Ironically, despite the virtues that are generally attributed to the new digital platforms, no other medium—I want to stress that—has yet succeeded in reaching our local populations as easily and quickly as radio. All the other media platforms, without exception, require much heavier infrastructure than traditional terrestrial radio and often come with very high production and use costs.
With radio stations such as ours, there are no worries about data packages or amount of bandwidth and no connection speed problems. There is a microphone, a transmitter, a sending antenna, and, at the other end, people who listen while they go about their daily business, wherever they are and whatever they are doing. People just turn the dial and tune in their local radio station. They don't worry about whether they'll have enough data. It's easy. In fact, radio is the one and only medium that enters people's private lives so easily. You can listen to radio in the car, in the shower, on a boat, or at home in the backyard.
The Internet is not a universal cure for all the local news problems. The Internet is one way to get news, but it isn't the only way to do so or to stay in touch with the local community. It complements traditional media.
Every country in the world recommends keeping a battery-powered or crank radio in an emergency kit in the event of a disaster because no other medium holds up in such circumstances. This is one small example of how useful radio is to people. The CRTC decided that Canadian radio stations and television channels should be equipped to transmit alerts to the public in real time because it recognized the importance of traditional media.