I talked to the local commercial radio station and they told me that I can’t get a licence from the CRTC because they would file an intervention against us. Are we out of luck?
A. Not true. The CRTC will seldom take an intervention from a commercial broadcaster seriously. Your community radio station will sound nothing like the local commercial station, and the amount that you might make selling advertising is so small that the local commercial guys won’t ever notice. Most of the big radio companies like Rogers and Standard don’t bother intervening in community radio licence applications, and quite often actually help new community stations with used equipment or advice. Really, if your application is solid and you have community support lined up, the commercial guys will not have anything to do with whether you get a licence. Q. I talked to the local commercial radio station and they told me that it’s harder to get a radio station licence in Canada than anywhere else in the world. They told me that it usually takes at least ten years and sometimes as long twenty years to get approval. A. Many people in commercial radio understand the special role that commun
