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Layoffs at Corus stations in Canada

B

Briancook451

A week after Rogers just shut down 6 stations and laid off tons of staff, Corus has joined in and laid off staff. London lost the most by the looks of it, with all the staff at 103.1 Fresh radio gone and one half of the Country 104 morning show gone. Also Red at Energy Hamilton is gone, Ed Garcia at Power 97 Winnipeg, Andrea Taylor at CISN Country Edmonton.
The morning show at Fresh also hosted in other markets as solo hosts. Red was on air in a couple markets, Kendra from Country 104 mornings was heard elsewhere, so it impacts more than just London, and Hamilton for those staff.
Also at Fresh the syndicated Kat and Dave show is not listed on the website now, so it is leading to speculation of a format change. Most likely if it changes it will either be Boom or Big. As Corus already operates both brands.
 
It's a sad fact that there just isn't enough advertising in most markets, outside the largest, to have numerous staffed radio stations. Apart from the U.S. and Canada, most countries have fully staffed radio stations in the capital city and co-owned stations around that country simply rebroadcasting those big city stations. Maybe there are cutaways for some local content or commercials but it's limited. The French language stations in Montreal have co-owned stations around Quebec running Rouge, Rhythme and Energie. I guess that's going to happen in the rest of Canada.

I don't know why Rogers didn't just nationalize its stations and keep them on the air? Why not just have the sports stations in Vancouver and Calgary along with the news-talk-sports FM station in Halifax rebroadcast the Rogers sports station in Toronto? OK, they won't talk about the Cunucks or Flames as much as local listeners would like. But it's still sports talk, discussing the national MLB and NBA teams, Blue Jays and Raptors, as well as FIFA, the World Series and the Super Bowl. It's better than just turning out the lights and turning in the license.

Unless they are just ashamed that they still have radio stations when they really want to focus on what comes next. Like Tesla not wanting to have a division making Model T's, even if they are selling well enough to make a small profit? It doesn't look good when doing shareholders meetings or appearing on CNBC.
 
Gregg. said:
Apart from the U.S. and Canada, most countries have fully staffed radio stations in the capital city and co-owned stations around that country simply rebroadcasting those big city stations.
Click to expand...

Most countries outside the US also have government owned radio. Canada has been cutting back on the CBC.

The US doesn't allow government owned radio. Somebody has to own these stations. Stingray owns a lot of stations, but they just bought TuneIn.
 
Bell sold 45 stations a couple years ago. They were split and sold off to 5 or 6 companies. Each station now is much more profitable. They have done some hiring and each station sounds better because it has local focus. Rogers could have sold, same with Corus.
In fact I have been hearing for 2 years that Corus is close to being bought by a different company but it never materializes. So its hard to say what is happening. But listening to a lot of Corus stations, they sound boring and nothing seems local. Everything just sounds generic. Playlists aren't good. It is long overdue for a sale.
Currently I am listening to Power 97 and Drex is hosting. Drex is on 107.3 Edge Calgary in the morning, 6-10 and on Edge Toronto from 3-7 also. Basically you can tell the shows aren't fully live. Even the Power show he is doing does not sound live.
 


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