Young people listen to less radio. That doesn’t mean shutting down CHMR makes sense

When I read last week that the executive of the students’ union at Memorial University wants to eliminate the campus radio station, I was taken straight back to the 1980s, when youthful politicians around Canada seemed to regularly flex their muscles in almost always failed attempts to muzzle student media.

MUNSU’s issue doesn’t seem to be with what CHMR says or broadcasts. The issue is money.

But the chilling effect is the same, and the circumstances here — the MUNSU executive made a unanimous recommendation after a highly questionable consultation process, just weeks before their jobs expire — feel familiar, too.

Some background. I worked for two years in Ottawa with Canadian University Press, a co-operative of student newspapers, starting in 1985. My wife, Martha Muzychka, was CUP president the year before I started. Between us, we experienced threatened closures numerous times. A couple of summers ago in St. John’s, we reunited with Brian Iler, a Toronto lawyer whose counsel kept numerous student papers going; I guess a call from a Toronto lawyer was enough to trigger some sober second thought among power-sizzled student politicos. Brian remembered all of it.

Earlier, when I was at the Muse, threats from student politicians were too common for anyone’s liking. Martha encountered a student council threat after editing the Muse’s first women’s supplement, and I had two conversations with student leaders who told me they were being lobbied to shut down the paper — once after we published the Muse’s first gay and lesbian supplement in early 1985.

Nothing happened, of course. (I do recall telling student politicians that such a closure would automatically turn into a national news story. This was an early lesson in reputation management.)

The current crisis for CHMR is financial, but it also speaks to a lack of respect and appreciation for student media.

MUNSU, the students’ union, has a deficit of $297,988, and the outgoing executive has concluded that shutting down the student radio station is one way to deal with it.

A sample size of 84

In a statement posted to its Instagram feed, the students’ union said it relied on a survey that showed about 13 per cent of students ever listened to CHMR.

Calling this a “survey” is quite generous. As Muse managing editor Lee Hurley wrote in an editorial published on Sunday, March 22: “The survey results indicate that CHMR is the third least-used MUNSU service among students at 13.1%. However, if you zoom in, at the top of the page, you’ll see a very tiny ‘n=84.’ This means that only 84 students responded to the survey. MUN’s St. John’s campus has approximately 12k students enrolled. This sample size amounts to about 0.7% of the student body at the St. John’s campus.”

Not only that, I wonder how many of those 84 students were informed while taking it of the consequences of their decision, that MUNSU would use their answers to eliminate a service that has roots going back to 1951?

In a CBC interview, Nathan Gillingham, an executive member, seemed confident resting the executive’s unanimous recommendation upon it:

“It was determined that the CHMR service is unfortunately an underutilized one by our undergraduate members,” he said. “And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are in…a different media landscape these days and that radio isn’t really something that young people today are paying close attention to.”

Before I go on, it might interest MUNSU and others to know that the media industry, through the use of technologies like PPM (portable people meters), has known for years and years that what people say they listen to and what they actually hear are different things. Most of us hear radio signals ambiently when we are out and about, without necessarily realizing it, and I cannot see why this doesn’t happen on campus too. (In other words, I bet some if not many of those 84 students have heard CHMR without clocking it.)

Back to the money

CHMR itself has a deficit of $200,000, according to the students’ union. The station maintains it has dropped sharply. It had until last year three full-time salaries; it now has two.

But — apart from the changing media landscape, which I’ll get to shortly — it also has very limited revenue. Like the Muse, the student newspaper which operates independently enough to not come directly under MUNSU control, CHMR collects all of $2 per student per semester.

That levy has not changed since 2001. That funding model is older than most undergraduates.

No wonder it’s running a deficit!

Radio habits and demographics

The MUNSU executive is not wrong about identifying a “different media landscape” as an issue. Campus radio stations across Canada are under threat from mutliple directions. But that doesn’t mean there is not a need for student broadcasting.

Let’s look at some context.

Young people in fact are listening to the radio — not just CHMR, but the medium itself — less than earlier generations, and this has been going on for some time.

There’s also been a crisis involving older audiences, too. Commercial radio in Canada has been shattered by demographic changes. Just look at St. John’s, where stations now are shadows of their former selves, and where you will struggle to find a live local voice on a commercial station in the afternoon or evening. The whole industry has been upended.

So, MUNSU has a point.

But … none of this means younger audiences are not engaged, or they do not listen to things. Streaming services are hugely popular, and podcasts have been growing steadily in popularity in Canada, with young adults powering the way.

In other words, they are not tuning out. They’ve been changing habits. There is so, so much opportunity for new connections to be made.

Community, community, community

It’s critical to remember that MUN Radio is not commercial radio, anyway. It’s community radio. The vast majority of the content comes from volunteers. CHMR is not meant to turn a profit, and its potential to enrich campus life (and beyond) seems to me to be as strong now as when I was an undergraduate.

Don’t forget that apart from the measly funding arrangement, CHMR has to work within rules set decades ago. Its 50-watt transmission power puts it on 83.5 FM in St. John’s, the position it has had since 1987, but good luck hearing it as you get away from the city. This limitation is because of CRTC rules guided by the interests of commercial stations then at their peak. (A topic for another day, but the limitations of low-power FM in Canada ought to be reconsidered, too.)

CHMR should be rejuvenated, not marked for elimination. It provides entertainment and news for the student body, learning opportunities for its student volunteers, community connections that go far, far beyond the campus.

The MUNSU executive’s decision does not mean closure is guaranteed. It’s a recommendation that goes to the broader board on April 1.

Judging from numerous posts and comments I am seeing on social media, it seems there is indeed a lot of opposition to this proposal.

To sum up:

• The tiny MUNSU survey was nowhere near a proper engagement process.
• CHMR’s funding model is inadequate.
• Young people may listen to live radio, but their listening habits overall are robust. This is an opportunity for MUN Radio to evolve, grow and strengthen.
• CHMR provides a much-needed community space. The station is already looking at a plan that would be less reliant on student funds; perhaps its future could involve a community-anchored funding model, which other low-power stations elsewhere have employed.
• In an era with declining media and a weakened democracy, shutting down another voice is a disturbing, retrograde move.

I hope MUNSU’s board reflect on that last point in particular before the April 1 decision.