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Radio Centre-Ville (CINQ),
multi-ethnic radio
by
Roger Fritz Rhéaume
Community radio in
Montreal (2)
Multi-ethnic
community
radio makes an appearance
A little lobbying in Saint-Louis
In 1972, a group of
Montrealers met with
representatives of the Canadian Radio-television and Communications
Commission
(CRTC); the group was made up of community organizers and media
specialists.
The project, financed among others by funds from the Company of Young
Canadians, the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration and the Quebec
Ministry of
Education, was to set up a modest community radio station in the
Saint-Louis
district in downtown Montreal.
Project promoters believed
that, with the
help of professionals from the National Film Board and Radio-Canada,
residents
could learn to produce broadcasts about the life of their own
neighbourhoods.
They maintained that the big stations hesitated to cover subjects that
were not
of general interest. Further, neither the commercial stations nor the
public radio
stations were interested in broadcasting minority points of view and
social
perspectives, especially socialist ones. As well, since the district
was
multicultural, it was only natural that the station should broadcast in
many
languages in order to serve the French-speaking, Portuguese, Greek,
Spanish-speaking and Jewish residents.
The following statement was
made by Hyman
Glustein, one of the members of the group and a pioneer of community
radio in
Montreal. It is a terse statement that nevertheless captures that state
of mind
of people who believed in community, non-commercial radio:
“Community radio is a
necessary
alternative because of the way that radio works today. The federal
government through
the agency of the Board of Governors and the CRTC 1
is responsible for this state of affairs. These organizations have
never done a
thing to ensure community access to the media and active community
participation, or to guarantee that the listeners are the ones who are
truly
responsible for what is broadcast to them. The fact is that all they
have done
is to grant licences to millionaires, to let them run their little
businesses,
to broadcast their advertisements, to squeeze all they can out of the
public.
It is the CRTC’s responsibility to regulate the stations from a
commercial
point of view, not to decide what is said on air, but at least to
suggest structures
that will offer some choice within the system. It now appears that the
CRTC is
not prepared to play such a role and it is clear that it must be
prepared to answer
to the following demands: immediately to make the channels accessible
to the
entire community, to ensure that the equipment is available so that the
community broadcasting centres can function and finally, to keep these
centres
operating by means of subsidies.” [free translation]
The CRTC made the broadcasting
channels
available but it did not play any role in financing community radio.
Finally,
it was the communities themselves and the Quebec government, through an
assistance program, that contributed to community broadcasting.
Beginnings
Audio bands were produced with
help from a
federal subsidy, granted under the auspices of an employment program
but no
radio station, not even public radio, would agree to broadcast them.
Following
its incorporation in 1972, Radio Centre-Ville attempted an inconclusive
experiment with student radio at McGill University and then another
attempt to
broadcast at night over a small commercial station that also failed to
bear
fruit. In October of 1973, after several attempts at lobbying,
including the
one mentioned above, Radio
Centre-Ville Saint-Louis lodged a request for a licence with the CRTC
and in 1974
received a permit to broadcast.
On January 28, 1975 Radio
Centre-Ville
Saint-Louis began broadcasting. Despite the fact that CKRL in Quebec
City had started
a year earlier, the CRTC stated clearly in the text of its decision
that “This
is the first time the Commission has approved an application for an FM
licence
to serve a distinct local community within an urban area.”
The station was already broadcasting in five
languages: French, English, Portuguese, Spanish and Greek. Its broadcast power was minimal at 7.2 watts.
One of the licence conditions
required by
the CRTC states that Radio Centre-Ville Saint-Louis (the
neighbourhood-of-origin) is a French-language, urban, community radio
station …
with a licence that allows it to broadcast up to 40% of its programming
in
languages other than French and English.
Canada’s first multi-ethnic
radio station
was born.
Statement
of principles
This document dates back to 1978, and is one of the station’s
foundational
texts. It is key to the evolution of the station and remains a
reference, perhaps the reference, in the areas of programming,
operations and
philosophy at
CINQ FM. (I say this with some feeling, since I was part of the team
that
drafted it, as a station member and as member of the permanent staff at
the
station).
From the outset, one basic
principle was
clear: the station intended to give preferred access to “those
neglected by
other media.” We continued with what must be considered the
multi-ethnic credo of the organization:
“Radio Centre-Ville will
respect our
community's diversity in a spirit of impartiality. The minorities'
right to
airtime will be respected as much as the majority's. As a community
medium,
CINQ FM will invite ethnic groups to express themselves in their own
language.
The development of dialogue and communication between the different
ethnic and
linguistic groups will be encouraged, in order to promote mutual
understanding.
We will work to bring about the objective conditions necessary for the
active
participation of immigrants in Quebec society.”
Another major principle was
that
“Inner-city residents can be best served by guaranteeing their
participation in
programming through Radio Centre-Ville’s policy of open access.” Access was to be assured though a number of
means, including access to airtime, training in producing shows and
encouragement
to develop innovative broadcasting approaches. The statement also
mentions the
importance of producing shows that develop a critical spirit rather
than
conformity.
Finally, it is stipulated that
the station
will remain independent and will not support any party, sect or
doctrine and
will refute all dogmas. Journalistically, there is the will to work in
the
spirit of democratic journalism. We may add that the condition for
becoming a
member of the station is accepting the statement of principles.
|
Theme Song
In 1978,
singer-songwriters Louise Forestier and
Pierre Flynn wrote a song called Radio Centre-Ville in honour
of the
station.
|
The
multicultural exception
Not
long after it began, Radio Centre-Ville Saint-Louis was broadcasting in
seven
languages and it still does today. Seven ethnic groups rub shoulders
daily as
they prepare their shows and experience something that goes far beyond
broadcasting. More than simply a radio experience, this is a collective
project, an intercultural, community collective project.
The following ethnic groups are
full
partners in the adventure: Francophone, Anglophone, Spanish-speakers
(but more
specifically Latin American), Portuguese, Greek, Haitian and Chinese.
These
groups form production teams. The station also enjoys the active
participation
of the Southeast Asian, Philippine, African, Irish and Arab
communities. Thus,
over 40 communities today benefit from the services of Radio
Centre-Ville.
Broadcasts offered to the
cultural
communities are devoted to intercultural and community activities, to
news from
countries of origin and of course to the information that will help
community
members integrate into the new society they have chosen. Shows having
to do
with elections in other countries attract many listeners. Each of the
production teams is able to contact correspondents in the field to take
the
pulse of the situation. At times, these volunteer journalists have to
take
risks (for example, elections in Haiti are not always serene events).
Where
news is concerned, the cultural communities served by the station
enjoy, to a
certain extent, the best of two worlds: information from their
countries of
origin and information about their adopted country.
Overall, the time devoted to the
broadcasts of the different communities breaks down as follows: 67
broadcast
hours in French; 11.5 broadcast hours in English; a total of 13
broadcast hours
in Spanish and Portuguese; 12.5 hours in Greek; 6 hours in Haitian
Creole and 5
hours in Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese.
How
participation is
structured
We will spare you details of the
administrative structure of the station. It is important, however, to
understand the production structure since it reflects the will of the
station
to give the ethnic teams a degree of autonomy over the programming they
offer
to the people of Montreal, the multicultural collectivity.
Over three hundred volunteers
pass through
the station in any given week. Participation is organized around seven
autonomous production teams. The production teams are working
committees to
which the station delegates tasks and responsibilities
related to the programming and financing of
the station. The way the production teams work is determined to a large
extent
by the active members.
One of the production team’s
important
tasks is to “allocate airtime among the volunteers assigned to
producing
shows in one of the station’s broadcast languages.” This means that
the
members of the cultural communities have some leeway in determining
which
services, which shows, will be best able to meet the needs of the
community.
This is clearly a complex
structure in
which, on occasion, conflicts arise. These may be within a team (for
example,
over a definition of the community’s needs), or between teams, as all
do not
have the same approach. Therein lies a good part of the challenge of
the
organization. A double challenge: on the one hand to make the “machine”
work
and on the other to have different cultures work side by side.
The
challenge of
interculturalism
To get a community organization,
radio or
not, to work smoothly is a constant challenge. This applies without
doubt to Radio
Centre-Ville, which brings together very different cultures and
approaches. The
station has continually met this challenge, sometimes with difficulty,
but most
often with success.
The Quebec government expressed
its
appreciation of the station publicly in 1991, when it awarded Radio
Centre-Ville
the Prix des communautés culturelles for its
excellent work with
cultural communities on the island of Montreal.
Evan Kapetanakis, one of the
station’s
pioneers, spoke of the years he spent helping to make the station a
link among
all the cultural communities that make Montreal a cosmopolitan city:
“People from the four corners of
the world
were able to sit together, to discuss and to enter into debates and (…)
were
able to move things forward; they influenced and through their
influence helped
thousands of people:
·
understand
how the society we live in works
·
become
aware that despite our differences, in fact we are very close to each
other;
and that we can live in harmony and contribute, every one of us, to our
society.”
What distinguishes this station
still
today is the fact that interculturalism and democracy remain central to
it. In
the words of Arlindo Vieira, of the Conseil des communautés
culturelles et de
l’immigration, in a 1996 workshop on future directions for Radio
Centre-Ville:
“Radio Centre-Ville must remain
a site for
socialization that aims to engage all citizens, beyond their cultures,
languages or particular allegiances and integrate them into the local
civic
society.”
Is this not a major part of the
mission of
a community, multi-ethnic radio station, or quite simply of any
community
station?
A station
that sets
the example
Radio Centre-Ville is Montreal’s
premier multiethnic
radio station (it is the only station recognized as such by the CRTC).
Nonetheless, other community or non-commercial stations have followed
in its
footsteps, including the university radio stations CISM
(Université de
Montréal) and CKUT (McGill University).
Starting at the beginning of
1980 and
continuing until today, CIBL FM has been broadcasting to the Haitian
community
from its studios in Hochelaga Maisonneuve. CKUT FM broadcasts to many
cultural
communities (Palestinian, Jewish, Korean, Muslim, Latin American and
Caribbean).
CISM FM produces shows for
members of the
Haitian, African and Middle Eastern communities.
Community stations outside
Montreal have
also developed a sensitivity to the intercultural phenomenon. For
example, CHAA
FM, on the South Shore of Montreal, broadcasts shows for members of the
Greek,
Polish and Vietnamese communities.
All of these stations have been
inspired
by Radio Centre-Ville to reflect their environments with all the
cultural
diversity they contain.
Radio Centre-Ville – Historical Notes
1970
Start of the community radio
project
1973
An application is filed with the
Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
1974
A licence is granted to Radio
Centre-Ville
Saint-Louis
1976
A new frequency on the FM band
is awarded,
102.3
1982
Move into the current premises
at 5212 St.
Lawrence boulevard
1986
The CRTC grants a power increase
of 50
watts
1991
The CRTC grants a new increase
of 1,300
watts
Prix des communautés
culturelles awarded by
the Quebec government
1999
Radio Centre-Ville’s Greek
broadcast wins
the Media 1998 Greek press ministry's prize for the best
expatriate
media
(1) Board of Governors,
precursor to
the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
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1997
Phonothèque québécoise / Musée du son
Last
update:, June 7, 2004
URL http://www.phonotheque.org/...CINQ-multiethnique-eng.html