Radio CHIN Toronto announced that effective Monday June 24, all Italian language programming will be on CHIN AM. The programming had been on 91.9 FM and 100.7 FM along with Saturday mornings on the 1540 AM station. Just a response to the changing demographics of Toronto. The Italian population, though extensive, is aging and other ethnic groups are growing. CHIN is the leading multicultural broadcaster in Toronto.
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CHIN shifts Italian language programming to AM
- Thread starter RadioGuy1864
- Start date
91.9 FM was originally licenced to be a 1540 repeater. I'm not sure how it was granted (by CRTC) to be anything else...
They applied and the CRTC granted it. The FM-1 was originally licensed on 101.3 in 1997, changed frequency and according to wiki:
On November 28, 2016, Radio 1540 Limited applied to operate a separate originating FM station under CHIN-1-FM's current technical parameters, specifically, at frequency 91.9 MHz with an average effective radiated power (ERP) of 1,850 watts (maximum ERP of 5,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 86 metres).[15] The CRTC approved Radio 1540 Ltd. application on May 5, 2017.[16]
42 hours a week, clear as day MUST be identical to what is aired on 1540. 100% of the programming on 91.9 FM currently is a stand alone FM radio station. Something illegal going on...??
The wiki article appears to say "Seperate originating FM station" and i didnt see the 42 hour mention anywhere
This was deleted because it is repeating itself somehow.
Applications. #4: "During each broadcast week, the station would broadcast 126 hours of programming, 84 hours of which would be devoted to local programming. For the remaining 42 hours (i.e. between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. each day), the station would simulcast CHIN’s programming." Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2017-136 | CRTC
Read all the way into the decision. 91.9 *may* simulcast no more than 42 hours a week from 1540 and *must* originate at least 84 hours a week of local programming. It's not required to simulcast 1540 at all.
And that "126 hours of programming" is a CRTC technicality - overnights don't count in a Canadian licensee's programming obligations.
And that "126 hours of programming" is a CRTC technicality - overnights don't count in a Canadian licensee's programming obligations.
So basically what CHIN has done is shift all Italian language programming to AM, and taken the Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese programming and shifted it to 100.7, the "flagship " signal. This opened up time on 91.9 for other languages (Italian was on 91.9 and 100.7). Spanish which was also on 100.7 was relegated to early --5:00am to 7:00am-- morning hours on 91.9 and decent hours on Saturdays. Italian is now on 6 days a week, no hours on Sundays.
Listening to CHIN AM today (yes I am 100% fluent in Italian) it was almost as if the hosts were saying anything they could think of to mollify the audience with the move to AM, saying that everyone could listen on the website or download the app. As far as I can tell, so far no effect on sponsors/spots, everything seems as it was, but hey, it's just the first week.
CHIN AM is "streaming" overnights in Italian, which in their definition is just basically a music library on shuffle. Nothing except liners and station ID. As Scott said above, overnights don't count in Canada.
Listening to CHIN AM today (yes I am 100% fluent in Italian) it was almost as if the hosts were saying anything they could think of to mollify the audience with the move to AM, saying that everyone could listen on the website or download the app. As far as I can tell, so far no effect on sponsors/spots, everything seems as it was, but hey, it's just the first week.
CHIN AM is "streaming" overnights in Italian, which in their definition is just basically a music library on shuffle. Nothing except liners and station ID. As Scott said above, overnights don't count in Canada.
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I’ll go against the grain and say that I don’t see how shifting specialty programming to AM automatically results in something negative. I certainly would agree with the notion that FM is superior, but this isn’t a case where you have two stations with a similar format battling for ratings (with one being on FM and the other on AM). Someone who wants to listen to Italian language programming may not be happy that the programs have moved to AM, but I’d bet that they will still tune in. As long as we’re not talking about a very weak AM station with poor coverage, listeners will still seek out the programming they want to listen to. If you told me that I could no longer listen to the music I wanted on FM (but could find it on AM), I would still seek it out.
All good until an Italian person decides to go buy a modern day car... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent...boards-how-big-of-a-loss-will-it-be-1.6852954
Also the coverage of the AM, while acceptable in most Toronto itself, is lacking in many parts of the GTA. After sunset is also a problem in the fall and winter.
I don't doubt for a second that they're (most likely) thinking that as long as the AM 1540 signal is strong and well in the Italian community along College street in Toronto, all is good...
Demographics are shifting in Toronto. I can see why they’d want to free up time on their bread and butter FM station for programming that might have more appeal. Not that Italian language programming doesn’t also have appeal, but perhaps not as much so as previous decades.
A question: Is the Italian community in Toronto similar in origins to that of Boston, New York, Philly and Cleveland? In that case, it is well into the 4th and 5th generation, and the folks who speak the language are really, really old. Unless there was a new migration following WW II, it is unlikely that there are many Italian speaking persons around any more.
There was a small Italian community in Toronto going back many years, similar in immigration patterns to the USA. Then in the 1960's US immigration laws changed and many hundreds of thousands of Italians immigrated to primarily Toronto, some to Montreal and Ottawa in the mid 1970's to mid 1980's. Most from Calabria, and from Sicily. That would be the "new" first generation population. So if they were in their 20's in 1970's, they are in their late 50's to 60's today. Italian migration continued well into the early 90's but not in the vast numbers seen earlier. Statistics Canada puts the Italian language speaking population of the GTA at about 160,000.
Most of the Italian population shifted away from the College Street "Little Italy" years ago, first to the St. Clair Ave West area, now mostly in the suburban Woodbridge/Vaughan area, that's the newer Little Italy.
Thanks for the clarification. That means that most potential listeners are in their 60's or older. Second generation listening, whether Italians in Toronto or Mexican-Americans in LA, don't use non-English media much.
But ethnic stations like this one get a lot of their revenue from the community they serve, so age issues are less pronounced. I would believe that a station in Italian programming has another decade of useful life in Toronto, but it will be in economic decline all that time.
You are on target, I'd say another 10 years is about right. If we look at NYC, for example, there is no longer any OTA Italian language programming. It slowly diminished in the late 70's and was almost totally gone by the late 80's/early 1990's. What was left was a few hours on weekends on small suburban AM's. In fact the last Italian programing may have been on WVOX on Sundays. Long gone are the "glory days" of WOV, WHOM and WHBI.
Here's the list of languages spoken in Toronto according to Wikipedia...
1. English
2. Mandarin
3. Cantonese
4. Tagalog (Filipino)
5. Spanish
6. Portuguese
7. Tamil
8. Italian
9. Persian
10. Urdu
Hence the move of Italian programming to AM 1540. By the way, the call letters CHIN are a reference to the Italian language. CHIN-AM-FM were originally both Italian and the studios are in the Palmerston-Little Italy section of Toronto. But over time, Italian programming has taken up less time each week.
Here are the stations...
1540 CHIN ... 50,000 watts days - 30,000 watts nights. Directional antenna at all times.
100.3 CHIN-FM ... 8,500 watts - 13,800 feet.
91.9 CHIN-1-FM ... 1,760 watts / 5,000 watts max - 280 feet.
CHIN-1-FM used to be a translator for the AM station. But CHIN got it made into its own low-power station. I don't think this would be possible in the U.S.
1. English
2. Mandarin
3. Cantonese
4. Tagalog (Filipino)
5. Spanish
6. Portuguese
7. Tamil
8. Italian
9. Persian
10. Urdu
Hence the move of Italian programming to AM 1540. By the way, the call letters CHIN are a reference to the Italian language. CHIN-AM-FM were originally both Italian and the studios are in the Palmerston-Little Italy section of Toronto. But over time, Italian programming has taken up less time each week.
Here are the stations...
1540 CHIN ... 50,000 watts days - 30,000 watts nights. Directional antenna at all times.
100.3 CHIN-FM ... 8,500 watts - 13,800 feet.
91.9 CHIN-1-FM ... 1,760 watts / 5,000 watts max - 280 feet.
CHIN-1-FM used to be a translator for the AM station. But CHIN got it made into its own low-power station. I don't think this would be possible in the U.S.