CAB TELLS CRTC TO GET WITH THE PROGRAM
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters yesterday presented to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission its thoughts on how to create a profitable future for private radio in this country. The CAB had two main points to make, the first of which was that ownership regulations must be altered to make the radio market less fragmented. "The new ownership regulations are crucial," said CAB president Michael McCabe, "since half of Canadian private radio stations have been unprofitable since 1990 and the current ownership regulation has resulted in a highly fragmented industry." The CAB wants to see the current limit of one FM and one AM station per market per owner expanded to two FM and two AM stations per owner per market, with exceptions allowing for even more concentrated ownerships in larger markets. Putting Canada's radio stations into fewer hands, it is hoped, will make the Canadian radio market an easier media buy and therefore more attractive to advertisers. The CAB's other principle idea is to link radio broadcasters' CanCon requirements directly to the record sales of Canadian artists. Rather than the flat 30% Canadian content radio stations must currently air, the CAB proposes that the CanCon percentage should be double the percentage of the sales of Canadian music. If Canadian music sales are at 16%, radio stations would play 32% CanCon. The general idea is for Canadian content requirements to be controlled by "market forces."