Rainbow Radio

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This article or section contains information about a future radio station, radio network or radio show.

It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the station or network launch approaches and more information becomes available.

Rainbow Radio is the proposed brand name of a new low-power FM radio station in Toronto, Ontario, licensed to serve the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. It will be the first radio station in Canada targeted specifically to an LGBT audience.

The application was filed by Evanov Radio Group in 2005, and approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on April 5, 2006. ^[1] The company first applied for this license in 1999, but was denied in favour of Milestone Radio's CFXJ, Canada's first urban music station. The 2005 application received widespread support from the city's LGBT community.

The station, which will broadcast a 50-watt signal at 103.9 FM, is currently expected to launch in late 2006 or early 2007. Mancandy, an Internet radio service targeting gay men from studios in Toronto, aired a test broadcast on that frequency for several days in March of 2006.

Rainbow Radio's proposed programming is a predominantly contemporary hit radio format, with dance music, rhythm and blues, easy listening, contemporary jazz, Latin and world music programming evenings and weekends. The station will also dedicate 28 hours per week to news, talk and other information programming, and its program content will be partially overseen by a community advisory committee.

The station will also fund a $5,000 annual scholarship to journalism, art or music students at Humber College and Carleton University, and a $30,000 stage showcase for musical artists at Toronto's Pride Week celebrations.

Rainbow Radio's official C-prefix call sign is not yet known. These are normally assigned by Industry Canada some time after the license approval, but before the station's official launch.

1 Programming
2 Controversy
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Programming

On September 13, 2006, Evanov announced that the station's morning program would be hosted by Ken Kostick and Mary Jo Eustace, the former cohosts of the television cooking show What's for Dinner?.

[edit] Controversy

The Rainbow Radio application has faced a number of controversies, both within Toronto's gay community and among outside groups.

Pink Triangle Press, the publisher of the city's LGBT newspaper Xtra!, was originally a partner in the application, but pulled out in December of 2005. Pink Triangle alleged that Evanov was not genuinely committed to serving LGBT audiences, but was instead proposing an LGBT station as a "bait and switch" manoeuvre to get the company into the Toronto market (where reception of the company's existing contemporary hit radio station Z103.5 is unreliable), with the intention of dropping LGBT programming and converting the station to a mainstream format shortly after its launch. Evanov has stated a commitment to serving LGBT audiences, but refused Pink Triangle's request to have the commitment reiterated in a legally binding contract. ^[2]

Following Pink Triangle's withdrawal from the application, Evanov threatened to hold Pink Triangle legally liable for any losses incurred by the company if the CRTC failed to approve its application.

Several interventions opposing the application, as well as National Post columnist Lorne Gunter ^[3], noted that the CRTC had not issued an open call for other applications, alleging that Rainbow Radio's application was given special treatment by the CRTC for "politically correct" reasons. Some commentators, in fact, have directly linked Rainbow Radio's approval to the CRTC's denial in 2003 of a license for a Roman Catholic radio station in Toronto, alleging religious discrimination.

In the license approval, however, the CRTC noted that because the 103.9 frequency is second-adjacent to Evanov's own Z103.5, and Evanov would therefore have to give its consent to accept a zone of radio frequency interference to Z103's signal, the company would effectively have had veto rights over any competing application for the frequency. (The Catholic station, conversely, was one of eight applicants for a single frequency, which was awarded to the multicultural station CJSA-FM.)

Further intervenors, including several major commercial radio companies, indicated that the station's proposed format did not offer a sufficiently clear distinction from other commercial radio stations already broadcasting in the Toronto market.

Other critics have also suggested that the application does not do enough to take into account the diversity of musical tastes and programming interests in the LGBT community, and that as a low-power signal many LGBT people who live away from the Church and Wellesley area may not even be able to receive the station at all. According to reception reports during the Mancandy test broadcast, the signal was not widely audible north of St. Clair Avenue (although it should be noted that when Rainbow Radio officially launches, it may have a higher effective radiated power depending on variables such as transmitter height).

Some of this latter group have also suggested that a non-profit community radio station would have been a more appropriate way to serve LGBT audiences.