I wholeheartedly disagree. On a music station, you could probably let things like that slide. But on a news station which is supposed to be factual and unbiased, conflicts of interest like that should be disclosed.

I even take issue with 680's "En-pro gas price update". En-Pro is clearly paying to have that segment there daily. Anchors shouldn't be reading anything on the air that's paid to be there.

CP has always had two versions of their newscast. A 4:00 version (3 minutes of news plus 1 minute of sports with a short pause between the 2 in case stations wanted to break away after 3:00). And a :60 version, probably meant for the bottom of the hour or stations who didn't want to do a full 4:00 package.

They got rid of the music about 5 years ago. Maybe a cost cutting move to save on SOCAN fees. Many stations now put their in their own news bumper before the CP newscast.

tvguy wrote:

Some info you may not know.  They lost their 50kw transmission site on Toronto Island, because the towers were in an area being rebuilt for the City of Toronto's water purification plant.  So they moved the transmitter out to the Orangeville area and co-sited on the land owned by Dufferin Communications (Evanov) where 530 CHLO transmits from.  The transmitter is authorized for temporary operation at 19,000 watts daytime only and  is so far outside of the City of Toronto that there have been reception problems. They have to power down at that site at night to protect other stations on 1540.   Meaning no night time service currently on 1540 - from CHIN. The move of the (new) transmitter  location to the Don Valley & Lawrence area I'm told has two benefits.  the 900 frequency is virtually interference free at night, so the lower night time power on the lower 900 frequency can deliver good service within the City of Toronto and suburbs.   Daytime at 900 watts, on a non-directional antenna will provide adequate service as well.  Bear in mind this is a very inexpensive solution, versus land costs and building out a massive multi tower site - not that there is land available at a reasonable cost.  They already have 91.9 as a FM repeater for 1540 - which accords very good service in the toronto area, particularly because I believe the transmitter is located in the North West part of the city.  With AM on the decline, including ethnic radio revenue, it is probably a very wise solution.  It is not intended to reach Hamilton.  Hamilton still has other viable AM frequencies - just in case someone is insane enough to apply for a "new" AM service.  Neeti Ray has applied to re-locate 1650 to the CKOC transmitter site south west of Hamilton (N. Caledonia) should be be approved to swap the CINA 1650 frequency for 820 CHAM's frequency at the CHAM transmitter site.

Ahh ok, makes a bit more sense now, I didn't know they had to move their tower and red

paterson1 wrote:

Not a DX'er and if the station is all Cleveland and syndicated news and sports isn't of much interest to me.  I will check to see if they come in during the day, although they haven't in the past if I hit scan on AM.  I don't listen to AM radio at night and really haven't since I was a teen, so that's likely why I am not familiar with the station.  
 

Also remember, up until about 15 years ago, K-W had a station at 1090AM. This would have blocked out the 1100 signal from Cleveland.

67GreenRambler wrote:

But RA, it's every day with Southern. He's entirely predictable. If you have a memory and are paying attention you know exactly where he's going with the details. I'm on the channel selector as soon as I hear "for more on the story here's Richard Southern".

What bothers me most about Southern's reporting is he often inserts himself into the story... it's always about HIM. If southern is still around when there's a different government in power, it'll be interesting to see if his aggressive tactics continue. Somehow I doubt it... but willing to be pleasantly surprised.

When it comes to bias, CityNews is terrible (worse than CBC IMO). A recent example form their Kitchener outlet.During the recent Federal election campaign, Mark Carney held a rally. CityNews sent a reporter out the the event (they rarely send reporters out to anything anymore), covered the event with audio, interviews the whole bit. When introducing that story the following morning, the anchor (Mark Douglas) said "Mark Carney was in town last night and supporters were hanging on his every word". Contrast that to the following week when Pierre Poilievre held a rally. No reporter on site, only coverage was airing Kevin Misener's generic report about where the leaders were last night. And no flattering introduction when the report came on.

When people talk about media bias, this is exactly the sort of stuff they're talking about. Two identical stories covered very differently, the only differing factor seems to be the political spectrum.
 

DOPEfm wrote:

The scam (or at least, that's my take...) is that you need to have the same companies internet. (Can't have rogers internet + telus tv, for example). In a truly competitive market, this wouldn't be allowed.

This seems to be pretty common. For streaming TV, you have to have the same internet provider. There may even be a CRTC rule regarding this.

Does anyone know if this in an actual regulation? At the very least, I think there is a policy that only internet providers can offer live streaming TV.

The FAN's website still says they are carrying both games tonight... are you sure the leafs are on 680?

https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/schedule/

Paul Jeffries wrote:

A lot of these late-night talk shows have probably cut their audiences in half with overly-preachy politics and pandering to the virtue-signaling crowd. (And no, I'm not saying this in support of The Orange Man, as I'm relatively neutral when it comes to U.S. politics).

Stephen Colbert spent four years droning on about Trump even when he wasn't in office. Personally, I find his monologues to be tedious and not particularly funny, like a bunch of bad dad jokes strewn together to get some kind of reaction. And lately he seems to think he's some kind of expert on Canadian politics, too. Just go away, please.

Someone once remarked that most people didn't know if Johnny Carson was a Democrat or Republican because he skewered everybody equally. I miss those days of late night.

PJ

Agreed. Conan, Letterman and Carson are my top 3 of all time. Those days are long gone, I have little to no interest in any of the current hosts. Even SNL (which I watched every week for 20 years) isn't worth watching anymore.
 

RadioActive wrote:

I'm not privy to exactly how it's arranged, but there's a specific number of games that are divided between each station in advance. Some are TSN1050's (i.e. Bell) and some are The Fan's (i.e. Rogers.) Each gets what each gets, regardless of whether one of their schedules is too crowded. And they can't "trade" when the other station has a different commitment.

TSN1050 will have Game 6 on Thursday night, if necessary. 

I'm guessing most here are hoping it won't be. 

I'm not privy to exactly how the contract works either. But if 1050 gets an extra game this round, why can't 590 get an extra game next round... or a couple extra regular season games next year?

Maybe I'm old school, but I don't think upper management should be significantly impacting the end user experience.

RadioActive wrote:

I agree, but the point remains: TV audio does not work on the radio. Never has, never will. If you're going to do coverage - even for a small audience - they deserve to be able to follow what's going on. Otherwise, why bother?

I agree RA. Radio rarely gets any consideration during a simulcast with TV. One thing that really bothers me, which no one ever talks about, is how bad TV audio sounds on radio. With all the compression radio uses, the audio comes out with way too much echo and background noise. As someone who spent most of their career working with audio, I find it extremely annoying .
 

paterson1 wrote:

 91.5 The Beat (CKBT) first went on the air in January 2004 and started off with more of a hip hop format.  It was originally owned by CanWest Global who only had one other radio station, CJZZ in Winnipeg, with a jazz format.

Corus bought both stations in 2006 and The Beat immediately became CHR/Top 40.  To their credit the station has always been more popular in K/W than Bell's Virgin Radio that also adopted CHR/Top 40 in 2016. 

CTV Kitchener is full of local Virgin Radio spots all day and local news will cover many Virgin promotions like local food drives.  Somehow The Beat with far less promotion and no local TV seems to still best Virgin in the CMA.  105.3 Virgin Kitchener also has a much larger coverage area with 100,000 watts compared to 3,600 watts for 91.5.

CTV local news viewership age is mainly 60+, barely the demographic Virgin radio is targeting.... it's a major mismatch for cross promotion.

But I agree, the Beat has always been more established in the market. Maybe because they had a 12 year head start. The Beat has also had better announcers over the years, many of whom ended up going on to bigger and better things (like Mocha). Someone in the early days knew how to spot great young talent.

But interestingly, Virgin had a monster Fall 2024 book. They beat the Beat in all key demographics including Adults 25-54 by 2.5 points. Possibly a fluke book, which all stations experience from time to time.
 

torontostan wrote:

BowmanvilleBob wrote:

I, on the other hand, liked it.

I agree with you. It was very well done, I laughed many times. 

I didn't think it was that bad. There were a couple dull spots but overall, well done. I liked how they combined similar characters into single sketches. Like Linda Richman showing up on "Bronx Beat".

My High School had a TV studio as well, similar set-up from the story above. We did video announcements once a week. Only once a week because the video version would take about 20 minutes, as opposed to the normal audio version that took maybe 3 or 4.

This was mid to late 90's. Not sure if they still have a similar set-up.
 

There are a lot of CFTR plates here in Kitchener. A few months ago I finally saw CFTR 680.

JON POLE wrote:

I will answer this. We have approx. 140 staff. Small stations have small staff and large stations have large staff. So for example, Exeter (pop. 4500) has 4 right now. Niagara (pop 300,000) has close to 20.

In regards to Tillsonburg - I would expect the staff # will increase from what it is today, but will likely be less than the 28 when Rogers purchased it years ago.

So in answer to your question - how much more local will they be? A shizzzz ton wizzzz.

Also - your posted info is incorrect. Look at a map. Look at our stations. Yes the ones in close proximity help each other. Yes, someone from 300km could help our from time to time or for a special circumstance. What separates us from the "big boys" is our content and our community involvement.

Thank you for replying Jon. I feel a bit better now. 20 in Niagara? That's quite impressive. The big boys have given up on local radio and at the end of the day, it's the smaller companies and independent operators that create the most compelling content.