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Rogers Shuts Down Six Stations

Hockey Night in Canada got canceled?
That's crazy. I'm disgusted with Rogers. The way that they have pulled the plug on Canada's pastime is beyond sickening.
It's one of the reasons why CBUT is still carried on cable in western Washington.

It's like Netflix going to ESPN/ABC and telling them, "You're done with Monday Night Football. No comment is necessary."
 
Let me repeat: Their market cap is $56 billion. Yes they have money for things that make money. AM radio isn't one of those things.
People located in markets like Vancouver or Calgary aren’t too pleased when they hear this news though, because essentially Rogers is shutting down a service in their community to dive even deeper into the Toronto market and ignore the rest of the country. I’m not Canadian, so I can’t speak on this topic from a Canadian perspective.

It seems to me like the end goal may be to shut off many more stations in the (perhaps not too distant) future. If they just start turning in licenses to all of their stations over time, is that something anybody should celebrate?
 
Hockey Night in Canada got canceled?
That's crazy. I'm disgusted with Rogers. The way that they have pulled the plug on Canada's pastime is beyond sickening.
It's one of the reasons why CBUT is still carried on cable in western Washington.

It's like Netflix going to ESPN/ABC and telling them, "You're done with Monday Night Football. No comment is necessary."
That’s basically what’s happening with the sports market in Canada. Hockey has become increasingly difficult to access. It wouldn’t shock me at all if they required some sort of special subscription just to continue having access at all in a few years. At this point, they are forcing a basic subscription (through Rogers directly or with a cable provider) to access any hockey broadcasts.
 
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People located in markets like Vancouver or Calgary aren’t too pleased when they hear this news though, because essentially Rogers is shutting down a service in their community to dive even deeper into the Toronto market and ignore the rest of the country.

They're big enough to do both. They say they will continue to broadcast the Canucks on one of their other stations in Vancouver.

Rogers will continue broadcasting Vancouver Canucks games on one of its radio properties in that city but will no longer produce Calgary Flames broadcasts for radio.

I was under the impression that Rogers was planning to end production for Flames games. I’m not sure what that means for viewership (or how people will watch or listen).

The quote says for radio. I guess that means there will be a new radio outlet for the Flames.
 
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Which one, I wonder? CJAX or CKKS-FM2?
Then you have the Flames losing their radio outlet. Rogers owns CHFM and CJAQ in Calgary. They will have to move the play-by-play to one of those FMs now that CFAC is gone. The other choice is to persuade Corus to put them on CHQR and add at least some type of Flames show to their daily or weekly lineup.
 
They're big enough to do both. They say they will continue to broadcast the Canucks on one of their other stations in Vancouver.
I believe that they will, but I’m skeptical that this is something they plan to do long term. Earlier in June, they announced that they (Rogers) were going to stop airing hockey games on CBC, basically putting an end to hockey night in Canada as most people know it. That may not seem like a big deal for a lot of people, but it definitely stuck a negative chord among Canadians. Having access to over-the-air hockey at least one night per week was something pretty culturally significant. Now, all hockey content will be hidden behind subscriptions. You’ll at least require a cable subscription with a sports package (or be willing to purchase the Rogers streaming app) to view hockey games.

Ironically, ESPN airs hockey games on ABC periodically, which is more than Rogers plans to do next year. This is something we take for granted at times, where sports still have a place on regular TV.

It’s hard to say for sure what will happen in the years to come, but it sure seems like Rogers is exploring a subscription only model. They still have active FM radio stations, but I’ll be curious to see if they start bailing on those too.
 
That’s basically what’s happening with the sports market in Canada. Hockey has become increasingly difficult to access. It wouldn’t shock me at all if they required some sort of special subscription just to continue having access at all in a few years. At this point, they are forcing a basic subscription (though Rogers directly or with a cable provider) to access any hockey broadcasts.

That's exactly right. Rogers is no longer sharing its broadcasting rights with the CBC, and has also discontinued broadcasts on its own OTA networks like Citytv and Omni.

That means for Canadians to watch hockey now requires a $ubscription to cable where the expensive sports rights are baked into the monthly fee, or paid $portsnet+ $treaming $ubscription.
 
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Which one, I wonder? CJAX or CKKS-FM2?
Then you have the Flames losing their radio outlet. Rogers owns CHFM and CJAQ in Calgary. They will have to move the play-by-play to one of those FMs now that CFAC is gone. The other choice is to persuade Corus to put them on CHQR and add at least some type of Flames show to their daily or weekly lineup.
I was under the impression that Rogers was planning to end production for Flames games. I’m not sure what that means for viewership (or how people will watch or listen).
 
Stop producing hockey games for Canada's third-largest city? WHAT is Tony Staffieri smoking? There will be about 1,000,000 angry fans if there is no way to watch Flames games on television...not to mention the lack of work for freelance production crew, camera operators, utilities, etc.
 
Stop producing hockey games for Canada's third-largest city? WHAT is Tony Staffieri smoking? There will be about 1,000,000 angry fans if there is no way to watch Flames games on television...not to mention the lack of work for freelance production crew, camera operators, utilities, etc.
I’m assuming there will still be a TV broadcast, but the announcement said nothing about a radio broadcast. Perhaps there might be another plan in place for that, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
 
I’m assuming there will still be a TV broadcast, but the announcement said nothing about a radio broadcast. Perhaps there might be another plan in place for that, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Doesn't the team control the radio rights? That's how it is in the US. So if Rogers is pulling out, the team assigns the rights to someone else. Or they produce it themselves. Some NHL teams are doing that. Whatever happens next will be decided by the team.
 
Doesn't the team control the radio rights? That's how it is in the US. So if Rogers is pulling out, the team assigns the rights to someone else. Or they produce it themselves. Some NHL teams are doing that. Whatever happens next will be decided by the team.
I think that would depend on if the contract is up. Would that be what happens in this situation? I’m not a legal expert, but supposedly Rogers could own the rights to a radio broadcast (but potentially not air one if they decided not to). I would be shocked if they did something like that though. In all likelihood, the rights to air Flames games expired and they elected not to renew.
 
Just shutting down the transmitters with no warning yesterday morning and firing more than 100 employees was a cruel and irresponsible move for a licensed broadcaster. Surprised the CRTC is OK with this. Apparently Rogers doesn't want to be a broadcaster anymore and just wants the easier money from owning sports franchises. And, evidently, didn't have a sales team capable of bringing in enough advertising. But to leave all of metro Vancouver with just two English-language AM stations, one commercial and one non-commercial, is ridiculous.
AM is dying everywhere in the world. Some nations now have no AM stations, others are left with a few, mostly religious, AMs. Or some cases have a format that moved to FM but kept an AM simulcast because they had the AM to begin with.

Broadcasting in the U.S. has lost nearly 75% of its time spent listening in the last 25 years. People who still use radio mostly use FM. Whether it is Canada or Chile or Czechoslovakia, there is no way that technology that is about 115 years old is going to survive against FM and web delivery of content.
 


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