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It's only an hour a week as far as I can tell, but I noticed this month that CKTB in St. Catharines has added an hour of simulcasting CP24 every Saturday morning from 7-8 AM. Yes, it's early and yes, there's probably not a lot of listeners at that hour. But I can't think of a less relevant thing for them to put on that doesn't serve a Niagara audience.
Does anyone in St. Catharines or Thorold care about a shooting at Dufferin and Finch, one of this weekend's top stories on Saturday? All the weather, traffic and even PSA-like features, such as the Beaches Easter Parade, can't possibly mean much to someone 120 kilometres away from Toronto.
I'm not a fan of rerolls, but maybe one of those would be better in the timeslot than local news from a city far away.
In the end, it's just filler. But I'm sure early risers would appreciate something a little more relevant to their city.
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And on that subject, if Bell Media insists on feeding out so much of its programming originating in Toronto to its remaining Ontario talk stations, the least they could do is make it more inclusive for those other outlets, like CKTB.
Jerry Agar constantly talks about the goings-on at Toronto City Hall or the traffic in the downtown core. I wonder what those in Niagara Falls think about hearing that on their local station. (I've even heard a few callers complain about this on air when the St. Catharines outlet goes local later in the day.)
Even worse, Jim Richards does a national program called NewsTalk Tonight. He's constantly apologizing for having so many Toronto-centric stories on his show. Again, the housing shortage in this city may be interesting to people in the GTA, but why would anyone in Winnipeg give a you-know-what?
They don't seem to care about anyone but the Toronto audience on these shows, so maybe they should consider keeping them local. But of course, that would mean separate shows elsewhere and Bell isn't willing to spend money on that.
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Thankfully, Bell sold this station.
Just hang on for a bit. This will all change very soon with new ownership.
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RA - Maybe as we look in the mirror, on a similar vein, assuming you live in the GTA, I guess some would ask why do you care what the people in St. Catharines or Thorold listen to.
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This board is about Southern Ontario and Western New York radio and TV (hence the SOWNY name.) CKTB is/was one of the few stations around here that actually does live programming on the weekend. So I occasionally tune in rather than listen to yet another reroll elsewhere. So in that way, it does affect me.
And I hate stupid programming decisions like this, especially if it's just another excuse to save money. So if you're going to put something on your station - even for an hour - at least make it relevant to your market. CP24 may be a decently run service, but it calls itself "Toronto's News." What could matter less to people in St. Catharines?
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Radiowiz wrote:
Thankfully, Bell sold this station.
Just hang on for a bit. This will all change very soon with new ownership.
You're right. It's going to get worse. There's no point in original programming at 7am on a Saturday morning. CKTB probably has fewer than 100 listeners at that time.
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I for one can't get enough of Dr. Pincus telling what vitamins cure cancer, diabetes, arthritis etc.