Rogers To Shut Down Six Canadian News & Sports Stations
Rogers Sports & Media has announced it will shut down six spoken word station across Canada including two each in
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Rogers Shuts Down Six Stations
- Thread starter Huff
- Start date
radioinsight.com
Canada seems to be much faster than the U.S. in realizing AM radio doesn’t have much of a future.
Wow this is shocking news for me. I live in the Vancouver market currently, and regularly listen to both News 1130 and Sportsnet 650.
This decision seems to put Vancouver in a bit of a strange position, as there will be no news or talk content left on the radio (outside of CKNW), and no sports content whatsoever. Vancouver may not be a huge city, but these two stations going dark is going to leave a black hole in the market for spoken word content.
This decision seems to put Vancouver in a bit of a strange position, as there will be no news or talk content left on the radio (outside of CKNW), and no sports content whatsoever. Vancouver may not be a huge city, but these two stations going dark is going to leave a black hole in the market for spoken word content.
Rogers To Shut Down Six Canadian News & Sports Stations
Rogers Sports & Media has announced it will shut down six spoken word station across Canada including two each in
I’ve always been on the fence with this one. Low powered AM radio is completely done for, and seeing smaller stations shutter operations isn’t much of a shock. Seeing major stations like 1130 shut down is a bit of a shock though.
I’m in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle all of the time and regularly listen to news or talk content on stations like 640 KFI, 1070 KNX, KCBS 740, or KNWN 1000. Granted, most of these stations have an FM presence as well, but all of these stations seem very viable to me.
You’ll get no argument from me that AM is on its way out. But with that being said, the true “shock” for me in this story is the fact that Rogers has basically come out and said that they see no value whatsoever in news/talk/sports radio whatsoever. And it doesn’t seem to matter what frequency it’s on. If I had to listen to KCBS on FM, that would be totally fine. I would just want to be able to listen to it.
a hole that doesnt appear to be profitable.
And the stations arent just going silent, theyre handing back the licenses
According to @lanceventa's article, all six of the stations being shut down (five AM, one FM) have either talk or sports talk formats. Furthermore, it leaves Rogers with only one station in each format, both located in Toronto. Since Rogers' music stations are geofenced to Canada (due to U.S. DMCA licensing fees), this means that only two Rogers stations, both in Toronto, will be heard on the Internet outside of Canada, once the cancellations have taken place. (The date for that was not listed in the article.) I have to assume that since none of Rogers' music stations are being touched, those continue to generate enough revenue, despite Canada's own music licensing fees both on and off of the Internet, to keep them going for at least a while longer.
This one hits me hard because it’s almost like the final nail in the coffin of what used to my dream career. I really enjoyed the 10 years I spent in radio and look back on those days with fond memories. Seeing stations like this get handed in like they’re worthless proves to me that I’ll probably never get a chance to do it again.
One thing Canada did differently than the U.S. was that mid and large market AMs got hefty power levels enhanced by directional antennas. You don’t find the dinky powers that make so many U.S. stations untenable in larger cities. So those high power stations in Canada aren’t the exception as they are in the U.S.
WOW.
I have no words.
This is a major blow to Canadian radio. 1130 had traffic updates every 10 minutes or whatever, and the traffic in Vancouver is terrible. Great personalities. They will be well-missed in BC.
Same w/ CFFR. I first heard them as a kid, as "66 CFR" and oldies. And 960 shutting down is a giant nail in the coffin for Calgary. That signal got out for hundreds of miles at night, always one of the strongest AMs from Canada, and tons of play-by-play sports coverage. A major blow to the Calgary Flames, who just lost their radio broadcast during the off-season.
RIP
How long before CBC shuts down all their AM stations and puts them on FM?
I have no words.
This is a major blow to Canadian radio. 1130 had traffic updates every 10 minutes or whatever, and the traffic in Vancouver is terrible. Great personalities. They will be well-missed in BC.
Same w/ CFFR. I first heard them as a kid, as "66 CFR" and oldies. And 960 shutting down is a giant nail in the coffin for Calgary. That signal got out for hundreds of miles at night, always one of the strongest AMs from Canada, and tons of play-by-play sports coverage. A major blow to the Calgary Flames, who just lost their radio broadcast during the off-season.
RIP
How long before CBC shuts down all their AM stations and puts them on FM?
When the CBC shuts down CBK 540 in Saskatchewan (and its awesome groundwave signal) you will know AM radio is completely dead in Canada.
you reallllll think that many were getting traffic from1130? thats what smart phone apps for.
An what does 960 getting out hundreds of miles do for advertisers? Nothing
CBC Radio 1 is already on FM in every major market it serves. The big AM signals out west stay on for wide area coverage, but if you're listening in Winnipeg or Calgary or Vancouver, you're almost certainly listening to one of the "nested" FM repeaters.
Is it possible the Canadian government offers owners some incentive to move off AM or shutter their AMs? They may want to accelerate abandonment of the AM band. This is the same government that shut down CHU (their version of WWV, the Canadian time service on shortwave) just last week.
A year ago this month, I was in Norway, and IIRC you cannot find an AM station anywhere on the band. (You can barely find any FMs either, almost everything's moved to DAB. I think I was able to find 4 stations in Oslo, their capital.)
How nice of Rogers to essentially stick the middle finger out like this a day after their company purchases 100% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, clearly verring to being more & more Toronto-centric like most of Canadian media is.
Heck of a lot of news/talk on CBC1, though. Or doesn't that count?
There’s one … Longyearbyen, Svalbard. 1kw on 1485 relaying NRK P1
heard it several times in AK
The move also contradicts your frequent prediction that talk formats are poised to replace music on the radio. This is a big broadcaster going in the other direction.
I remind you of their quote. They're beyond investing in radio at this point:
iHeart, Audacy, Cumulus, and the others don't have the options Rogers has.
At one time, companies like Rogers owned radio in the US. They all got out a long time ago.
I look at CBC Radio One as being a bit different from standard news/talk. Half of the time, you tune into Radio One and hear music content, podcast style talk shows, or other cultural content. I wouldn’t call it straight up “news” per se.