Bell has completely destroyed what used to be a great radio station. I would have my radio tuned to CJBK from 7AM until 5PM each weekday, and I even listed to "Ask the Experts" at lunch time. I barely listen to the station any more. I can't stand listening to Tom McConnell in the mornings, because he talks too much about the Niagara region. I end up "forgetting" to turn the radio back on by 3PM to listen to Andy..
I am doubting that the CTV2 news at 6 will even mention that Steve Garrison was laid off, because Bell controls the tv news here.
Took awhile for any mention of the Bell Media firings to show up......do they now control everything including thoughts in that industry. Jan Sims was let go from TV 2 London....several others should have also made the list but I guess they work cheap. No news from CTV Kitchener yet but would guess the amalgamation rumours will pick up again. Watching last nights six o'clock newscast from London everyone was all smiles and punching out the news.......you could see the feeling "we survived anther night of the long knives".:wink
This classic clip from 21 years ago on The Simpsons is becoming more and more à propos to all Bell Media radio stations. @Lindsay649 -- the news from CTV Kitchener wasn't shocking enough to generate much attention, but it was reported [elsewhere, of course] that "one full-time employee and one part-time employee were let go"
Totally fed up with CJBK. It's not a surprise with Steve, after they cut him from the 3 hour morning show to a one hour mid morning slot. I don't imagine they gave him a 2/3 pay cut in August so I'm not really surprised, but still very annoyed. No one on London radio has the ears of the politicians and business community like Steve does. I don't know what's with the youth movement, youth don't listen to talk radio, so why get rid of those that cater to the market you have?
I really wish that CJBK could monitor how many people are actually still listening to their station to truly realize what they've done to their loyal listeners. I'm finding myself listening to AM980 and CBC radio more. The entire morning schedule on CJBK stinks.
Unfortunately this is a pure spreadsheet play of the current financial condition probably with no modelling built in to show the potential impact of a loss of listeners and therefore less revenue. It's a race to the bottom if you ask me.
The McLeod Report is the type of programming I like, he is connected, as the former editor of the Free Press, and knows a lot of what is going on. I just don't think he is a very radio friendly voice to listen to. I agree with the comment about the youth movement, but what I don't get is why Bell thinks they need a youth movement. It's a talk radio station, you aren't going to get many younger people listening to it, no matter what you do. If they wanted to mix up the mornings a bit, then sure, move Steve back to mid mornings, but give him some time, not an hour. But it was clear he was going to be gone after that move was made in August to give him the one hour show. As I posted earlier, I doubt they cut his salary (which I'm guessing was a nice 6 figure one) when they moved him off the morning show.
Anyway, it was a class act of Am980 to bring Steve on last Friday to have his swan song and get to say goodbye. I wouldn't be shocked though if they decided to add him into their day somewhere.
I'm sorry that I missed hearing Steve Garrison on AM 980 last Friday. I truly hope that AM 980 come up with a means of getting Steve Garrison back on the air for a morning show - I'd absolutely be listening, and I believe that tens of thousands of others would too.
Davage, 980 has an archive of their shows, which is how I listened to it. It was during the Devon Peacock show of Dec 11. Interesting that the list shows the last 2 months and the number of times it was played. Most of them are under 100, except 2 shows. Dec 10 at 166 plays and Dec 11 at over 500 plays. You can find it on this page...
It's been a few months since CJBK shuffled their lineup, and cut their best morning host.
I don't even bother to listen to the morning show anymore. Mike Stubbs in the mornings spends more time rambling talking about what he's going to talk about than he does on the actual subject. ie: "In the next half hour we're going to talk about purple balloons". He'll say that again and again, then the actual content of the "purple balloons" story will be minimal and he will have spent more time promoting what he's going to talk about rather than the actual subject. I just can't listen to it - it is too annoying to hear Mike talking about what he is going to talk about..
Tom McConnell rambles on a lot, and has minimal numbers of people calling in to his show.
It is sad to see what Bell has done to CJBK. I had really hoped that AM980 would have come up with a deal with Steve Garrison to have a morning show so that there would be something good to listen to from 6AM to 9AM. Maybe Steve is enjoying his retirement.
CJBK have lost me as a loyal talk radio listener... I'm spending more time listening to AM980 and some of the music stations now.
Poor Al Coombs just can't catch a break. He had his early afternoon shift a couple years ago, and lost it when Andy went to afternoon drive and Mike Stubbs moved back to 1pm. Then he got it back when Mike took over the morning show from Steve Garrison in summer of 2015. Now he has lost it again, and is relegated to morning news, as BK is carrying the Kara Ro TKO show from 1-3.
So now we have mid mornings coming from Niagara and early afternoons from Windsor. I swear if 980 actually had morning and afternoon drive shows, I would never put 1290 on again.
Andy Oudman has "retired" from CJBK. That's the official word. If I were to place a bet, I think that Andy "quit" or was asked to quit.
Long gone are the good old days days with Steve Garrison in the morning, followed by Andy Oudman.
I would absolutely love to have AM 980 sign on Steve Garrison and Andy Oudman.
I used to listen to CJBK from 7AM to 5PM daily. It was scaled back to a few minutes in the morning, and then I'd tune into Andy when I'd have a chance. Now.. The dial on my analog radio here has tuned down to AM 980 where it has found a new home permanently.
CJBK is a complete joke now. The morning show is vomit-inducing with Lisa Brandt and the other guy. Then it's off to Niagara for Tom McConnell who isn't bad, but local would be better. The afternoons have the 'ask the experts' segment, but it seems more like a half-hour advertisement - no one calls in anymore. Andy's time slot hasn't been replaced - they just broadcast the national CTV television news channel. Brutal. If only 980 had a talk show rather than their non-stop news between 3-6, I'd never tune into 1290 again.
I stopped listening when Steve Garrison was let go. And with the teenagers behind the microphone over at 980 there isn't much worthwhile to listen to.
With the exception of the odd good station still left on the MW broadcast band, they could decommission most of these stations and no one would notice. FM stations in London are not much better.
Most AM stations will likely all be gone in a few years. The equipment and towers are reaching end of usability and are too expensive to replace. CKSL 1410 is already gone due (officially) to equipment replacement costs. A lot of similar stations shut down their AM counterparts years ago. It's getting to the point where the land the AM towers reside will soon be worth more than the station itself.
It's not like London broadcasters will lose market presence by shutting their AM stations down. All of the London AM stations have sister FM stations and have for 40-50 years or more. Some broadcasters own more than one FM station in addition to the AM station. At one time, it was a case of AM broadcasters launching FM sister stations, even at a loss, to make sure they didn't miss out on the rising popularity of FM. It was a golden age for FM listeners. Many FM stations had 24 hour music formats with no commercials. A decade or two later FM overtook the AM marketplace, both in listeners and ad revenue. AM stations now struggle for an audience.
A case in point is CHLO-AM, St. Thomas. 102.3FM was previously 103.9FM, 1570AM before that and 680AM originally. The AM station was shut down shortly after it transitioned to FM. As CHLO-AM, it was a tiny "me too" station that mostly served St. Thomas and the rural counties around it. After switching to FM and rebranding as "The Hawk", it became the most popular station in the London area. Other stations quickly rebranded and changed formats to get in on the popularity of the "new" classic rock format. Due to its better signal and financing, CFPL 95.9FM quickly gave The Hawk a sound thrashing in the market and CFPL's owners ended up buying 103.9FM a few years later.
I remember The Hawk in its glory days when it was started by now departed Vern (Warren) Furber of Port Stanley. When the station first aired, there were no DJ's in the studio to muck up the music. It was all music. And I remember the ratings and it became the no. 1 station in this area. When it changed ownership, downhill it went.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. At least I'm blessed to listen to WNCX off air for classic rock.
WNCX was very popular on cable here for years until Rogers started knocking US stations off their service and replacing them with corporate owned stations from Toronto. I could still pick WNCX up with an FM dipole so it wasn't a technical issue like it was with some other signals. Cleveland has had good rock stations for a long time. I listened to WKYC-AM from Cleveland in the 1960s. Corporations have wrecked FM radio in both the US and Canada. The Hawk was always considered to be an upstart that interfered with FM96's market share. Then the owners of FM96 bought The Hawk, gave it a second rate playlist and moved it from London/St. Thomas to Woodstock which made the signal weaker in London. They did it to compete in the Woodstock/KW market where their was another popular classic rock station at the time. Even the people in Woodstock were upset because it replaced what they considered to be their local radio station.
How does this fit in with CJBK? All these stations came to be owned by the same company and are now owned by Bell. Before Bell got hold of them they did a decent job of serving the local market with local DJs, news, weather, sports and music. The slide started before Bell but it really got bad when they obtained them. Now they have all been cut to the bone and serve up cut rate, generic, lowest common denominator pablum in all those areas. It's not local radio anymore. It's not even good radio. Ads and profit margin take precedence over everything else and even those are bad. I'd rather listen to nothing than any of these stations.
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