Blues Scraps And Grandmothers
CKUA’s Ken Regan offers a rebut in the blues radio battles late
Published May 22, 2008 by Fish Griwkowsky in Music Feature
Without getting too sappy here, I’ve been thinking about the effect of our grandparents on our musical sensibilities this week. Over hundreds of interviews with musicians over the years, time and time again I’ve heard about that first guitar being bought by grandpa, old Hank Snow records being played in the parlour or folk songs passed down by grandmothers toiling away with apparent cheer, humming in the yard. Well, my beautiful Russian grandma died this week at 92, but between her vibrant church singing and her cute and absolute addiction to The Sound of Music, the fundamentals of dramatic song first slipped into my heart, and so I thank her. Hopefully, you have some similar touchstone to embrace. If you still have the chance, let them know you’re grateful.
On to more important things, I’ve been talking at length in this column about the scrape between hopeful blues station DAWG FM and CKUA, the latter which forwarded an intervention notice to the CRTC in opposition to the competition’s application to exist in our city. Local blues activist Jeremy Loome described some email conversations in which he and CKUA’s Ken Regan came to an understanding of sorts.
“After a few emails, both sides agreed” said Loome—which I took as a general nod rather than proof of any official decision by CKUA to “sell,” ie., syndicate, its six hours of blues programming a week to the new station—or back down from its oppositional stance. Let me say, I could have been more diligent and apologize. Don’t forget I’m more proudly gonzo than journalist. Here’s Regan’s response: “What was incorrect in the piece in question, were Jeremy’s assertions that CKUA was gong to ‘sell’ Cam Hayden and Holger Petersen’s programs to the new blues station and that we were going to withdraw or significantly modify our intervention because of this arrangement.
“CKUA can’t sell those programs because we don’t own them. Cam and Holger own them. CKUA buys them from Cam and Holger. The only way we could sell them is with Cam and Holger’s permission and so far we haven’t even discussed the idea. Moreover, there’s been no suggestion by the applicants that they’re even interested in buying the shows. What I did tell Jeremy is that I would be more than happy to talk to the people at Skywords Inc. about CKUA’s concerns and their application, to see if there was some way to address everyone’s interests and that ‘if’ we were able to do so, I’d be happy to modify CKUA’s intervention to reflect that.”
Regan’s concern with DAWG, in his own words: “What I do worry about is private radio’s ability to spend millions on promotion of their product over CKUA’s, particularly at a time in the radio industry when audience fragmentation and audience loss is greater than ever in our history. CKUA is simply unable to compete with that kind of marketing and ‘if’ that results in a loss of audience for CKUA, it will translate into a loss of revenue, and that will translate into a potential loss of stability for CKUA, and that could translate into a potential loss of CKUA altogether if the trend were allowed to continue unchallenged.”
It should be noted CKUA has a number of inherent restrictions to fight with, including the amount of advertising they can sell—a quarter, tops, of what private radio can shill—and, unlike CBC, doesn’t get or want government funding, according to Regan. CKUA is, of course, largely privately funded by its incredibly local listeners.
In its response to CKUA’s intervention, Frank Torres breaks some of these numbers down, suggesting that even if DAWG could take away half of CKUA’s blues advertising revenue, that would amount to just over $13,000 annually. But as Regan says, “a loss,” as in, any loss. Both this response and the original intervention can be found at tinyurl.com/4tz2u5. It’s fascinating reading.
Globalization can be a good thing; books are cheaper online, with greater, global selection, for example. But music really does work differently. It often needs nourishment by hand. Like CJSR, CKUA has an inarguable track record of supporting local music. As GM of CKUA, Regan says he has a duty to address any potential threat. Regardless of who DAWG may bite or, indeed, encourage. “To NOT challenge any potential threat to CKUA—no matter how insignificant others may perceive it—would be an abrogation of my responsibility to CKUA, to its listeners and to our community.”
Hopefully, this passion will continue undaunted.
Source: www.seemagazine.com
