Is it the imminent unveiling of radio ratings that wakes Bell and Cogeco from their fall slumber?
The two giants of Quebec radio, which own 35 stations in Quebec including 11 in Montreal, have just asked the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to put an end to the retransmission of QUB radio’s spoken programs on the airwaves of 99.5 FM.
Formerly known by the call letters CJPX-FM, 99.5 was a music station until the arrival of QUB radio. It still is, except that since August 26, it no longer broadcasts music from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, but rather QUB’s talk shows.
A small obscure radio station established only on the web, QUB becomes a “television radio” on January 11, 2024, taking the place of the youth channel YOOPA, whose audience had migrated elsewhere. A few months later, this television radio found itself on FM, Leclerc Communication having decided to buy its content to present it, weekdays, on the airwaves of 99.5.
A stick in the wheels
This is quite a wrench that has been thrown in the way of the CRTC’s antiquated machinery. Quebecor entered the FM radio market without having obtained a license, indirectly achieving what it had been denied in 2002 and 2008. As Quebecor owned a television channel and a “printed” daily newspaper in the Montreal market , the CRTC then ruled that a radio station would give it an unfair advantage.
The CRTC is neither an agile nor an expeditious organization. He is often finicky and indecisive, as is clearly demonstrated by his slowness in defining the criteria for Canadian content on television and the time he took to determine the recipients of the sums that the web giants must pay following the reform of the the Broadcasting Act.
A clever trap
How will the CRTC get out of the clever trap in which it has just been tangled? Quebecor does not own 99.5 FM. The station rightfully belongs to Leclerc Communication. Does Leclerc have authority over the QUB facilitators? Does she have control of the programming? In principle, yes, since Leclerc buys QUB’s content. The buyer is always right, and he always has the last word. Leclerc could surely, if he wished, admonish Mario Dumont or demand that QUB separate from such and such a presenter.
As for the question of monopoly, Cogeco and Bell are rather poorly placed to invoke it, they who reign almost unchallenged over the Montreal radio airwaves. Not to mention that Cogeco supplies information to most of Quebec’s radio stations.
