CRTC decision on Yellowknife's Cabin Radio prompts outcry, campaign

A multi-pronged campaign is underway to get the Canadian telecommunications regulator to reverse a decision that blocks Cabin Radio from broadcasting on Yellowknife's FM airwaves.

In a decision released last week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) concluded that the city's radio market can't support another commercial FM station. 

The decision came 3.5 years after Cabin Radio, an N.W.T. news website and online radio station, applied for a commercial FM broadcasting licence for Yellowknife. The CRTC confirmed on Monday that it didn't look at Cabin's application.   

The community's response to the CRTC's decision was swift and strong. 

On social media, Yellowknifers decried the decision and praised Cabin's journalism. In the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, Great Slave MLA Katrina Nokleby called the decision "mind boggling."

An online petition to allow Cabin on the FM dial had garnered more than 2,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning (the petition was offline Tuesday afternoon), and Cabin has launched its own letter-writing campaign.

Yellowknifers aren't the only ones bewildered by the CRTC's decision.

Monica Auer, the executive director of Canada's Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, a non-profit that does research and analysis of Canada's communications system, was also puzzled by the commission's findings.

Auer, who has worked for both the CBC and the CRTC, said the decision is based mostly on territorial data, rather than Yellowknife data, and it offers little to back up the CRTC's claim that Yellowknife's market can't sustain one more commercial radio station. 

In Auer's view, the decision reflects concerns federal MPs have heard about a lack of transparency and accountability at the CRTC.

"I don't think this decision reflects well on the commission," she said.

Cabin says it was left out of consultation process

Before the CRTC would consider Cabin's FM licence application, it sought to determine whether Yellowknife could support another commercial radio station, and it made a public call for comments on that question.

The CRTC says that two organizations responded: B.C.-based Vista Radio, which owns True North FM in Yellowknife and 43 other stations in the South, and the Native Communications Society of the NWT, a not-for-profit which runs Indigenous- and English-language programming on CKLB Radio. 

Both argued that another FM station would suck up ad revenue in Yellowknife's small market.

Ollie Williams, Cabin's editor and part-owner, says Cabin also responded to the CRTC's call for comments.

But Cabin's response wasn't referenced in the CRTC's decision and wasn't published on the CRTC's website, like those from Vista and the Native Communications Society.

Cabin provided CBC with a copy of part of its submission, dated Jan. 27, 2022, which was the final day to respond to the CRTC.

It argues that Cabin's presence on the FM airwaves wouldn't negatively affect the six other stations already there, in part because only one other station — True North (CJCD-FM) — relies solely on advertising. CKLB is partly funded by the federal government. 

"We have been in the market since 2017 operating side-by-side with CJCD-FM. Yellowknife listeners and the advertising community have been supporting both services," states Cabin's submission. 

"We have no reason to believe that this would not continue if Cabin Radio were able to move from an online radio station to the FM dial."

Vista Radio didn't respond to CBC's requests for an interview. The Native Communications Society of the NWT declined to provide comment for this story. 

Williams said Cabin is now trying to figure out why their submission wasn't included in the CRTC's assessment of Yellowknife's radio market. 

"We worked for years and spent tens of thousands of dollars of our own money on this," he told CBC. "There are no circumstances under which we would have ignored the opportunity to comment on Yellowknife's market capacity."

Auer, with Canada's Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, said anyone could have offered their thoughts to the CRTC, but they would have had to be checking the commission's website regularly to know it was doing public consultation about Yellowknife. 

Williams said Cabin believed the commission was seeking comments from "qualified parties," specifically.   

The CRTC wouldn't give CBC an interview, and didn't respond to CBC's questions about its consultation process before deadline.

In an email, CRTC spokesperson Patricia Valladao said the commission made a determination about the Yellowknife radio market's capacity "based on economic and financial data as well as the comments received in the public consultation."

She said the commission doesn't grant interviews on decisions "as the decisions speak for themselves." 

Cabin's options

Cabin does have recourse, said Auer, though none of its options are easy.

Cabin could appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal, or apply for a judicial review, but both processes are expensive. 

The CRTC is an arm's length tribunal of the Canadian Heritage department. Thus another option, said Auer, is to ask Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to consider whether the CRTC's decision about Yellowknife aligns with his objectives for broadcast regulation in Canada.  

"And certainly," she added, "it would be open to people in Yellowknife to launch an effort."

"I think it could have a positive impact."

For now, Cabin is collecting letters of support. It's asking people in Yellowknife to make the letters out to the CRTC and send them to Cabin by Feb. 28.