The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor A proposed new Christian radio station for Flin Flon and The Pas never had a prayer with federal regulators. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has summarily rejected an application for the FM station. Proposed by Tom Heeney, the station would have brought Christian music and local religious content to the airwaves of the two communities. But the CRTC found the proposal too ambiguous as Heeney made repeated amendments to his plan. 'It therefore remains unclear what the proposed station would undertake as its programming commitments,' the commission said in its ruling. See 'Ruling...' pg. 3 Continued from pg. 1 The CRTC said 'an applicant's programming plans are an integral part of (the) overall business plan and the quality of (the) application' and without such 'concrete plans,' it cannot 'determine the adequacy of a proposed station's overall plans.' The ruling also said the CRTC 'considers that the onus falls on the applicant to provide a quality application and to demonstrate an understanding of the regulatory requirements associated with radio programming.' Moreover, while the CRTC 'expects an applicant to provide sufficient details,' Heeney had 'not provided a quality application' or 'demonstrated an understanding of key policies and regulations.' In his initial application, Heeney said the station would broadcast 15 hours of local programming per week, of which one hour would be in Cree and another in Ukrainian. Overall, he said the station would broadcast from 3 p.m. to midnight, Monday to Friday, for a total of 45 hours of a week. Programs Heeney said programming would consist of professionally produced and supplied Christian evangelical programs from varied denominations. Additional programming would include short, locally produced 'sermonettes' and regularly scheduled local and area announcements. But upon further questioning from the CRTC, Heeney altered his plans. The number of hours to be broadcast each week, for instance, went from 45 to 60 hours, and then from 60 to 38.13, according to the CRTC. Heeney had initially sought an exemption to the rule that requires FM stations to have at least 33 per cent local content in order to sell local advertising. He felt that providing the same local news, weather and sports programming as other stations in the market would be redundant. But again Heeney changed his mind, withdrawing his request for an exemption. The station would have been based in The Pas and rebroadcast into Flin Flon. It would have been found at 96.9 on the FM dial. The CRTC received no letters of opposition to the proposal. In evaluating an application for a new radio station, the CRTC generally examines, among other things, the quality of the business plan, including the proposed format, and plans for local programming, among other matters.
