Comments on: CFCF cancels morning newscast, lays off three

By: Herb Luft retiring from CFCF after 39 years – Fagstein

Herb Luft retiring from CFCF after 39 years – Fagstein — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:10:56 +0000

[...] better known among Montreal's early risers as the anchor of the morning newscast from 2000 until it was cancelled in 2009. Sources tell me he took that pretty hard, though it didn't show in the solid reporting he [...]

By: SMS

SMS — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:29:22 +0000

Nuts. I liked watching that before hitting the road. The MTQ camera action was always welcome. VOX doesn't broadcast the cameras till 7 am at the earliest I believe. I guess it's switching between NW and RDI for me!

By: Fagstein

Fagstein — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:53:56 +0000

Fox 44 and ABC 22 share local newscasts because WVNY doesn't have the money for its own. Fox 44 has two hours in the morning and a half hour at night, which is the same amount that CFCF produces. The other U.S. stations have fewer hours devoted to local news.

CTV would also argue that the U.S. stations get cable carriage fees while CFCF does not.

By: Jacques

Jacques — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:01:15 +0000

I swear to God, We have to stop talking crap from multinationals...

How can a market like Plattsburg,Burlington,Vermont, AKA fox44 and Abc22 put on a nightly newscast and a morning newscast in that small a market when CTV says it can't (WON'T) do local news.

this is yet another example of why Bigger is never better

Jacques

By: MBG

MBG — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:10:21 +0000

It won't be missed in Western Canada... Canada AM doesn't register at all in the ratings. They're either watching Global or CityTV.

By: Dominique J-S

Dominique J-S — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:57:34 +0000

I'm going to miss Herb's morning news updates, usually briefs about crime stories that happened overnight. The local weather was more detailed than what you get on canada am too.

By: Atom Ant

Atom Ant — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:45:24 +0000

Makes no sense to me. Just about the only place conventional television has a hope in hell of speaking to an audience and growing an audience is in the morning.
Breakfast television (news, weather, sports, traffic) comes at a time and in a format that is perfect for people busy in the morning. Once the kids are out the door and mom and dad are off to work it's anybody's guess as to when or if they'll turn their TV back on.
The kids certainly won't and mom and dad are probably getting their news online, up-to-date and when they want at the office all day long. When was the last time you came home and watched (or had to watch!) the six o'clock news.
Instead we get "convergence" and "economies of scale".
And we end up with CTV and the Team 990 being owned by the same company (both of which announced layoffs this week)
Global and the Gazette being owned by the same company (and we all know
how that's going)
Astral owning. CHOM, CJAD and VIRGIN and CORUS doing something, somewhere.
All the managers are whistling past the graveyard, and the grunts are left to wonder when their jobs will be cut.
Keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same results.
Need to be a lot more creative folks.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:21:46 +0000

Sad news, indeed. Hopefully it'll be back one day soon. I guess Salu, Bonjour! on CFTM is the only game left now...