CKLN is wasting your cash
Let me start with the basics: Ryerson has a radio station, it's called CKLN. I say this because a surprising amount of students don't know it exists. Second, students pay about $9.63 a year for the privilege of having this station. Even fewer know that.
Shitshow is a term flung around far too often these days, but CKLN is truly a shitshow not worth your money, even if it is is only $9. After covering the radio station for a year — including a large feature about its 30th birthday — the Eyeopener has determined that CKLN should be dismantled.
This paper takes student money every year to provide a service to campus, and we're accountable for it. In contrast, CKLN takes student money, provides a service to non-student alternative radio listeners, and as for accountability, its senior volunteers (who are not students) moved to impeach its own board of directors (which actually has students).
To add to its irrelevance, 60 per cent of CKLN's budget comes from students, but this week an Eyeopener student survey found that only two per cent of respondents said they listen to the station.
Yes, CKLN does have a large listenership outside campus. Really, they do. It's considered one of the top radio stations in Toronto.
But should students really take comfort in the fact that they're paying for 30-something beatniks to listen to radio? The station should tailor to students or not exist at all.
It doesn't even give prominance to student programming. The Eyeopener's radio show gets the Wednesday 6:30 a.m. time slot — prime radio time for the most-read newspaper on campus.
Toronto might need this kind of alternative radio station, but why are Ryerson students expected to foot the bill? The University of Waterloo cut funds to its campus this because the station had lost its way with campus. There is no reason why Ryerson students shouldn't follow this lead.
Comments
David Lee, about 1 year ago said:
I just want to correct one of your facts. It is the *non-student* board members only who have been impeached, and exactly because of their lack of accountability to student and non-student members and even to the student portion of the board. There was never any move to impeach the student board members.
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Mohammad Asim, about 1 year ago said:
Get the city to pay for this service. Students don\'t even listen to this station. Complete waste.
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Anonymous, 7 months ago said:
The article and the comments just show how messed-up today's youth are.
Instead of getting involved with and giving to the community, all they want to be is little Ted Rogers in training, or Donald Trumps. The destruction of CKLN confirms it too.
Oh course, you young folk have a right to have your station the way you want it to be, but that doesn't mean that it will be any good, especially considering that you have no consciousness of the world around you. What else is new, though?
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Anonymous, 4 months ago said:
I think the eyeopener is a shit paper, do I still have to pay for you? Yes I do. Let's stop being a bunch of hypocrites please.
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Anonymous, 3 months ago said:
I was on the cover of the Eyeopener multiple times and still never read the rag. Demanding students stop funding the Eyeopener is a very roundabout way of committing funding suicide for the paper. CKLN has a larger more dedicated audience than the Eyeopener. Why fund anything that isn't enjoyed by the majority of Ryerson students?
Your argument has merits, but feels like you're taking a stand just for the sake of provoking response - which is a genuine, regularly used journalistic technique (if a cheap one).
Hopefully, the student union will fund your torches and pitchforks...
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