Vancouver: The advisory board for Rogers Broadcasting’s proposed multicultural station lmtv, one of the spurned applicants in Vancouver’s race for new stations in July, will appeal to the federal cabinet to overturn the crtc’s decision.

In the vote to dismiss the application that would clone Rogers’ Toronto station cfmt, the three eastern commissioners, including chair Francoise Bertrand, voted against lmtv and the two western commissioners, Cindy Grauer and Barbara Cram, voted in favor.

‘We believe there is some eastern discrimination,’ says local lawyer Mason Loh, who with fellow community leader Mobina Jaffer comprise what’s left of the lmtv advisory board. ‘With a one-vote difference, 800,000 people in Greater Vancouver are ignored. Why not Vancouver? This is an issue of fairness, an issue of justice. Hopefully, the politicians will know better what the people want.’

According to lmtv, there are 800,000 people in the Lower Mainland who speak neither English nor French as their first language. While 40% of lmtv’s free, over-the-air signal on basic cable was going to be in English, the balance of the programming schedule was to be split between 15 languages, including Chinese, Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish and Greek.

Loh cites the strongly worded dissenting opinions of the western commissioners as evidence of the regional split.

‘Vancouver is now arguably the most culturally diverse city in Canada,’ stated Grauer in her dissent, ‘and while the multicultural communities in both Montreal and Toronto are served by a free, local over-the-air ethnic television service, Vancouver has none.’

Stated Cram: ‘If the demand in this market were not seen as sufficient, this would mean there would never be another ethnic television station in Canada.’

The vote against lmtv also seems to contravene the crtc’s own commitment to ethnic broadcasting that was restated in July 1999.

The regulator said: ‘The Commission has decided to continue the basic framework of the 1985 ethnic broadcasting policy. It considers that this policy has led to a substantial increase in the diversity of the Canadian broadcasting system through the emergence of many new ethnic-broadcasting stations. Smaller ethnic groups benefit from a basic level of broadcasting in their own languages and from programming that assists in their full participation in Canadian society, reflects their culture and promotes cross cultural understanding. The revised policy will support the continued growth of high quality third-language Canadian programming.’

Vancouver’s current multicultural programming comprises volunteer-run community access shows, imported non-Canadian programs, and pay services like the Chinese-only signal Fairchild Television.

lmtv, in its $30-million proposal, promised to produce more Canadian news and current affairs programming and would establish Ottawa and Victoria news bureaus. Dinner-hour newscasts would include a one-hour Chinese show and a one-hour Punjabi show. Each hour would be split evenly between local and national news. The station expects to have little reliance on imported programming.

‘This is not going to be a wildly profitable operation,’ admits Loh, referring to lmtv’s diluted and specialized audiences. ‘It will take Rogers five to seven years to break even, and even then it will be more a service to the community.’

He says there would be cost efficiencies in that lmtv would be a sister station to cfmt.

The lmtv board will file the appeal prior to the Aug. 18 deadline. Cabinet then has two months to ignore the request, refer back to the crtc for reconsideration or grant the application outright.

According to Loh, Vancouver cabinet ministers Hedy Fry and Lou Sekora support lmtv’s position.

‘This is a tv station that will not ghettoize ethnic communities but one that will involve them,’ says Loh. *