The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Famed U.S. Radio Consultant Praises "Local" Canadian Radio

**Posted by RadioActive** April 21, 2025 6:30 am

Sean Ross is a well known radio consultant/critic who has long argued that companies like iHeart and Audacy (or perhaps Bell and Rogers here) are destroying the medium by cutting staff and applying cookie cutter formats in multiple cities. He longs for the days of locally independent ownership, with people who care about what goes on air.

Which is why he was heartened by the sale of 45 Bell stations to smaller owners and what they did with the outlets once they took over. He comments not only on what My Broadcasting is doing, but seems to hold special praise for what AM740 has been up to.

These Local Owners Took Stations Back. What Happened?

**Posted by Shorty Wave** April 21, 2025 9:22 am

Like Sean Ross, I too enjoy AM740, but I think one of my main reasons is that they put great effort into their weekend programming. They produce quite the cross section of original material, ranging from a gardening show to “the immortals” of music. Most AM stations in this market fill their weekends with re-rolls, which is fine if you haven’t heard it before, but seems like a cop out to me.
Good article, thanks for posting RA.

**Posted by paterson1** April 21, 2025 12:21 pm

It is healthier I believe for radio to have more owners than less. I like the expansion of Vista, MyFM, Whiteoaks, Zoomer and hope it continues. Very interested to see what happens with Corus and their radio stations. I am not sure if all of the Corus stations will eventually be sold or broken up with various owners.

Zoomer in Owen Sound is off to a decent star. They are local and live mornings with Robbie Lane mid morning, and in house again from noon hour to six in the evening. The station has lots of ads, and various Zoomer promos are customized for the Owen Sound station. Listening to Robbie Lane in the evenings, he makes reference to the new station and all of the commercial/promo breaks are local. To the untrained ear, he sounds like he is broadcasting in Owen Sound.

I am not as familiar with MyFM since I don't have any of their stations that close to me. However I did hear their station in Strathroy ON a few summers ago and was impressed. The station was live on a Saturday afternoon and had another announcer doing live reports from various stores downtown. The music was good and the two on air people better than average. For a town of 14,000 MyFM's CJMI sounded like a good local station.

Always enjoy reading Sean Ross and his comments. He is usually quite complimentary regarding Canadian radio and music. He notices and appreciates the differences.