Media of Canada - Radio Broadcasting

Radio Broadcasting

Canada is served by almost 2000 radio stations, on both the AM and FM bands.

As with television stations, radio callsigns in Canada are made up of four letters beginning with the two-letter combinations of CF, CH, CI, CJ, or CK, although a few stations use three-letter callsigns. In addition to private stations CKX and CKY, some CBC stations have three-letter callsigns, generally in major cities where the stations first aired in the 1930s. Newer CBC stations have normal four-letter callsigns, however. As with CBC television, CBC radio uses callsigns beginning with CB, through a special arrangement with the government of Chile. A few exceptions, such as CKSB in Winnipeg and CJBC in Toronto, exist where the CBC acquired an existing station with a historically significant callsign.

The combinations CG, CY, CZ and several combinations beginning with V and X are also assigned to Canada. Only four Canadian radio stations, all in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, have taken call signs in those ranges. Three of these stations, VOAR, VOWR and VOCM, began broadcasting before Newfoundland was a Canadian province, and retained their VO call letters when Newfoundland joined Canadian Confederation in 1949. The other station, VOCM-FM, adopted the callsign in 1981 because of its ownership association with VOCM. With the exception of VOCM-FM, radio stations licensed in Newfoundland after 1949 use the same CF-CK range as other Canadian stations.

The future of VO callsigns in Canada is unknown. It would not be at all unusual for Industry Canada to simplify all callsigns used in Canada as part of the ongoing modernization and simplification of domestic telecom regulations.

There is no clear rule for the call letters of repeater stations—some repeaters are labelled by the call-letters of the originating station, followed by a number, while others have their own distinct call letters. Low-power repeater transmitters (LPRTs) have their own unique callsign format, which consists of the letters VE or VF followed by four numbers.

As of 2010, the five largest major commercial radio broadcast groups in Canada are; Astral Media, Newcap Broadcasting, Rogers Communications, Corus Entertainment, and Bell Media. However, many smaller broadcasters operate radio stations as well. Most genres of music are represented on the Canadian commercial radio spectrum, including pop, rock, hip hop, country, jazz and classical. News, sports, talk radio and religious stations are also available in many cities. In addition, many Canadian universities and colleges have licensed campus radio stations, and some communities also have community radio stations or Christian radio stations licensed to non-profit groups or co-operatives.

As well, the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates four national radio networks, two each in English and French. The English Radio One and the French Première Chaîne provide news and information programming to most communities in Canada, regardless of size, on either the AM or FM band. The English Radio 2 and French Espace musique provide arts and culture programming, including classical music and opera, and are always on FM, generally serving larger communities only.

Music-based commercial radio stations in Canada are mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to reserve at least 35 per cent of their playlists for Canadian content, although exemptions are granted in some border cities (e.g. Windsor, Ontario) where the competition from American stations threatens the survival of Canadian broadcasters, and for stations whose formats may not have enough Canadian recordings available to meet the 35 per cent target (e.g. classical, jazz or pop standards).

In recent years, a notable trend in Canadian radio has been the gradual abandonment of the AM band, with many AM stations applying for and receiving authorization from the CRTC to convert to the FM band. In some Canadian cities, in fact, the AM band is now either nearly or entirely vacant. Because Canada is more sparsely populated than the United States, the limitations of AM broadcasting (particularly at night, when the AM dial is often overwhelmed by distant signals) have a much more pronounced effect on Canadian broadcasters. AM radio stations have the additional protection that cable companies which offer cable FM services are required by the CRTC to distribute all locally available AM stations through conversion to a cable FM signal, but cable FM only accounts for a small percentage of radio listeners in Canada.

Digital audio broadcasting, or DAB, is an emerging technology in Canada. Although there are currently 73 licensed digital audio broadcasters in Canada, not many consumers yet own digital radios, and the existing digital audio broadcast signals duplicate AM or FM broadcasts. No Canadian radio broadcaster currently offers an exclusively DAB signal.

On November 1, 2004, the CRTC began hearing applications for satellite radio services. Three applications were filed: one by XM Radio Canada, one by Sirius Canada, and one by the partnership of CHUM Limited and Astral Media. These services, which were approved by the CRTC on June 16, 2005, were Canada's first official satellite radio services, although a small grey market already existed for American satellite radio receivers. Sirius and XM both launched in December 2005. The CHUM-Astral service, however, was never launched, and its license expired on June 16, 2007; CHUM stated that its business plan was based in part on the expectation that in the interests of Canadian content, the CRTC would have rejected the Sirius and XM applications, approving only the CHUM-Astral service. The two active services, XM and Sirius, merged into Sirius XM Canada in 2011, several months after a similar merger between their American counterparts.