A Change.org petition to keep a Toronto radio station black-owned and operated is nearing its goal of acquiring 10,000 e-signatures (8,815 at the time of this post).
The petition, which launched a couple of weeks ago in support of CFKGFM- G98.7, was launched to “ensure that the mandate of the new owners stays towards the Black Community and that only the Black Community is allowed to own the Black Broadcast Voice. Seeking to put an end to Systemic Racism on Radio in Canada.”
As the petition explains, the station is currently in receivership, which is not the same thing as bankruptcy. Receivership has a special meaning in the context of Canada’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
Accordng to Bankruptcy Canada:
“When receivership is associated with a consumer bankruptcy, the receiver takes possession of (“receives”) the debtor’s assets, and liquidates/distributes them to the creditors according to rules contained in Canada’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The receiver also handles such tasks as submitting tax returns on behalf of the debtor.”
This means someone else is currently in control of the radio station, and could be sold to a new owner altogether. So the petition was created with the goal of “keeping the station majority Black-owned and operated at all times.”
Please take the time to sign and share the petition on Change.org. 10,000 is only the starting goal, 100K signatures would make a much larger statement.
Sign the Change.org Petition
Keep CKFGFM 98.7 in Toronto Black-Owned and Operated
CFKGFM- G98.7 is in Receivership. There was a call put out to give interested parties a chance to bid for ownership of the radio station. The current shareholders can also bid.
It is absolutely imperative that any company that is entrusted with the license to broadcast on 98.7 be majority Black-owned and operated. It is the very definition of Institutional / Systemic Racism to have anyone outside of the Black Community to own the Black voice.
So this petition is in support of ending systemic racism in radio and asking the Government to put conditions to:
- Keeping the station majority Black-owned and operated at all times.
- Having the World Beat format recategorized as Black Voices so that the Black Community will always have a Broadcast Voice in Canada like the Indigenous Community, referring to the protections on radio that they have. Changing the categorization of the station will stop the marginalization and division of the community on the radio. It will give the station a fair chance to succeed by being able to play all music by the community in what rotation they please loosening the conditions of the license as they have for the Indigenous Community.
CRTC- Diversity of Voices policy has recognized the need for diversity in ownership, editorial voice, and programming.
There are NO MORE FM frequencies available in the Greater Toronto Area. This is why the Heritage Minister and the CRTC saw it fit to award Intercity Broadcasting the usage of 98.7 which belonged to the CBC in order to serve the African Caribbean Community. At that time Flow 935 was Black-Owned and was responsible for launching the careers of many notable Black men and women in the industry today. Since Flow was serving the needs of the Hip and R&B audience G987 applied for a different license that has strict conditions of the license to play primarily other genres. Flow is no longer Black-owned and although they play music from our community their staff is no longer representative of the community, showing the importance of keeping G987 Black-owned so that opportunities will continue to be there for other up and coming Blacks in the industry.
Blacked-owned radio didn’t just launch the careers of Blacks in media sales, programming, news, administration, and promotions; it launched the careers of many of the mainstream Canadian artists we know today. Black’s in music influence popular culture and a Black-owned station should be able to play all of it.
If this petition is successful it will ensure that whichever Black-owned company that is awarded the license has the best opportunity to successfully serve the Black community and increase their overall ratings which will increase the station’s revenue.
If the CRTC and the government allow ownership of this frequency to go to any other community they will be silencing the Black Voice on commercial radio. It is my belief that in light of recent events the government will want to do everything in their power to help the community soar.
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