CFXM-FM

On December 2nd, the CRTC heard competing applications for a new French-language FM radio programming undertaking to operate in Granby, QC. The market had previously been served by a local radio station, CHEF-AM, which closed in January citing as reasons economic factors and “…the weakness of the advertising market in the Granby area.”
 

On March 27th, the CRTC announced that approval had been given to a new broadcasting licence for Granby, to be awarded to the Coopérative de travail de la radio de Granby. A competing application from Radio Concept Inc was denied.

The new station, which would have the call letters CFXM-FM, would broadcast on 104.9 MHz, with an effective radiated power of 200 watts. The licence would expire on August 31st 2002.

In awarding the licence to the Cooperative, the Commission noted that the six owners of the company were former employees of CHEF-AM, and felt that this experience in the Granby market would be beneficial to the new enterprise. It was a condition of the licence that the station would broadcast 126 hours of local programming per week.

On November 6th, in renewing CFXM-FM’s licence for a further three years and eight months, to expire on August 31st 2006, the CRTC noted that in the year 2000 the station had operated in non-compliance with its conditions of licence in respect of its music selections. In view of this infraction, the Commission noted that it was only renewing the licence for a four-year term, to enable it to assess in the short term the licensee’s ongoing compliance with the Radio Regulations.

In May, the CRTC again express concerns at the station’s non-compliance with some aspects of the Radio Regulations regarding music content, and also at some problems that CFXM-FM had been having with its logger tapes.

On July 17th, the CRTC gave the station only a two-year renewal of its licence, to expire on August 31st 2008. During that time, the Commission would assess the licensee’s compliance with the provisions of the Regulations concerning the broadcasting of French-language vocal music selections and the provision of logger tapes.

On May 28th the CRTC announced its intention to give seven-year licence renewals to several stations, including CFXM-FM Granby, in the absence of any interventions. On August 14th, the Commission gave CFXM-FM a seven year licence renewal to August 31st 2015. The station would be required to continue to broadcast 126 hours of local programming per week.

A day earlier, on August 13th, the CRTC had approved the Cooperative’s application to increase the station’s effective radiated power from 200 watts to 1184 watts, by increasing the antenna height and relocating the transmitter.