Iqaluit (Feb 07/05) - A sharp decrease in the federal government's purchase of advertising is especially hurting French language radio stations in the North.

"The situation is bad," said Ghislain Couture of CFRT, Iqaluit's French radio station. "We hardly get any federal advertising."

In 2003, the federal government bought about $10,000 worth of airtime on CFRT. In 2004, that money was cut in half. In this fiscal year, federal advertising has been reduced to a few hundred dollars so far.

"The advertising that the federal government buys, either in radio or the community newspapers, allows them to communicate their services and lets the French community know what services are available," said Couture. "They have an obligation through the Official Languages Act to advertise to the French community through the French media."

CFRT costs more than $75,000 to run annually.

Couture said the station relies on the Association des francophones du Nunavut to make up the shortfall, which puts financial pressure on the organization.

"The more money the francophone association spends on radio, the less money is available for its other services," said Couture.

CFRT serves Iqaluit's 600 francophones and also provides radio training to students.

"It's the only source of local news in French," said Couture.

"It's very important to the francophone community."

The drop in advertising dollars had a different effect on the station in Yellowknife because CIVR Radio Taiga has only been around for three and a half years, versus CFRT's 10 years on the air.

"In Iqaluit there was a direct impact because they had been around a while and the federal government was used to advertising in Iqaluit," said Sylvie Francoeur of Radio Taiga.

"In Yellowknife, Radio Taiga was quite new and we were in the process of getting ourselves known. We did lose, but the impact wasn't as big as in Iqaluit."

The loss may not have been as large, but the cut was still felt. CIVR had to lay off its only paid employee last year and has been running the station with volunteers.

CIVR is lobbying the federal department of Canadian Heritage to review its community radio funding program. Canadian Heritage gives money to stations to start up, but won't provide money to keep them going.

A francophone association in Whitehorse had been in the process of setting up its own radio station similar to the set-up in Yellowknife.

"When they found out how difficult a time we were having financially, they decided to hold off," said Francoeur.

CIVR targets the 2,000 Yellowknifers who understand French, but Francoeur doesn't have exact numbers because the station has never had enough money to do an audience survey.

"We have a big audience in the English community as well because of the variety of music we play," said Francoeur.

"People can listen to African music, to rock, to country, to instrumental music. The community in general has found, by accident, this new station."

The federal Commissioner of Official Languages issued a report last month complaining that the government has so far failed to act on 13 of 18 recommendations made in 2002 to improve advertising purchasing in minority language media.