In late 2002 we made a deal with the CRTC to continue operation with programming suspended, pending a license application. There is a loop hole in the Broadcasting Act about alpha numeric text. What you see now on UHF 15 in Toronto is a message channel with a soundtrack of Toronto musical talent.
Star Ray TV also took the CRTC to Federal Court twice alleging "reasonable apprehension of bias" in the awarding of licenses. See: http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/en/2002/ ... ca165.html
We have been building our Internet infrastructure launching several new websites:
http://tobroadcast.com: Our Toronto info and Internet broadcasting site. A CP24 type channel where it belongs: on the Internet. This site is taking off logging 350,000 hits in September. Tobroadcast.com is also our gateway to our live peercast server which mostly broadcasts the Community Marquee feed from UHF 15 but occasionally we program the peercast feed separately. We also have VOD on tobroadcast.com and plan on expanding VOD in the future.
http://music.tobroadcast.com: A new Beta site for music played on the Community Marquee. You are able to request songs, make dedications, buy the artists music online, visit their websites, etc., quite the promotion tool.
http://freetoronto.tv: Star Ray TV's website dedicated to picking up OTA (over the air) signals in Toronto. There is an accurate channel list of stations available in southern Ontario at: http://freetoronto.tv/clist.htm The channels listed in bold are the ones you would normally pick up with "Rabbit Ears."
http://tochat.tv: The long time domain of Star Ray TV's Cu-seeme videoconferencing server, now also the domain of this forum we are using right now.
Star Ray TV filed a new application for a community station on June 3, 2004 and since then nothing has happened. The CRTC is denying Star Ray due process. This is criminal activity, the CRTC has a statutory obligation to hear filed applications in a timely manner. Some CRTC commissioners and former CRTC employees need to be hung out to dry.
As far as any new hope for Star Ray TV you got to be kidding. Recently the CRTC turned down an application for a television station in Niagara called TVN http://tvn.ca See: http://support.tvn.ca These people had 20M to start up a local station in Niagara Falls. They spent a million dollars on the application just to get denied for the same reasons that Star Ray TV did! At least we got screwed by the CRTC on the cheap! Hope is a new government in Ottawa disbanding the CRTC.
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
-- Ronald Reagan
The conservatives and the NDP speak out against the CRTC:
NDP press release, August 10, 2004:
Angus calls on Liberal Cabinet to suspend CRTC decision immediately
Ottawa - Charlie Angus, MP for Timmins-James Bay, is calling on the Canadian Heritage Minister and the Liberal cabinet to immediately suspend the recent decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to deny the renewal of Quebec City's CHOI-FM. Angus is also calling for a comprehensive review of the mandate of the CRTC.
Speaking to a crowd of approx. 8,000 protesters on Parliament Hill today (many traveling the considerable distance from Quebec City), Angus demanded the Minister intervene.
"The Minister should immediately recommend to her cabinet colleagues that the CHOI-FM decision be suspended pending a full review of the mandate and authority of the CRTC," said Angus.
Angus called on the Heritage Minister to bring together a task force of broadcast policy experts, academics, elected Members of Parliament and stakeholders to review the current legislation that governs the CRTC. With a clear mandate to increase accountability and transparency, the task force would present proposed legislative changes to the House of Commons heritage committee for deliberations.
"I do not feel many of the most recent decisions by the CRTC are able to be fully justified," said Angus, pointing to the Commission's decision to terminate the CHOI-FM license, the refusal to approve Italian state broadcaster RAI and the severe restrictions placed on broadcasting Arabic news channel Al Jazeera.
"The CRTC is an un-elected board with the power to decide what voices have the right to be broadcast. When the Commission deems a specific point-of-view or voice has no right to heard in Canada, this must be taken with the utmost diligence and it must be able to withstand the scrutiny of the Canadian public. We must take a serious look at the way the CRTC is operating."
Extract from Conservative Party election platform:
"A Conservative government will initiate an overall review of the relevance of the role played by the CRTC in Canada's communication and broadcasting industries."
Extract from Conservative Party candidate handbook:
"CRTC: supports the restructuring of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, reducing its mandate to registration and/or marketing of bandwidth and to dealing with international communications negotiations.
Satellite Broadcasting: believes a sound Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite policy represents an opportunity to support Canadians' ability to develop an international market for their programs. Our approach would be to negotiate a reciprocity agreement with the United States to create an open market in the licensing of television satellite distribution. This agreement would make Canadian programming available in the United States and allow foreign programming to be available here in Canada for the free choice and benefit of all Canadians."
The CTRC has to go. VOTE OUT the corrupt Liberals, and throw out the CRTC with them!!!
The Internet the new frontier? For sure. From the above its clear that Star Ray TV is positioning itself to be a major force in Internet broadcasting.
The younger generation couldn't care less about broadcast TV.. You are able to reach the younger crowd through Internet broadcasting. They will watch a station they consider hip. The image of Star Ray as anti-establishment and myself as a pirate is appealing to kids. There are a few Internet only broadcasting stations starting up in the Toronto area.
A lot of people ask me what is Star Ray TV like, well its a cross between SCTV, the movie UHF, and a bad B horror movie. Well that's all for now.