Rogers shuts down several stations and lays off over 200
Several reports have confirmed that Rogers has laid off over 200 staff, numbers have been as high as 230. About 80 on air staff were let go from 6 radio stations Rogers has shut down. Those stations are Sportsnet 650 and News Radio 1130 Vancouver, News radio 660 and Sportsnet 960 Calgary, News Radio 570 Kitchener and News Radio 95.7 Halifax
There have been other cuts such as Griff and Caroline from the Jack 92.9 Halifax Morning show, Meredith from Jack middays and several others I am still trying to confirm.
A statement says, “After a thorough review of our radio stations, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to close six radio stations in four markets due to declining audience and revenue trends — we continue to own and operate 44 radio stations in nearly 30 communities across the country and to invest in local news in the impacted markets,”
Radio production of Vancouver Canucks games will move to another Rogers Sports & Media-owned station in the market, while Sportsnet will step away from producing Calgary Flames radio broadcasts, the company said.
It added that the impacted markets will continue to be served by local news content through CityNews on web and social, in addition to television newscasts in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, and the CityNews 24/7 news channels in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Local news, traffic and weather will also continue across Rogers’ music radio stations.
I will keep updating as I hear more news
570 Radio in Kitchener is the only station in our whole area with up to date news, traffic, weather, and sports broadcasting, plus a valuable “Now You Know with Rob Snow” call in program.
Get it back on the air immediately! Your decision to shut it down is one of the worst ever. You clearly do not care about ordinary people – only money and out of touch corporate decision makers. Get it back on immediately, PLEASE!!!!
I agree that Rogers should, however, they most likely will not do anything as it is clear the plan is to shut down stations that are not making money which in a sad reality is most AM stations. I woke up today knowing there would be news of changes but I was under the impression that Sportsnet radio was changing a few shows around making lineup changes to get ready for the new hockey TV deal and the fact that Rogers now controls all of MLSE. When I saw that the cuts were deep and stations were shutting down I was even shocked. I truly cannot believe what has happened today. I also get the feeling there will be more changes, as now on some of the music stations there are holes in the programming lineups that need to be filled. I believe those will be from out of market shows. Or they will only have on air staff at limited times. It is the sad reality of radio now, but this could all be preventable by proper investments in radio. It is hard to justify paying advertising rates to a radio station with no on air staff at certain times of the day. It is also hard to pay for advertising on an AM station with limited listeners and lots of on air staff to make the stations work. 6 radio stations closed today completely and 80 jobs were lost at those stations. That is about 13 staff per station, and keep in mind at certain times of the day programming was shared amongst the 3 sports stations. From the news stations some of the staff are still employed on the TV side of things but they are generally producers, not on air staff.