Ted Bird
Three months after it began on-air testing, The Jewel 106.7 (CHSV-FM) in Hudson/St-Lazare is getting ready for a launch in early March and has hired its morning man: Ted Bird.
I have some details in this story in the Montreal Gazette’s Off-Island section.
With the hire, Bird gains his fifth employer and fifth station in five years. He left CHOM in 2010 over “creative differences” with management and months later landed at community station K103 in Kahnawake. In 2012, he left K103 and joined what was then TSN 990. In the fall of 2013, after the Bell/Astral merger put his old CHOM bosses in charge of TSN, he was let go, and joined KIC Country 89.9 in Kahnawake. His last shift at that station was on Friday.
Bird also freelances as a sports commentator. He had a regular segment on CTV Montreal, and recently started doing the same thing for City’s Sportsnet Central Montreal.
Evanov Radio, which owns The Jewel, confirms that it has hired Bird as the morning show host.
“We have also hired a sales team which consists of three representatives to start and are looking to add our sales manager shortly,” says Evanov vice-president Carmela Laurignano.
There’s no word yet on other talent, but we’ll know that in the coming weeks. I’ve heard of a few names familiar to Montreal radio listeners that have tried out.
The Jewel is licensed to serve Hudson and St-Lazare, and its signal also covers Vaudreuil, Rigaud, Oka, Île Perrot and the western part of the West Island. Its programming will be mainly easy-listening music, but will have news and information specific for the Hudson/St-Lazare community (its application promised four hours and 22 minutes a week of news, of which half would be local to that community). Evanov told the CRTC in applying for the licence to the station that this community of should be considered a separate market from Montreal. (According to the CRTC’s measure, Hudson and St-Lazare alone have about 22,000 anglophone residents.)
https://twitter.com/manofbird/status/565499156127842304
Not my favorite radio personality, to be honest. He can be quite snarky and crass. Let’s hope that the other people they hire are better.
Hey not too shabby. It’s a dream come true. Can tune into Terry and Ted in the morning with a radio on each ear listenin’ to a Frank Sinatra + Bono duet.
Congrats to Ted Bird- it will be awesome. Love the station
Can we get it from home? Good luck Ted.
Tune in to 106.7 FM and see what you hear.
Steve, in your Gazette article, you state “…because its signal is designed to cover the western Off-Island area. Though it can also be heard in Oka, Île-Perrot and part of the West Island, it doesn’t reach into central Montreal.”
Well, they must have a sweet spot of an antenna location as I continue to hear the station on the car radio driving all over the South Shore (Greenfield Park, St-Lambert, Brossard, Longueuil, St-Hubert, etc. with absolutely no fading. I was also in Vankleek Hill, Ontario around Christmas time and the signal was rock-solid out there as well. In southwestern Quebec, I have monitored the signal as far as St-Anicet.
I also drove to the Laurentians in December and was able to stay with the signal on Highway 15 North, past Mirabel and, finally, in early January while driving from the Botanical Gardens back to Greenfield Park, I had them in clear the whole way. Downtown, in the concrete jungle, may be one of the few places that their signal won’t reach in the Montreal region, depending on the quality of the radio being used of course.
It’s quite amazing how little local content satisfies the CRTC to justify this being called a “community station”.
As you know, it depends on where you are and what antenna/radio you’re using. For the western part of the South Shore, most of the signal is over water and there are no mountains in the way. The theoretical coverage maps show some interference from WIZN in Burlington (50,000W on the same frequency), but these are theoretical and it can vary a lot.
CHSV-FM is licensed as a commercial station serving Hudson/St-Lazare. It’s not licensed as a community station. As for local content, it promises more than 100 hours of local programming a week, but obviously most of that will be music, and it’s not clear yet how much of it will be live. The application said that half of the four hours and 22 minutes a week devoted to news would be local to the community it serves.
The content thing is pretty funny, really. 100 hours a week of community programming essentially means 14 hours a day produced at the station which is in that community – 5AM to 1AM or so seems about right. All that means is that there will not be much “network” programming.
The news sort of is the same thing. 262 minutes a week, which is about 10 5 minute newscasts per day, 5 days a week, and a few on Saturday and Sunday. Every 30 minutes morning and night would pretty much eat that up. The “local” content can be covered in part by reading the weather at the start of the news as “the temperature in Hudson is…”, and having perhaps one or two local interest stories in the news. It’s not really hard to make up the numbers.
As for the signal, it should be pretty good all considered, there isn’t that much on the same frequency, 106.7 only has a few stations in western and northern Ontario on them, a couple of smaller stations in Eastern Quebec, and of course WIZN but that is pretty distant. Nearest issue for them is 106.9 in Ottawa, but with modern receivers, it’s not such a big issue as it might have been. So they have a pretty wide open space to operate in, that is for sure. So as long as you don’t mind a little static and interference from time to time, they can work really well.
I am guessing that this station will likely do pretty well on the West Island…
Right. The Jewel doesn’t have much network programming, though some stations carry daily shows from John Tesh.
About that, yeah. This isn’t CJAD, it’s a music station that will have brief newscasts and a community calendar of events.
My apologies. I was under the impression that CHSV was licensed as a community station.
Regarding the station’s coverage, if you look at the line of sight path from Hudson to my area (Greenfield Park-St-Lambert-Longueuil-Brossard) which are, geographically speaking, on the East Shore rather than the South Shore, the signal from Hudson has to pass almost directly through the heart of the island of Montreal where it should, theoretically, be experiencing the most deflection and interference, yet it is getting here, every day, loud and clear.
As for WIZN in Vergennes, Vermont, prior to CHSV being on-air, WIZN was just about impossible to hear in my area. It generally did quite well to the West Island and western Quebec, even into Eastern Ontario, but the luxury of being able to hear a true classic rock station is now history with the birth of CHSV.
I think the CHSV has great potential. It is providing a good portion of the Montreal region with a music format gone from this region since the conversion of Q-92 to The Beat. I’ve been hearing nothing but good comments about their music content from listeners. I noticed yesterday that The John Tesh Show is being carried by the station. I also think their early evening show “The Lounge” will be very popular. It’s much like Mike Sky’s “Bingo Lounge (now called the Sky Lounge) on CKRK K-103.7 in Kahnawake on Friday evenings.
Really going to miss him on my favorite radio station 89.9 Kick Country. So happy he is moving on to bigger and better things.
My dad never really cared for country music and is a huge fan of Ted Bird he followed his show to 89.9 FM and fell in love with country because of the way he talked about it.
I get 106.7 quite well in NDG, with just a few interference scratches. So they’ve got a good antenna.
(test post to see if I can still post here – tried to on another posting and got a message saying I was not allowed.)
Will the station provide an online streaming feed?
It already does.
Expect Bird to last, at best, six months as he runs away from the smell of the excrement pile that is the Evanov Group. Seriously, a broadcaster of his standing will quickly see them for what they are, a small-time operation with illusions of grandeur. Their radio stations are run on the cheap, the staff turnover is high, and the quality of their broadcasts clearly reflect that.
Leave Evanov and go where? Back to the trailer park I guess.
John
Actually, while I am a big fan of Mr Bird and feel that he has been screwed pretty hard by management in the past I also think he has reached a certain point in his career where he realizes that he may be on the last Montreal area station that will take him.
It’s perhaps the perfect situation: The station needs him as much as he needs the station (and the job with a potential future). He is an enviable position, which is hosting a station that is going from zero to “some rating”, and is likely to see increases for at least a few books worth of time, as they will continue to pick away at the marketplace. Ted Bird could end up being that “other morning guy who’s been around forever” in this job, serving the community and also reaching well into Montreal with his character, exposure, and fan base.
Good luck to Mr Bird, I honestly think he has a very good chance for a long run on this job.
Dilbert, you really feel sorry for Ted Bird?
The downward spiralling of his career was his doing. He’s that player on the team that can’t deal with the coach telling him what to do. Worst, he tries to get the coach fired by “quitting” and then realizes they were happy to see him go because there is no place for a guy like him on the team. And, in a most unprofessional manner takes the dirty laundry to the media. (the gazette where his old friends have his back). There is a reason no one will touch him.
4 stations in as many years…don’t feel sorry for him, maybe he’s learned something and will survive past 6 months at Evanov.
I’m not aware of any friends Bird has at the Gazette, old or otherwise.
That statement seems to be inconsistent with the fact that he was hired at four radio stations in five years after leaving CHOM.
Steve, you have been very fair in your covering radio but Bill Brownsteins, Mike Boones and Jack Todds were always bias towards Terry and Ted and the paper often omitted acknowledging other broadcasters. He was hired by community stations for below market value as they hoped it would make some sort of mark …. but it has failed to produce and sort of lasting impression.
Dilbert, again, he left because “he wasn’t having fun” and disagreed with management. In the NHL if you quit It because you disagree, there are limited choices. It was his choice so I don’t understand why anyone would feel sorry for him. Maybe because he’s working in community radio? I’m sure he is having fun now as he knew there weren’t many other options in the Montreal market for a guy like him with limited talent and without the looks for TV.
That’s fair to say. I think it was a bit too optimistic of K103 to think that hiring Bird was going to bring in big audiences. Though I should note that the station has transformed quite a bit in the past few years for the better.
KIC Country isn’t a community station, it’s a commercial station (as The Jewel is). It hired Bird because he was available and he’s a good broadcaster. But like K103 it didn’t have the resources to sustain his employment indefinitely.
Well, if you’re good in the NHL and you get dumped by a team, there are 29 others who can bid for your services. In Montreal radio, there’s Bell and Cogeco and that’s about it.
I do feel sorry for Ted Bird. His “situation” is one caused by intense media concentration in the Montreal market. He had a disagreement with a single boss while at CHOM, and left. He paid for his choice by having to work what many would consider a much lower end job going to the reserve, but he did well and in the end was hired on by TSN radio to do part of what he is good at, commenting on the sports world. He did quite well there, TSN’s ratings were doing much better… then came the Astral merger and he ended up pretty much under the same (explanative deleted) boss who he clashed with last time. Within a very few short minutes of the merger being confirmed, Mr Bird was shown the door.
He once again paid penance (and the bills) by taking a job at a much smaller station (KKIC) and did a pretty darn good job over there. He got his reward by moving to a new station with potential to reach many of his previous listeners, and also to run a morning show.
I feel sorry for the way he was treated by the people at Astral and then Bell in all of this. It’s petty, but I guess once you burn a bridge you have to live the results. I think that in the end it will be good, He is a good broadcaster and a personable host who should do really well in his new role. The road to get there sucked, however!