KVOS TV that this whole 'broadcast to another country thing" will never work. Since they make oh, what about 99% of their revenue doing it.

No one said it "wouldn't work." Just not a good idea anymore.

WHAT revenue? KVOS barely breaks even. If that.

They have plans to change their COL to Granite Falls and the current owners are considering changing KVOS to Spanish for the Seattle area.

KVOS is being shoved further and further down the grid on some Canadian cable systems (and a few no longer carry KVOS at all!)

KVOS is a corpse of a TV station that's just going through the motions until the inevitable......

 

[bossbill]

I thought the Canadians were turning in their AM stations for FMs, and that eventually there would be no more AMs.

 

[Bongwater]

I thought the Canadians were turning in their AM stations for FMs, and that eventually there would be no more AMs.

That was the plan, until they soon realized they were out of space on the FM band and began shoe-horning them in next to semi-locals (Red 93.1 next to KISM, The KAFE/CHHR frequency swap, 100.5 CKPK next to super-power Victoria station 100.3 CKKQ - which is a blaster in Vancouver as well, etc, etc......)

They could continue this, but it's nearly at the point of FM cannibalism in the Lower Mainland.

Something's gotta give.......

 

[IndigoCoyote]

IIRC, KVOS had their app for move to Granite Falls as a Hispanic Seattle rimshot rejected by the FCC. Seems like this was a few months ago, but I am fuzzy on the details.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

Bong's original point for starting this thread has not really been addressed by the rest of you. If you check the Canadian news from Vancouver once in a while, (guess you have to have Comcast to get its sole Canadian offering on channel 99/619 at 10pm), you'd already know that there are elements of the Sikh community in Vancouver that are notorious for shootings and criminal activity. Not unlike a South Asian mafia, if you need a comparison. Some of these Sikh parties have been considered terrorist elements by the US government for years.

I'm not saying all Sikhs, of course, are criminals, or are connected to the people who have been accussed (and some convicted) of murder in greater Vancouver. I also think they deserve programming for and about their community in Vancouver, and in Seattle as well.
But in this case, people are getting away with murder, or at least in league with those arrested for it. And the time brokered foreign language programming on the stations licensed to the US side of the border on AM 1550 and 1600 is immune from the Canadian law, even tho' the stations (or its programmers) sponsor events in Vancouver all the time, and have a visable presence there. But on the American side of the border, no one's paying attention to what actually gets aired on these two stations. Something fishy seems to have been going on there for some time now, and the latest shooting seems to indicate some sort of connection to the broadcasters.

I was always astounded (but not surprised) that no self-described conservative American patriots took up the cause of dealing with cross border Sikh extremists, their weapons, their family "enforcement" meaures of their leaders' interests, and their funding for radicals causing terrorist activities in India - when there's a home grown connection on the air in the programming on AM 1550 or 1600. It warrants some real journalistic investigation. And might result in some further bloodshed. But if all you on this side of the border are commentators spouting the party's daily political talking points, we'll probably never know how the American airwaves have been involved in some degree of aiding and abetting the Sihk separatist movement.

American radio can be better than this.

 

[Dan Sys]

You summed things up pretty good Goldilocks, but I might add that there are two existing on-air South Asian (aka: Punjabi) stations up here, CKYE 93.1 (Red FM) and CJRJ 1200 as well as a couple of subcarrier (SCMO/SCA) stations. In 2008 the Sikh-Punjabi population in the Lower Mainland was pegged somewhere in the 220,000 range. The market definitely does exist for these stations.

Bongwater....yes, the FM dial up here is bursting at the seams. Not only in Vancouver, but even in places like Edmonton where CTV/CHUM recently voluntarily rescinded a construction permit for a new FM claiming that they couldn't find a suitable frequency to launch the station. Their only option would have been a low power facility sandwiched in-between two high powered stations (which they obviously didn't want).

 

[Bongwater]

You summed things up pretty good Goldilocks, but I might add that there are two existing on-air South Asian (aka: Punjabi) stations up here, CKYE 93.1 (Red FM) and CJRJ 1200 as well as a couple of subcarrier (SCMO/SCA) stations. In 2008 the Sikh-Punjabi population in the Lower Mainland was pegged somewhere in the 220,000 range. The market definitely does exist for these stations.

Bongwater....yes, the FM dial up here is bursting at the seams. Not only in Vancouver, but even in places like Edmonton where CTV/CHUM recently voluntarily rescinded a construction permit for a new FM claiming that they couldn't find a suitable frequency to launch the station. Their only option would have been a low power facility sandwiched in-between two high powered stations (which they obviously didn't want).

It was a similar problem for RJ (CJRJ 1200) - There just wasn't any decent FM frequencies available. 1200 was available (after CKDA/CKXM in Victoria went FM in 2000, now CJZN.) So they settled for 1200 AM instead of fighting with everybody else over a mediocre FM frequency.

I see a similar problem looming in the not-too-distant-future for the US. Everyone wants to be on FM. But there just isn't the real estate on the dial to satisfy everybody currently. One way I've suggested a long time ago (and it's good to know some are finally taking this idea seriously) is expanding the FM band down to 76 MHz which would include the Japanese FM Band (our analog TV Ch. 5 & 6.) which will create tons of new space for lower power FM stations.

It only makes sense.

 

[TVradioguru]

is expanding the FM band down to 76 MHz which would include the Japanese FM Band (our analog TV Ch. 5 & 6.) which will create tons of new space for lower power FM stations.

It only makes sense.

From a practical standpoint, no it doesn't. The problem being, nobody is buying new radios nor have they over the past ten plus years. Sure if you put expanded band radios in new cars there would be a very slow migration, but what broadcaster would want to make the large investment, nor be relegated for an indeterminate length of time, to a place on the dial where no one is listening? It could take twenty years for the level of expanded band radios to equal the radio types of today.

 

[pbf1]

...then explain expanded-band AM's success...

 

[TVradioguru]

What success? You make my point perfectly!

AM is in decline and there are/were no successful AM stations in the expanded band anywhere. The addition to the AM band was made back when new radio purchases were still happenning in the late 70's I believe. Fast forward to the 21st Century, where we are today. Radio is still popular but on existing radios. Nobody but a handfull of hobbyists are buying any new radios, unless it comes in that new car you just purchased.

 

[SRP]

...then explain expanded-band AM's success...

Here's a good "explanation": http://rwonline.com/article/105898

(yes, it's about HD AM but it still covers the challenges AM faces)

 

[Bongwater]

...then explain expanded-band AM's success...

Here's a good "explanation": http://rwonline.com/article/105898

(yes, it's about HD AM but it still covers the challenges AM faces)

I love how my words get twisted up here, but I was talking about expanding the FM band.... FM......not AM.

....unless you think radio itself doesn't have a chance

 

[TVradioguru]

If you went back and read the thread, I believe you'd see my comment about the challenges with the premise of expanding the FM band. After that, pdf sited the "success" of the AM expanded band. SRP and I were making the point that the AM expanded band was essentially a failure for several reasons in spite of the fact that in the 1970's, radio was still the only real choice for listening to music and news. Also being sited was the decline of AM listening.

Really the 'thinning of the herd' by the vibrant operations moving to the existing FM dial is a good thing. Some of the operators who have no business being in radio can go on to other lines of work, leaving the ones who have the resources and business acumen to continue with success. Some of the markets, many small or fringe ones areas, have become too crowded with 'shoe-horned' in stations. Not everyone can or will make the move. It will be good for the business and for listeners.

 

[Dan Sys]

I would imagine any potential expansion on the FM band to 76 MhZ in the U.S. wouldn't be able to happen until both Canada & Mexico flip their existing analog TV stations to digital. Canada was originally going to do this in summer 2011, but now I'm hearing that the deadline might be moved up a year or two. Mexico apparently has no plans to make the transition until the 2020's.

Guess there will be a channel 6 in Victoria & Tijuana for a few more years yet to screw up any plans in the U.S. for FM expansion.

 

[Bongwater]

I would imagine any potential expansion on the FM band to 76 MhZ in the U.S. wouldn't be able to happen until both Canada & Mexico flip their existing analog TV stations to digital. Canada was originally going to do this in summer 2011, but now I'm hearing that the deadline might be moved up a year or two. Mexico apparently has no plans to make the transition until the 2020's.

Guess there will be a channel 6 in Victoria & Tijuana for a few more years yet to screw up any plans in the U.S. for FM expansion.

It is actually being talked about by one of the FCC's honchos (I forgot her name.) And I think it is possible, within limits on border regions and open season everywhere else inside the US until everything gets synchronized. I'm sure Canada especially would be open to this idea. it would allow Canada to abandon the AM dial completely (something they've been after for a long time anyway.) Which would be thrilling for our AM DXer friends and could pave the way for AM as use of a low-power hobby/experimental band. The only kind of popular use it's going to have left at the rate things are going.

They say the once near-death CHEK-TV will soon be doing digital testing (I think they have already started, have they?)

I would like to see other things, such as DRM included as an Ibiquity digital radio alternative for LPFM and other stations that want it. But that has as much chance as a snowball in a microwave oven.

But overall, I would say terrestrial radio itself as a quaint, audio-only, mass medium's days are numbered. As it is, it simply cannot compete with the high-tech new stuff they're coming out with.

I can envision a day when terrestrial radio will actually be more like a combination of visuals, audio and direct web information with on-demand selections and various sub-channels offering other things besides carefully programmed music, news and talk.

I hear the Japanese are experimenting with that idea. And if it's high-tech and flies in Japan, it's guaranteed to take off in America and around the world....

Imagine this: Punch in KIXI in 2040 (79.9 MHz "Almost 80 KIXI", which is how old they may actually be by this time) one day and you will not only hear just an audio stream of '90s Adult Contemporary hits (which KIXI will probably be playing by this time as "adult standards"), but watch the videos for them as well. Click on a subchannel for news, traffic and weather, another for on-demand replays (or thousands of other songs, from Harry James to Slipknot, after the ubiquitous advertisement.) Another for advertising filled free internet, another for the KIXI Home Shopping Channel (for no muss, no fuss delivery of your oat bran cereal and Depends) etc.

It has potential.......

(And NO, I'm not making fun of older folks. Gravity isn't a friend of mine either at 42......)