Lucy's Conference Report

http://ciro-radio.blogspot.com/

NCRA 2007 - Cam Report

Monday June 11th
Lucy and I registered and met up with Chad Saunders, CJSW and NCRA pres. He gave us some advice on talking with the CBC as CJSW rents tower space from them.

Lucy and I met with Jason Coleman, Business Manager, West CBC Transmission. He discussed the two locations CBC has that could service us. Due to topography neither antenna hits all Kelowna and the West Side. The Peachland area especially has poor service. It is unclear whether UBC-O, as it is in a dip, would receive a clear signal from both antennas. They are looking at developing two FM CBC 1 frequencies to address this concern in Kelowna which may further impact our bandwidth.

Their West Side transmitter is where the current CBC 1 signal is and the second is above the Mission which currently only sends out a TV signal. We could not do a low power arrangement with them but 100 watts seems possible. In our discussions power costs are not huge between low power and 100 watts. We would be looking at unidirectional antennas as both sites back into a mountain.

Jason gave us contacts for Wolf Riesterer at D.E.M. Allen & Associates Ltd in Winnipeg and Tetsuo Yoshino Broadcast and Communication Consulting in Calgary for potential broadcast engineers. He also said we could try contacting him for a third contact for an engineering report.

Early days so I didn't get into pricing too much but they seemed positive we could work something out.

Jason gave us a fun tour of the CBC building.

Lucy and I then bussed it out to SFU for an hour long interview on CJSF with Ryan Quiring. Went well and we played up the station and Okanagan music of bands that have supported us.

We picked up Alex and got hammered at the Lamplighter.

Tuesday June 12th - Opening Day
We made it there on time for breakfast but CiTR wasn't allowed to bring in outside food so we went out to eat.

All three of us attended the opening plenary and represented CIRO.

I atteneded a session on MySpace and the ladies went to one on International Radio. Apparently some stations are playing songs directly off Myspace without downloading them. The stupid smiley pop up drives Music Directors crazy. I mentioned we had a myspace but that we had basically set up out main site with most of the good features of Myspace (posters, links to bands) that we probably don't need one.

I also went to a session on Advertising. Found out that we don't have any more time restrictions on advertising as the restrictions were removed in 2000. Lydia Masemola at CiTR discussed that ads need to follow the framework of the community radio model. Commercial or overproduced ads do not get played. All the ads are produced in house by volunteers to keep the sound non-commerical. I met up with a rep from CJLY who discussed that they don't think of them as ads but community support. They hired someone on commision to obtain ads from the greater community. The station has a policy on what companies they will or will not work with. The promised we could look at the document.

End of the day I sat in on the Station Managers meeting which was an informal get together to discuss problems. Some of the big topics was how to fire people and intergrating sports programing. I asked about hiring and whether bringing in the HR department of the school would be helpful. They all agreed that the Board should set the process and keep the school out of it. They didn't mind the idea of bringing Lydia down from CiTR to help out in the hiring process. They stressed the need for openness and a lack of conflict of interst on the Board in the hiring process. I mentioned that I would be interested in appling and this might be bad for the CiRO Board if more than one Board member applies. They didn't think that with 7 members it should be too big a deal.

Took a night off as the ladies were light weights and didn't want to go out.

Wednesday June 13th - Women in Radio

I made it to the Women in Radio 101 workshop which was interesting seeing how women in the community radio sector are still underepresented as a whole. The ladies went for a DJ session at Community Co-op Radio.

Went out rave dancing until super early in the morning.

Thursday June 14th
All three of us attended the mid-plenary.

I went to the CRTC -Q&A. I basically took over the discussion for 15 minutes discussing how the loss of bandwidth from the Vernon and Penticton markets along with the CRTC's descion to add CKOV and another potential station undercut our ability to form a developmental station. This was echoed by Melissa Kaestner (NCRA) and Freya Zaltz (was with CJLY and other stations and worked for CRTC as lawyer). Both stated they would help us with any intervening we might want to do at public hearings.

At the meeting were Bob Stark CRTC Vancouver and Joe Aguiar CRTC Manager English Radio Applications. Both were willing to carry on further discussions and answer questions. The rep from Gabriola Radio project recommended intervening at all public hearings to make sure our voice is heard.

The CRTC reps both admitted that there was alot of interest in the call out the CRTC made in the Kelowna market. They also stated it was possible more than one licence could be granted if the CRTC felt the demand was there. Alot of people mentioned that even though the commercial radio sector whines alot they are making more money than ever.

I then sat in on Tarrifs and there sure are a number of them. The most worrying is the SOCAN tarrif on radio stations broadcasting in the internet. SOCAN views this a revenue stream that artists are shut out of. Unfortunatly the language means community stations get hit twice for both radio and internet even though they are not for profit and serve as a devlopmental area for emerging artists. Other tarrifs were also discussed.

On the tarrif issue alone I think NCRA membership is a good investment. It allows us to be apart of a much larger and experienced group and help define our sector as something different than the big boys.

I went to the Fundraising caucus. Funding drives seemed like a great way to raise money as they raise revenue but also provide buy in from the listeners. Student levys were discussed. There were some real battles for some stations to get them through. CJSW produced a manual for fundraising that we got a copy of. Events were discussed and it seemed many stations were doing them. Volunteering at bingos or casinos was looked at as a large source of funding but hard to get into as there are large waiting lists.

We shut down the World Beat night! Ye-hah.

Friday June 15th
I got to hang around with the CiTR crew as I raced around the city setting up equipment. Lucy and Alex attended most of the sessions. The CiTR crew are really nice people.

NCRA Awards Gala was a great networking place. I spoke a fair bit with reps from Nelson's CJLY. With no campus help they made it happen with a huge volunteer base and strong focus on community. They look like a great example to follow both in the financial and focus on community. A big thing I picked up is that focusing on just creating a station does not cut it. The purpose of community radio is to empower the community and help create links within the community not just play cool music.

We discussed having a BC Campus and Community radio meeting next summer as the 2008 conference will be in Hamilton. We talked about having it in Kelowna or Nelson. Other stations sounded pretty interested in attending.

I got kicked out of an after hours party and got back home at around 5:00 am. Lucy put on a show as she is a rock star.

Saturday June 16th
I got up and out the door well before the light weights (admit it girls I rock!)

I sat in on Station Structures which was interesting but it is difficult to imagine some of the more collective structures flying in K-town. The big thing I picked up is, that no matter what, you need a Programming committee to over see the form and content of the station.

I then went to the Working with Community session which was enlightning. Some stations were actively recruiting high school students and others had people with special needs producing programming. It may be extra work but the rewards are great.

The final plenary turned into kind of a gong show. We ended up at the Railway club chatting with all the other burnt out delegates. Very nice time had by all.