Friday's close... might help explain it..Corus Entertainment Inc. (CJRb.TO)3.93 0.06 (1.50%) 

640 is on-air during the weekends/holidays? Who knew?!

The more serious issue is their Global branding.  While the television-side of Global is "always on", INCLUDING the weekends with "live" and current information, their sister radio station, 640, is not. Why? And what kind of image is the radio-side giving the rest of the network and affiliation?

Share prices or not, they will NEVER improve their ratings if they just play at this on a part-time basis. As they say, either poop or get off the... well, you know.

To conclude this shameful broadcasting schedule, as Sunday night turned into Monday morning, sure enough the midnight news on 640 was Friday again. I now suspect the entire day was 48 hours old. I have no idea what they were thinking beyond the fact that a reroll is a reroll, and that includes yesterday's or in this case three days ago's headlines.

I wonder how many people (aside from people on this board) would actually tune into 640-CJRH/CFGM/CHOG/CFYI/CFMJ  on a Sunday to hear late-breaking news?

Whoops, they did it again.

I just heard GNR 640's 8 PM newscast on Labour Day Monday night, Sept. 3rd. As near as I can figure from the sports report, it was Canadian Press anchor Rob Westgate's top of the hour cast from Tuesday, August 28th. We were told at the end of this newscast that the Jays were playing the Orioles (they're actually starting a series against the Rays) and that they lost yesterday - meaning last Monday. 

I simply can't believe they let this keep happening with their rerolls, in this case the show hosted by Alex Pierson. As you know by previous posts here, they did the same thing, ironically enough with the previous week's news on August 27th.

I now think I understand what's happening here. 640 is literally airing a reroll of the show that aired last Tuesday - complete with a totally dated newscast. I'm guessing there is no one there to insert the new one (CP is now taped just prior to air for delivery to stations, which is why some air it seconds earlier or later than other affiliates.) But clearly someone has to download it from the source and there's no one there as the station drifts on autopilot. 

(On second thought, even that makes no sense, since there's a live station newsreader on duty until midnight during the weekdays. Which might mean someone thought it would be a good idea to splice in last week's newscast to fill that top of the hour hole.) 

To have this happen once is absurd. To have it happen a second week is inexcusable. I'm pretty sure the powers that be at CP are aware of this and they can't be too happy, because it makes them look bad. Not to mention how poorly it reflects on 640 itself.

And while you may say there aren't that many listeners on Labour Day Monday night (which is beside the point) think of all the people stuck in traffic coming home from cottage country that could be tuning in and hearing last week's news.

They really need to do something about this before it happens again (and I'm certain it will for the rest of the night.) I actually like a lot of 640's programming but this is just an embarrassment. Again. 

Speaking of cost-cutting (from Facebook & Twitter):

"Programming note: We're enjoying the day off too, so there won't be a CTV Barrie newscast tonight at 6 or 11 p.m. You can still find local news on our website though, visit barrie.ctvnews.ca."

Just when I thought 640 couldn't get any stranger, comes this. On Saturday, during breaks in the Roy Green Show, there were repeated local airings of a promo/commercial for the multi-network special "Stand Up To Cancer," a celebrity-laden fundraiser to raise money to fight the disease, which ran on Global.  

Sounds fine, except for one thing - the show actually aired on Friday night, more than 18 hours earlier. In other words, it had already been on, was long since over and was not going to be rerun. And to make matters worse, the V/O tag noted to be sure to tune in "Friday night at 8 PM." I heard the spot at least twice and it may have run more than that. 

My question: how do these things keep happening over there? Is it a traffic department error, an automation mistake or something else? I quite like a lot of 640's programming, but this does nothing for their credibility and it doesn't make them sound very professional. Especially when it keeps happening. 

[Edit: Just heard the same promo on Sunday at 4:18 PM. So now it's two days old.]

Last edited by RadioActive (September 9, 2018 4:25 pm)