How your media is changing this fall

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.

The new 98.5

At the same time as 99.5 adds talk radio, the talk leader in the city has a new lineup. Paul Arcand, the most listened-to morning man in the country sometimes, has moved on to other things (though he’s still getting up way early and reading the news) and Patrick Lagacé has been promoted to the morning show, news first announced a year and a half ago. Marie-Ève Tremblay takes over late mornings, and Philippe Cantin (also of La Presse) takes over Lagacé’s old spot on afternoons. While the host chairs have been shuffled, the vibe is the same, with most of the same collaborators, though there is a bit of bad blood.

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

Changes elsewhere in Canada

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.

UPDATE: Corus has announced it is rebranding Food Network as Flavour Network and HGTV as Home Network as of Dec. 30.

Rogers, meanwhile, has announced that it will launch linear TV channels for HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, Discovery ID and Magnolia in addition to rebranding OLN as Bravo. That leaves Cooking, OWN, Motor Trend, Animal Planet and Discovery Science whose content will only be available online on Citytv+ in Canada.

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

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

11 thoughts on “How your media is changing this fall

  1. Anonymous

    i am starting to think that a station that is nothing but super popular podcasts might actually do well, especially if they are getting the content for nothing or next to nothing. Give them the airtime, minus say 2 minutes every half hour, send ads for those 2 minutes, and pay the bills with nobody in the building.

    The rest is the same boring music chairs of trying to fix things by bringing in other broken things and unwanted people. Awesome.

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      Who owns CFQR-AM 600? Is it still the same group that started the station?

      That is an open question. As far as the CRTC is concerned, it’s 7954689 Canada Inc., which is owned by Paul Tietolman, Rajiv Pancholy and a family trust set up by Nicolas Tétrault. But Phil Richards has allegedly purchased the station and is apparently in charge of its programming now.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        from his linked in:

        Chief Executive OfficerChief Executive Officer
        RRR MEDIA ex (TTP MEDIA) · Permanent Full-timeRRR MEDIA ex (TTP MEDIA) · Permanent Full-time
        Oct 2023 – Present · 1 yrOct 2023 to Present · 1 yr
        Montreal, Quebec, Canada · On-site Montreal, Quebec, Canada · On-site
        CFQR -600AM
        CFNV-940AM

        So the question would be who are the other 2 Rs in this deal, and does the CRTC know?

        Reply
  2. Sam Santos

    Lite 98.5 did not go off the air. It will stay on the air for the rest of the weekend. This week they will announce next about the future of 98.5 CJWL Ottawa. Maybe another company acquired 98.5. Lite’s Rockland and Hawkesbury sister stations were sold to a Casselman – Cornwall radio company. Is there any announcement about what company takes over CJWL 98.5? Thanks

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    What happened to the Evanov stations that were suppose to be shut down.
    I read that two stations (Rockland + Hawksbury) were sold so some franco community group from Cornwall. And the Ottawa station is still on air.

    I can’t get a clear signal of CHSV-FM 106.7 from my location. I’m out of range of their signal area. I don’t really know what they are doing for their LITE programming that has forced Evanov to shut down some of their stations. Is their programming bad that it doesn’t create any interest in listerners? To be fair, the Rockland, and Hawksbury stations where running the Evanov Country brand and programming. But the Ottawa station is running the LITE programming.

    I wish CHSV-FM would make a deal (or rent) some station’s HD sub-channel in the core Montreal area so that their signal reaches a wider area. CHAA-FM 103.3 would be a great solution. I’m sure they can add a HD3 position rented out to create a repeater for CHSV-FM. And I’m sure CHAA-FM can use the rental income on a HD sub-channel.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Most radio stations are down to Morning show and then network programming. Lite 106.7 uses a morning show and then a whole lot of John Tesh, who is about as light as helium filled whipped cream. The sad fact is that outside of the morning hours, most stations aren’t doing well at all, especially when they are running effectively generic formats that nobody can be bothered to tune into.

      Evanov is learning the same lesson Bell is learning with their generic stations. People don’t listen. They have tuned out. Radio is no longer a primary or even secondary source of entertainment. While 82% of Americans listen to some radio every week, most Canadians have given up. Much like TV, the offering is so bad that most Canadians have tuned out and moved on to more personal choices online.

      Now it is unusual to find someone with a radio in their home, and if they have one, it is usually hidden away, maybe in a workshop or on a shelf getting dusty. We listen in our cars, but even then our podcasts and streaming options are insanely better than what radio offers. Generic bland crap doesn’t attract an audience.

      Reply
      1. Fagstein Post author

        While 82% of Americans listen to some radio every week, most Canadians have given up.

        According to CRTC data, in 2023 77% of Canadians reported listening to AM/FM radio in a given month, down from 88% in 2019. About a third said they had listened to an audio podcast and 57% said they had streamed online music.

        Reply

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