Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  Going With The Flow. Neeti Ray's CINA Radio Group Eyes Acquisition of Bell Media's AM Stations in Windsor and Hamilton In a significant development for the Canadian radio landscape, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced a pending application by Neeti P. Ray's CINA Radio Group to acquire three AM stations from Bell Media. The stations in question are CHAM and CKOC in Hamilton and CKWW in Windsor, for the bargain basement total price of $445,000. The CRTC disclosed the application on November 16, 2023, stating that CINA Radio Group, led by Neeti P. Ray, aims to continue operating the stations under the same terms and conditions as the existing licenses. CINA Radio Group already owns several stations across central Canada, including FLOW in Toronto. The application is scheduled for final consideration in early 2024. Bell Media had previously expressed its intention to sell the three AM stations in Hamilton and Windsor back in Ju...

  No Black Owners To Groove On Toronto’s FM Airwaves By Stephen Weir: There used to be two, but now there are none.  Despite written pleas from the Prime Minister, the mayor, community groups and a listeners’ petition, the financially stressed radio station G-98.7 is no longer in Black hands. On Monday morning a court spent just an hour reviewing the purchase offer of the last Black owned station in the country (Flow, Canada’s first Black FM station was sold off years ago).  Pending a licence review by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, Mississauga broadcaster Neeti P. Ray is now the proud owner of a station that bills itself as one “that Grooves.” Ray already owns and operates multi-cultural stations CINA-FM in Windsor and CINA 1650 AM in Mississauga. The two stations air programming in a variety of language including: Assyrian, Cantonese, Hindi, Serbian, Spanish and Ukrainian. According to Wikipedia 80% of their daily programming is in Arabic. “While I prepa...