Arts
CKLN broadcasting licence revoked by the CRTC
CKLN is going off the air. The longtime campus radio station which operates out of Ryerson University had its broadcasting licence revoked by the CRTC according to an announcement late Friday morning.
The volunteer run radio station was found by the federal regulator to have breached several broadcasting regulations and deemed no longer capable of broadcasting in a "compliant manner."
At issue, were violations related to CKLN's governance and day-to-day operations as well as accounting and fundraising issues. The radio station is scheduled to go off the air on February 12th.
When reached by phone former show host Vijay Sarma was surprised to know the station was going under. He feels the station's ills were caused by previous management - specifically board chair Josie Milner, station manager Mike Phillips and programming director Tony Barnes - who were taking the station in a more commercial direction opposed by the vast majority of the community.
In March 2009, those same managers locked out the station's staff made up of community volunteers for seven months, Sarma said.
But with the removal of the old management team, however, Sarma, the station's morning news host since 2006, said there had been no other tensions that he was aware of.
"It seems unfair," Sarma said Friday morning. "The people responsible for the vast majority of the transgressions are no longer with the station."
Sarma said the station had recently successfully raised over $50,000 in donations.
Despite the announcement, CKLN still has a job posting for a station manager listed on its website.
Writing by Rahul Gupta. Photo by Colin Medley on Flickr
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Just try to stop us!
MUAHAHAHAAHHA
However, most of the time when I tuned in, it was a constant drone of conversation between condescending, outraged "activists" with nasal voices who I would not want to meet in real life. The station was, as far as I could gather, a pseudo-intellectual masturbatory echo chamber.
They did play some great music, unheard on commercial radio, though.
either way, lots of (hazy) memories of those stations in the 90s. RIP CKLN
This is a painful day. Despite the infighting and ensuing management difficulties, the volunteers continued to put immense effort into producing interesting, enlightening, thought-provoking programming. This outcome is the result of events and questionable decisions that were made as early as mid-2007, and despite the best efforts of many people, all volunteers, who were trying to rebuild a viable operation, it looks like the CRTC wasn't satisfied.
I still hope the commission can be convinced to give the CKLN community another chance to stabilize in the wake of dire circumstances, and to fulfill the promises made to volunteers, the Ryerson community, and the Toronto community back in 2005 when CKLN moved into its present space. It hurts to see the efforts of so many overwhelmed, ultimately, by the misbehaviour of a few.
Mark Bialkowski
Former production coordinator, CKLN 88.1 FM, 2005-2008.
Lets wait and see...I wouldn't be surprised.
You know CRTC vice-chairman the zionist Leonard Katz was behind this.
In a previous hearing in May he was critical of CKLN for announcing Israeli Apartheid Week events.
Katz is one of the biggest pro-Israel lobbyists in Canada and needs to be fired from the CRTC.
Unfortunately we have Harper in power but when Jack Layton and the NDP become the government we need to make sure the first thing is done is to fire Katz and all the other zionist appointees from their positions of power.
Yeah. That'll happen.
(Hint: Less weed makes you less paranoid.)
BDC402 Management and Regulation
BDC922 Business Case Studies in Communications
BDC904 Advanced Media Management
BDC915 Legal Issues in Media
BDC918 Ethics in Media
I guess CIUT & CHRY are gonna have to carry the torch, or is their time up too?
I still have some cassettes from the late 90's - a few times I would just tape her show in its entirety.
Where be she now?
I can't blame the CRTC.
Why must students pay for a station that excluded them?
CKLN was taken over years ago by radical activists and the students pushed out with the help of the Ryerson Students' Union and the Canadian Federation of Students who have very political agendas that have little to do with education.
An outside agency appointed by the Courts needs to be brought in to see who is controlling the assets created by yearly $1/4 million funding from student dues and who it really should belong to and if any have been misappropriated and needs to be gotten back through legal actions or criminal charges.
I would hate to see this board liquidating all the assets and the students who paid for it and have been excluded from running the station also be excluded from deciding what should happen to it.
I have been hearing rumours that the record collection has just about disappeared except for the badly scratched vinyl. The Courts have to be brought in to seize the exising assets and do an inventory to prevent theft and protect the interests of the students who paid for it all.
That's just not true, this is the first hearing CKLN's had and they weren't given a second chance. Usually before a licence is revoked the CRTC takes other actions first like shortening the lience renewal period or issuing "mandatory orders" or a suspension. This time, the CRTC, for the first time ever, went straight for execution and they did it to establish a precedent for the community radio sector that makes it much easier to revoke their licences so that they can be given to commercial broadcaters.
Commerical radio broadcasters have broken CRTC rules left right and centre without getting any disciplinary action or only a slap on the write. There's a reason for the differential treatment.
They still weren't ready for the hearings and had done no work even during the 6 month postponement to meet statutory filing requirements all other stations including "student stations" manage to fulfil.
If you read what is on the CRTC's website you will find the two representatives of CKLN to be the worse amateurs who didn't do their work and obviously were trying to pull the wool over the adjudicators eyes. It just didn't work and the CRTC had enough of those buffoons and because of their own arrogance and ignorance lost the license and they should have.
I sure hope the people who out of utter incompetence destroyed CKLN don't end up doing it elsewhere in their desire for power or political agendas.
I need to dig out my old copy of the bylaws, and I'm not sure if the membership managed to pass a new set before the revocation happened, but there is a specific bylaw dealing with the wrapping up of the corporation and disposal of the assets.
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-56.pdf
So I say you reap what you sow and the station should be closed down to send a message out there that it's time for community radio to shape up.
"I think if the students want to have a student-run radio station, that's a very different thing," Levy said.
“We can’t argue with the criticism they gave us, because it’s all true.”
NOW online has a better article, and the dissenting opinion is well reasoned. And if you have the time, the transcripts of the CRTC hearing in December are enlightening:
Part 1: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/transcripts/2010/tb1208.html
Part 2: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/transcripts/2010/tb1209.html
As for the Torontoist taking a "CRTC perspective", it is precisely because CKLN and people such as yourself diminish that reality of broadcasting in Canada that CKLN lost its license. The story is that the CRTC revoked CKLN's license. They giveth, and they can taketh away.
The difference here is that one of the anti-CKLNers is loaded and so could launch "lawfare" against the station while the rest were so obsessed that they were willing to do anything they could to try to bring the station down.
A license may be revoked if;
"the Commission is satisfied that the licensee has contravened or failed to comply with any condition of the licence or with any order made under subsection 12(2) or any regulation made under this Part."
Is there some part of that that is unclear?
Your comment applies to the previous two regimes. The current regime (basically the board of the past year) has taken violations of licence conditions very seriously, and made major strides in redressing them. As the dissenting commissioner wrote, they should have a chance to succeed instead of being abruptly silenced.
Marconi: "there was a lawsuit at CIUT, and there were multiple hostile interveners when CIUT went up for the license renewal."
Intervenors in CIUT's case never called for revocation or even suspension of the licence, but for a short-term renewal with requirements that the CIUT be run democratically and accountably. The CRTC, which we discovered had been secretly colluding with those who seized the station (the University of Toronto and the then-right-wing student president), renewed for a shorter term than usual but made only technical conditions.
There was lots of dirt at CIUT. The one lawsuit pursued led to a public apology to a locked-out programmer, but not to more democracy or accountability.
The situation at CKLN is different. The board, and now the membership, have reformed the structure, published and filed reports, and held general membership meetings. Like many campus-community stations, CKLN has a history of disputes, but in the past year things have gotten much better. It's the wrong time to force closure.
I was one of the only legal standing board members with Mary Young who were on the board and when R Su u and the Palin Foundation tried to illegally lock out programmers from a federal run station I intervene and kept the air waves going.
If Rsu wants to run their own radio station then they have to apply for a Crtc teaching license like other college run radio stations
What i say is follow the money trail what has Toby Whitfield done with Rsu student's fees that was suppose to go the radio station?
And Paulette, no one's pretending to be you. @Paulette means "responding to Paulette" and you didn't intervene to keep the air waves going, you intervened out of petty vindictiveness.
If you're referring to CIUT, the lawsuit wasn't in small claims court but in the Superior Court of Justice.
"and I can't see any negative interveners listed on the record of CIUT's post-crisis license renewal hearing. If I'm wrong please list them."
As I said we intervenors never called for revocation of CIUT's licence, so that may mean we weren't "negative." But there was a full-scale battle between, on one side, listeners and ousted programmers, and on the other, U of T, the then-student council president and other coup plotters including the CRTC itself. The hearing was in September 2000, in Hull after the commission refused to have it in Toronto.
The rest of the paragraph, which seems accurate, is about CKLN.
Institutional forces also line up differently. In brief:
* At CIUT, U of T wrested control -- and the CRTC endorsed the seizure (in fact it helped).
* At CKLN, Ryerson U (president Sheldon Levy) doesn't like the station but lacks an opportunity to grab it -- and the CRTC conveniently orders it off the air.
Sign the petition:
http://www.ckln.fm/news/1-news/90-petition
And file a complaint with the CRTC:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/rapidsccm/register.asp?lang=e
that they dont push their way into ciut
and ruin that as well
That's clever wording alright, Eric. The current CKLN regime made such "major striedes" that they allowed CKLN to be caught by the CRTC in a litany of violations of the Broadcast Act and the Radio Regulations completely under their watch. This was after this same "regime" clearly promised the CRTC that they were going to clean up everything at the station (September 2009). These were hollow words and it didn't take much for the CRTC to call them out. Early in 2010, the CRTC did an evaluation of CKLN's archive tapes and written logs. CKLN failed miserably. They actually only had to examine ONE day in seven to come up with all the violations. The CRTC even complained that the log tapes were unclear. In other words, CKLN couldn't even tune the radio well enough that recorded their logs to obtain a decent recording!
I do find it interesting that you condemn TWO previous CKLN regimes. I'm not sure how you're counting, or whether it really makes any difference anyway, but the current regime is essentially a proxy regime of the pre-2007 administration. The people that are really running things (and never step up to the plate to take the ultimate responsibility, yet dutifully accept the paycheques doled out) are the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty faction. In turn, this group is in alignment with the Executive of the Ryerson Students' Union. Back in 2007, when they somehow lost their entitled positions running CKLN, these two groups, in combination and collusion, launched a war of epic proportions to "take back" the station. Anyone taking an active role, supporting or condoning these tactics is an advocate of thuggery, and they should count themselves responsible for the loss of CKLN's license. Congratulations! Whose station? Nobody's station.
I was right! I was right! and the real truth came out. Enough said ckln radio inc is no more and industry Canada will be coming next after this fake group.
Dumb asses!
long live aggressive rock!
long live aggressive rock!