By a majority vote, the CRTC revoked the broadcasting licence for 88.1 FM CKLN on Friday. The campus community station, which broadcasts out of Ryerson University (and is primarily funded by the Ryerson Student Union, and whose Board of Directors was actively seeking four elected student representatives and one appointed RSU rep), but isn’t part of the university, was shuttered after their failure to bring the station in line with CRTC regulations, and numerous compliance issues addressed at multiple hearings in March and December 2010.

"Holding a broadcasting licence is a privilege that comes with responsibilities and regulatory obligations," said CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein in a statement, and according to the Commission, CKLN just wasn't living up to its responsibilities as a campus community radio station.

The CRTC’s decision didn’t come as much of a surprise to station volunteers. Trouble had been brewing since at least 2009, and the decision was based on a litany of complaints, from not properly filling out program logs to volatile internal relations and lack of management oversight. Those management issues came to a head in 2009 when conflicts between board members and station volunteers led to lockouts and no original programming for months (instead, the station aired a loop of pre-recorded jazz music—provided their transmitter was in working order, which was not always the case, due to a separate lockout at the transmitter site).

“It's something I had been anticipating in the back of my mind for a while but had ultimately hoped it wouldn't play out like it has,” says Jason Isaac, a.k.a. Big Jacks of the Mixtape Massacre show on CKLN’s notorious Saturday afternoon timeslot.

Since the '80s, the 1–4 p.m. time slot has been a platform for underground hip-hop, and, until the introduction of Flow 93.5 in 2001, campus radio was the only place to hear it in on the city's airwaves. From Ron Nelson's Fantastic Voyage in the '80s, to The Powermove in the '90s, to The Real Frequency Show in the early '00s (which has since moved on to commercial success on Flow), Saturdays on CKLN helped launch some of Canadian hip-hop’s biggest names. But the station didn’t just serve to launch local artists: big-name acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Afrika Baambaataa, KRS One, and Mobb Deep have all dropped by Mixtape Massacre to get heard in Toronto’s hip-hop community.

“Recently we had Maestro Fresh Wes on the show and he told me how he got his start hanging out at the station and rapping on air during Ron Nelson's show in the '80s,” says Isaac. “He didn't want to leave! He stuck around because he wanted to hear everything we did and he was so pleased with how we did. It was an honour to see someone like himself, who's a veteran in the industry and a Canadian icon, be so moved by our show. Even with all his accolades and accomplishments, to see him come back to CKLN first to talk with us about his latest projects to me is a reflection of how important of an outlet CKLN is.”

Isaac, like many involved with the station, is still reeling from the news, but he can already anticipate the impact of the CRTC’s decision. “This is a huge hit for community/underground/alternative radio in Toronto and Canada. This is a terrible loss.”

So what went wrong at such a well-established community station that gave rise to both Adam Vaughan’s broadcast journalism career and Maestro Fresh Wes?

Jerry Chomyn is the Program Head of Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber and a seasoned radio pro who's worked in every element of the broadcasting industry. He also attended the CKLN hearings in December.

"They just didn't have their act together, and it all comes back to leadership. Even today they are still advertising for a station manager. I can't imagine having to try to respond to the current situation with no one at the helm."

Chomyn is quick to echo the Commission's reminder that running a radio station is a responsibility, not a right. "Campus radio licences come with specific requirements and regulations that need to be met. The CRTC provided CKLN every opportunity to comply or at the very least provide proof they were 'trying.'"

But not everyone agrees with the CRTC’s decision, not even within the ranks of the regulatory body. Commissioner Louise Poirier's dissenting opinion is attached to the CRTC’s official decision. In it, she cites many factors in CKLN’s defence: it’s Toronto’s first campus radio station, it's been broadcasting since 1983 with full licence renewals since then, and it's never been "in a situation of confirmed non-compliance." Poirier suggested that CKLN should have been given another chance in the form of a mandatory order or a short-term licence renewal. She added that CKLN’s case could potentially be precedent-setting, since no other licences have been so swiftly revoked in recent CRTC history without trying any other solutions.

"Instead, [the CRTC] took drastic action and are attempting to shut down a station that for more than twenty-seven years has faithfully served Toronto's diverse communities," says Shelley Robinson, Executive Director of the National Community and Campus Radio Association. "CKLN has more than 150 volunteers and thousands of listeners who tune in to find music and voices and perspectives they can't get anywhere else. They did have problems, but fixed them and continue to operate in good faith, relying on dedicated volunteers and strong community support."

In the past few months, CKLN had been making a concerted effort to raise money, put together an elected Board of Directors with more emphasis on community involvement, and hire new managers. As Chomyn noted, the station's website still has a job posting up for a Station Manager. (Applications are due February 4.)

In a statement issued to OpenFile late on Friday night, CKLN's Board of Directors maintained that while the station was "not in compliance while CKLN was off-air in 2009 and in intermittent subsequent periods....this was completely unintentional and once the problems were identified, we collectively undertook in good faith to remedy them. We are responsible campus and community broadcasters and the unprecedented decision of the CRTC to revoke our license rather than issue a mandatory order took us and the broadcast community entirely by surprise."

CKLN, and other campus and community stations such as CIUT—U of T's campus radio station, where I sometimes volunteer, though I never get to touch any buttons—fill the spaces between major commercial stations and our comparatively wealthy public broadcaster, because they're mandated to serve the communities they broadcast in with niche programming and by providing training and a platform to enable community participation.

"This is a huge loss to Toronto, but also to community media across the country. We need spaces where people can get trained and speak for themselves to their own communities. This is as important in big cities with crowded spectrums as it is in small towns with no other local radio," says Robinson.

And unlike the shuttering of a newspaper or magazine, when a radio station loses its licence, the airspace has still has to be filled; the show must go on. So what will a slice of free spectrum space in the country's largest media market go for?

"Commercial radio is always looking for ways to grow market share, so someone would love 88.1. There are no new spots available on the dial, and if one becomes available that's an opportunity not to be missed," says Neil Mathur, a broadcasting instructor at Humber College and consultant. But he hesitates to say that the CRTC would put the station up for bidding to commercial stations.

Jerry Chomyn agrees: "All things are possible in radio, but if the CRTC reverts back to the original intent of frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum, it should go to a campus/community station.” But there is another option. "Radio is still a very viable media property, so I suspect there will be interest from the business community. It might be an opportunity to bring another independent player into the Toronto market." At the moment, Evanov Radio Group, which owns Z103 and ProudFM, is the only independent private broadcaster on the FM dial.

CKLN does have plans to appeal the decision—they have announced a general meeting for Monday, January 31, at 7 p.m., in the Ryerson Student Centre that they operate out of—but if they lose, most radio insiders agree the CRTC will likely grant the licence to another campus community station.

"Toronto is a competitive market, but campus and community radio is an important part of the Canadian broadcasting system," Shelley Robinson says. "It can sometimes take a little longer for campus and community stations to get their funding in place, but it's important to make space for these voices, especially in markets already crowded with commercial broadcasters."