CKLN Ryerson Campus Radio Must Defend Its Existence, Says CRTC

After already having suffered through a six month blackout in 2009, Ryerson campus-community radio station CKLN may be in for more troubled times after its evaluation at a recent CRTC hearing. Although the hearing was intended to highlight and address the station's ability to maintain station logs and annual reports, the Commission did not hesitate to voice the impending threat of their license being suspended entirely.

CKLN is just one example of campus and community radio being framed as an antiquity in the context of modern broadcast regulation. According to Steve Anderson, national coordinator of OpenMedia.ca. regulators and lawmakers have lost sight of the fact that the collaborative process of community broadcasting is more vital than the actual output.

“One thing that’s important," he says, "is the actual physical space [of the radio station] It brings people together so they can learn from and mentor each other. The internet can’t replace that."

Although they have made efforts to branch out into social media, those endeavours are second fiddle for CKLN, which remains rooted as a radio station. Like other community and campus radio stations, CKLN remains committed to maintaining a physical space that counters the nearly ubiquitous world of commercial media at the most fundamental level possible: through the collaborative nature of production.

Online media is often assumed to provide adequate alternatives for these organizations. In many ways this is true, and this may be the assumption that the CRTC is currently operating under. But while new methods for delivering alternative voices are constantly being developed and embraced, maintaining the spontaneity and local rooting of community radio continues to be a finer point being glanced over.

To read more about CKLN, check out the Now Toronto article.