1 of 1- ckg927
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CHCH and the Saturday evening news
As of today, CHCH in Hamilton is no longer airing the Saturday newscasts at 6 and 11pm
News director Greg O'Brien posted this to the station's website explaining the decision. He adds that even with the loss of the newscasts, no one is being let go/
It's good to see a person in power explain, in full, why the decision was made.
Last edited by ckg927 (August 29, 2026 3:12 pm)
- 67GreenRambler
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
How does keeping employees on salary and telling them to stay home save costs?
This is stunting to draw attention to one of manager O'Brien's pet issues.
- ckg927
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
67GreenRambler wrote:
How does keeping employees on salary and telling them to stay home save costs?
This is stunting to draw attention to one of manager O'Brien's pet issues.
Serious question: Would you rather he BS you as to the reason why?
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Thread Starter- 67GreenRambler
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
The question doesn't make sense to me because O'Brien already is deceiving us. He stated that less money is being apportioned to CHCH by the feds so they have no choice but to stop Saturday evening news production.
However, apart from an unknown number of part-timers, no cost savings for CHCH are discernable here. Maybe I'm missing something or maybe this is a smoke signal to Ottawa.
- Radiowiz
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
Anything is better than the situation back in 2015.
Good for them for steering clear of that:
- ckg927
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
I remember that all too well.
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
John Best, the former news director of CHCH, laments the loss of local news and Channel 11's decision to cancel its Saturday newscast.
"The loss of CHCH news would be a devastating blow to the millions of people who have no other source of local television news– or indeed any local news– as radio stations go off the air and community newspapers disappear to be replaced by largely click-bait news aggregators."
CHCH Saturday news cancellation another blow to local journalism
- mic'em
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
Fans of the daytime classic shows should note there is some shuffling of the air times, notably The Rockford Files now at 11 am, and Coach at 2.30 pm beginning today.
- Shorty Wave
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
I think local broadcasters should be mandated to carry at least one locally produced newscast daily. When they air it is up to them. Two weekends ago when the trade deal fell through, I really couldn’t find any coverage except for Carney’s speech, and even that wasn’t carried by most broadcasters, Radio One really dropped the ball on that one as most here know.
- Brad
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
It's one damn day a week. And as O'Brien said in The Spectator interview, it's their least viewed newscast of the week. As someone who did watch the Saturday news, it's mostly car crashes, police blotter, community events, cultural festivals, and a story from CHEK News as we "head out west". Not really anything that's going to impact your life in the next few minutes.
- RadioActive
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Re: CHCH and the Saturday evening news
It's one damn day a week. And as O'Brien said in The Spectator interview, it's their least viewed newscast of the week. As someone who did watch the Saturday news, it's mostly car crashes, police blotter, community events, cultural festivals, and a story from CHEK News as we "head out west". Not really anything that's going to impact your life in the next few minutes.
All true. But what happens on that isolated Saturday when there's an explosion in downtown Hamilton, authorities put a shelter in place order out or a police officer gets shot?
The problem with cancelling a Saturday newscast is you never know when something urgent might happen that the public needs to know about on that day. And with the loss of news-oriented CHML in 2024, there are fewer news voices in The Steel City than ever.
The automated FMs left there surely don't have anyone in on the weekend, which probably means Hamilton residents would have to rely on a 680 News or The Spectator's online site to get any real information. And the latter requires a subscription.