will it still flow?

As I wrote about a while ago, it has become official. CTV now is the proud owner of an ubran station. The broadcast empire took hold of the rights of FLOW 93.5 back on December 23rd 2010. The media community is now muttering if CTV will be doing to the only urban hit station. Originally, the CRTC called for Flow as follows..

The new station will offer an "Urban Music" musical format, targeted to an audience aged 25 to 44. Milestone stated that the format would be a "modern-day reflection of the rich musical traditions of Black musicians and Black-influenced music over at least the past century". The new station will add diversity to the musical genres available to Toronto audiences by exploring rhythm & blues (R&B), hip-hop and all the sub-groups of R&B, plus reggae and calypso, both of which are popular in the Toronto market but not currently heard to a great extent on any local or out-of-market commercial stations.

Now that CTV took over, big brother said this...

The Commission approves the application by CTV Limited for authority to acquire, from Milestone Radio Inc. (Milestone), the assets of the English-language commercial radio station CFXJ-FM Toronto and for a new broadcasting licence to continue the operation of the station under the same conditions as those in effect under the current licence.

So does this mean CTV can't touch the format FLOW is under? Some say that unless the station is under a specialty radio licence - like a community or religious station - CTV is free to do whatever they please. But how far can they go outside of the 'TC approval premise and flip? This makes me wonder if they just go hard on the TOP 40 become a CHR station - which they basically already are - and play a bunch of Hip Hop and RNB along with the big urban Canadian stars.

Got to obey the Cancon rules, right?.

So, do I see CTV changing it to a country or news outlet? No. Do I see them doing a MTV-like radio station with a big impact on black culture? Sure. CTV can do something really good with this new acquisition and change the station for the better or just be happy to own something they really don't know how to use. Much like what all the other big companies do when they acquire radio stations. 2011 for sure has started off as an interesting one in radioland.