Welcome back to the school year. There’s been some changes announced in media locally and nationally. Here’s a snapshot of things that have recently changed or will in the coming weeks and months.

Radio

99.5 is now QUB (kinda)

The station formerly known as WKND has replaced its daytime schedule with content from Quebecor’s QUB Radio, and is airing rock music on evenings and weekends. People who like the WKND format can tune in to the station’s HD Radio sub-channel, which rebroadcasts WKND 91.9 in Quebec City.

Lee Haberkorn joins The Beat’s morning show

Suspiciously six months after he left Virgin Radio to spend more time with his family, Lee Haberkorn has joined the morning show at competitor The Beat, with Mark Bergman, Kim Kieran an Claudia Marques. He fills the hole left by the departure of Stuntman Sam in December.

Chantal Desjardins takes a break from CHOM

Though she had been absent for a while, Chantal Desjardins made it official that she was “stepping back” from her role as co-host of CHOM’s morning show as she focuses on building a family. Her second child is on the way.

Tony Marinaro in French

The man once known as Tony in LaSalle has completed his transition to the other language and has relaunched his Forum midday show in French on BPM Sports, 91.9 in Montreal, 100.9 in Quebec City and 96.5 in Gatineau.

TV people on the radio now

In case you missed it in the spring, Frank Cavallaro took over as morning man at Lite 106.7 in Hudson/St-Lazare, filling the job formerly held by Ted Bird, while Mose Persico, formerly of CTV Montreal, started a show on Mike FM 105.1.

Other moves

• Sarah Deshaies is moving from CJAD to CBC Radio One’s Daybreak.
• Mike Chaar has joined Virgin Radio 95.9 as a weekend announcer and doing social media for the morning show.
• CFQR 600 AM is continuing to build out its schedule, adding Peter Anthony Holder’s Stuph File podcast to its schedule.
• RNC Media is experimenting with an AI announcer on WOW 97.1 in Gatineau as it lays off staff elsewhere.

Changes elsewhere in Canada

• Corus has shut down AM radio stations in Edmonton, Vancouver and Hamilton and laid off staff at radio stations in Kingston.
• Evanov Radio Group is shutting down CJWL-FM (Lite 98.5) in Ottawa, CHRC-FM (Hot Country 92.5) in Clarence-Rockland, Ont., and CKHK-FM (Hot Country 107.7) in Hawkesbury, Ont., on Sept. 20. Ted Silver will move to managing the CHSV-FM 106.7 in Hudson/St-Lazare.
• After a failed experiment to simulcast its AM station in Calgary on FM, Corus has launched 107.3 The Edge on CFGQ-FM, with a classic alternative format.
• Neeti P. Ray (CINA Radio) has launched new programming after closing the acquisition of three AM radio stations from Bell: CKOC 1150 Hamilton (formerly TSN then BNN, now 70s and 80s hits), CKWW 580 Windsor (formerly Motor City Favourites, now classic hits) and CHAM 820 Hamilton (formerly Funny 820, now retro music as well).
• Stingray has turned the station that was formerly The Flow and Today Radio at 93.5 in Toronto into a country music station.
• Kyle Bukauskas is the new co-host of Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts podcast. He replaces Jeff Marek, who was let go from Sportsnet after an incident in which he allegedly tipped off a friend to unannounced NHL draft picks.
• Jeopardy! superstar Mattea Roach has a new literary interview show on CBC Radio.

TV

The Great Specialty Brand Shift

The announcement from Rogers that it had signed new deals with Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal is going to radically change Canadian specialty channels over the coming months, with some details still unclear due to a legal dispute.

The first impacts have already been felt:

• Corus, which lost the rights to brands like HGTV and Food Network, has already pulled the plug on the Canadian version of the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
• Rogers has rebranded OLN as Bravo, putting its deal with NBCUniversal into place.

In the new year, assuming Corus and Bell don’t succeed in blocking it, Rogers will take over as the Canadian rights holder to HGTV, Food Network, Cooking Channel, Magnolia Network, Discovery Channel, Discovery Science, Animal Planet and related brands. What happens to the Canadian specialty channels with those brands currently is up in the air, though Corus has said it plans to keep its channels running.

Cuts at Global News

The loss of Warner/Discovery brands to Rogers was just the latest in a string of bad news facing Corus, which is struggling to stay alive after Shaw was sold (also to Rogers) and it lost millions in regular cross-subsidies. It’s renegotiating debt and a staff rationalization plan that hopes to cut a quarter of positions has meant a series of layoffs at Global News across the country.

The most visible cut is Kim Sullivan, who did weather at 11pm for Montreal and the Maritimes. But the online desks have been slashed and longtime Montreal station manager Karen Macdonald retired in the spring.

Meanwhile, Global Kingston has essentially ceased to be its own station, with 95% of its staff laid off. And Global has decided not to order any more seasons of Big Brother Canada. More than 100 people have been laid off by the company so far.

CTV Montreal backup plan

A water main break near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge flooded the basement of the Bell Media building housing CTV, RDS and Noovo studios, forcing them to move off-site while things are cleaned up and rebuilt. They lost vehicles and camera equipment and access to their studios, so they moved in to Bell’s campus on Nuns’ Island, where they’ve been operating from ever since.

After being able to manage only short pre-recorded newscasts in the days after the flood, CTV Montreal is back to its regular schedule of 5pm, 6pm and 11:30pm newscasts. (Noon newscasts were cancelled in budget cuts in February.)

But the anchors will have an unfamiliar backdrop until they can get back to their usual studio.

Quebecor merges Club Illico and Vrai

Videotron is merging its two streaming services into one — or more accurately folding its nonfiction service Vrai into Club Illico, which will be renamed Illico+. Each service costs $15/month nominally but various discounts are offered for Videotron subscribers. This is mostly a recognition that trying to sell people on two separate subscription services when there are already so many streaming services out there was a losing battle.

The new APTN

APTN has implemented its new two-channel system, replacing the somewhat confusing East/West/North/HD system with APTN and APTN Languages, the latter with at least 100 hours a week of programming in Indigenous languages. The change also comes with a hike of its mandatory per-subscriber fee, to $0.38 per month from $0.35.

Other changes

• Noovo launches a half-hour noon newscast on Sept. 9.
• TV superstation WGN Chicago has returned to being a CW affiliate as of Sept. 1. Chicago’s CW affiliate previously had been WCIU-TV, which returns to being independent. WGN is carried on Canadian cable systems as a “superstation” along with fellow CW affiliates KTLA and WPIX, among others.
• WWE Network in Canada will shut down Dec. 31 as WWE content in Canada moves to Netflix.
• Amazon Prime Video takes over Monday evening national NHL games from Rogers. This includes five Montreal Canadiens games during the season.
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart returns to Canadian television, on Corus’s Slice channel, starting Sept. 9.
• NASA TV shut down Aug. 28, replaced with the NASA+ streaming service.

Print

Saltwire is now Postmedia

My employer has closed a deal to acquire the assets of the bankrupt Saltwire Network for $1 million. The Atlantic Canada print media assets include the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, St. John’s Telegram, PEI Guardian and others. The Telegram has been turned into a print weekly, and it’s still unclear how many of its employees will remain on the job in the long run.

Other changes

• La Presse and the other former Gesca papers (Le Soleil, Le Droit, Le Quotidien, Le Nouvelliste, La Tribune and La Voix de l’Est) might see themselves working closer together after they study ways to join forces.
• Former Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Émilise Lessard-Therrien has become a columnist for the Journal de Montréal/Québec.
• Narcity and MTL Blog are back on Meta platforms after convincing it that it’s not a news outlet.