CINQ-FM

Radio Centre-Ville Saint-Louis was licensed October 21 to operate a new (multilingual) community FM station at Montreal, on 99.3 MHz with effective radiated power of 7,200 watts.

CINQ-FM signed on the air on January 27.

CINQ received approval to move to 102.3 MHz with an effective radiated power of 36 watts. The change was requested to allow for the operation of a new station (CIME-FM) that would serve Ste-Adele and the Laurentians, on 99.5 MHz.

CINQ was given approval to increase effective radiated power from 36 to 50 watts and to relocate the transmitter approximately 2 kilometers from the actual site.

Radio Centre-Ville Saint-Louis was denied an increase in effective radiated power for CINQ. The station had proposed to up power from 50 to 1,545 watts.

On March 8, the CRTC approved the application to amend the licence for CINQ-FM by increasing its effective radiated power from 50 watts to 1,545 watts. The Commission noted that in 1988, it denied a similar power increase submitted by the licensee of CINQ-FM, a community station that provided programming in a variety of languages to listeners in Montreal. The Commission pointed out in that decision that the licensee had not proposed to increase its broadcast hours or to expand its programming to include more ethnic groups than the five that were being served. It also noted that the licensee had proposed few changes to address the needs of its new listeners and that the licensee’s community access policy did not reflect a willingness to include these new listeners and raised concerns about the complexity of the procedures. Furthermore, the licensee did not demonstrate that it had suffered a real decrease in the size of its original audience. As part of the current application, CINQ-FM undertook, among other things, to allocate and to identify as type “E” programming, a minimum of two hours of ethnic programming each week to any group or organization submitting such a request; to assign some fifteen volunteer journalists to the new districts to ensure local news coverage; and, to invite individuals and groups (members and non-members) to submit projects. Further, the licensee explained that, despite the exodus of thousands of individuals from the districts currently served, its ethnic audience had not decreased as other immigrants now resided in these areas. It added that it had submitted this application so that it could continue to serve those people who had in the past listened to the station and were now living in areas outside CINQ-FM’s existing coverage area. The Commission was of the view that CINQ-FM would be able to provide adequate service to all parts of its new coverage area. The licensee changed the type and amount of advertising material broadcast to comply with the Commission’s policy on community radio. It was a condition of licence that the licensee not broadcast more than an average of 4 minutes of advertising per hour per day, with a maximum of 6 minutes per hour (between 6 a.m. and midnight), in accordance with the community radio policy for Type B stations. 

A power decrease to 1,285 watts was approved.

Note: CINQ either went on the air on 102.3 MHz rather than the originally licenced 99.3, or changed frequency in the very early years of operation. 

On August 31, the CRTC administratively renewed the licence for CINQ-FM to December 31, 2011.

On August 28, the CRTC administratively renewed the licence of CINQ-FM to December 31, 2012.

On December 14, the CRTC renewed the licence of CINQ-FM until August 31, 2019.

On April 2, the CRTC approved CINQ’s application to decrease ERP from 1,285 to 1,237 watts and the maximum ERP from 2,335 to 2,100 watts. The licensee indicated that it was necessary to replace the existing antenna because it was broken.

In the spring, demonstrators protested outside Radio Centre-Ville, over commercialization of the station’s airwaves in an ongoing power struggle between the ethnic groups that produced programming in 8 languages and management. The selling of commercial airtime in a bid to manage financial pressures had bitterly divided members.