VIVO, Industry Canada and the Olympics
BLOG POST posted on Août 26, 2011 by infil00p
One of the cooler pieces of creative resistance during the Vancouver 2010 Games was the VIVO Evening News. This was an initiative of VIVO Studios, where they setup a Pirate Radio Station. This would have been awesome, except for the fact that Industry Canada came in and shut down the radio station.
Before I was a Software Developer, I worked in Campus-Based Community Radio, and I have experience dealing with both Industry Canada and the CRTC, so when I heard that it was shut down, I decided to go to Industry Canada and find out why. The information about the shutdown in the book Islands of Resistance was a small hint as well and indicated that this was the only time in Canadian History that Industry Canada enforced the broadcast act to the letter.
The documents are dated February 1, 2010, however the article that tipped them off wasn't even posted until February 12. What's interesting about this document is that it states that they arrived and that VIVO shut down the transmitter at their request. Normally Industry Canada is complaints driven, which normally means that they have to actually see a complaint occur.
What's strange is that a 2nd action item is attached to this request about ARC du Canada testing on 88.7 FM, and how the test operated as planned. This is listed as a Navcom test of an Low-Power FM (LPFM) station. Low Power Stations in Canada broadcast at or below 5W of power, and generally require a licence if they are over 1W of power.
Anyway, I'm still proceeding with my complaint regarding the eight-month delay, and I do plan on requesting the e-mails related to the shutdown of the station. Namely, how they first heard about this, and whether the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit was operating at this time. Industry Canada may have been acting as Spectrum Cops during this time, which would be extremely strange, since they normally don't have the resources. The source material for this article is below:
A201000505_2011-08-26_08-03-10.PDF - SHA1SUM: abcfcf42159818b6b0dedd3ecd1a1a5137cb1248
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