Schedule change roils community station
Cease-and-desist order for saying schedule changes favour English-language programs
KITCHENER — A trio of former volunteers with community radio station CKWR 98.5 FM have been issued a cease-and-desist order for making online statements the station views as “malicious.”
Oscar Knopf, former host of Musical Tour in Spanish for 42 years, his wife Silvia Reyes and her son Leonel Villalon, are concerned with the new broadcast schedule released last month and have used social media to criticize CKWR for what they call a “racist attack” on multicultural programming and “blatant discrimination.”
CKWR has overhauled its management in recent months as it attempts to renew its broadcast licence and balance its books. It also reorganized its programming schedule at the end of July, and moved to increase the amount of broadcast Canadian content to comply with Canadian broadcasting regulations.
Villalon is upset the multicultural programs that formerly stretched from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays are dispersed to other days of the week under the new schedule, primarily to Sundays and weeknights starting at 7 p.m.
The station’s lawyer issued the ceaseand-desist letter on Aug. 1, indicating their online statements constitute libel and defamation. The family had until 4 p.m. Wednesday to remove the material, which states or implies: CKWR is racist; members, volunteers and staff of CKWR of being discriminatory; that “white content” is replacing multicultural programming; that sponsors should stop supporting CKWR.
“It’s sad and really is too bad it’s come to that,” said CKWR board member and compliance officer Peter Beacock of the legal action.
Villalon confronted board members about the changes to the schedule earlier this year. In early July, his membership was officially terminated.
Knopf’s three-hour time slot was also originally moved from noon on Saturdays to 9 p.m. Wednesday evening and was shortened to two hours, but was later eliminated altogether following confrontations with Villalon and after the hosts failed to do their show for three weeks.
“Not only is that the worst spot during the week, we are a program aimed at seniors and most seniors are in bed by then,” said Knopf, 82. “That’s the pay I get for being loyal for 42 years.”
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has said the station was well short of the 10 per cent Canadian content required under their broadcast licence. As part of their licence renewal this year, the station implemented a new policy requiring all programs to play 12 per cent Canadian content, higher than the CRTC requirement.
Management had run-ins with Villalon about hitting the new Canadian content rule, at one point requesting the show be pre-recorded to ensure it meets that target.
The station says the multicultural programming was moved to weeknights to target listeners at home during the evening, and to fill the programming gap created when the Toronto-based Portuguese language Camões Radio program opted not to renew their contract with CKWR.
That show ran from Sundays to Fridays at 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Camões Radio founder Manuel DaCosta told the Record they “simply decided not to extend the contract” with CKWR.
Comparing the new schedule with one from late 2017, 11 of the 14 multicultural shows saw no reduction in air time following the change. Only one saw a thirtyminute reduction, while Musical Tour in Spanish and Camões Radio were cancelled.
The revised schedule features three new multicultural shows, including two for African audiences (one hour each) and one from India (one hour).
On Wednesday evening the material named in the cease-and-desist order was still online, including a Twitter post of the legal order itself along with the comment, “Bullying from CKWR, the station without money ... but enough to pay lawyers.”
The Twitter page, created in July, is in Villalon’s name.
CKWR says the changes to the broadcast schedule are part of a multipronged approach to saving the station. Beacock said they’re only bringing in about two-thirds of the money they need to remain sustainable.
The station, a not-for-profit, is licensed as an English-language community station and is awaiting a broadcast licence renewal decision from the CRTC, which granted the station a short-term license renewal last month to the end of the year as it works through the application.