It was just announced that Roundhouse Radio 98.3FM will be going off the air as of April 30th, 2018.
The independent station brought a refreshing collective of voices to Vancouver’s airwaves over the past two and a half years, broadcasting a variety of different perspectives and countless community stories from their studio in Railtown.
Once employing more than 30 people, as Janice Ungaro and Cory Ashworth broke the news on their show they noted that it was hard for the station to compete with corporate competitors.
The pair went on to speculate that the decision by directors and investors (which was brought to the staff today) was made because they “can’t keep up” as an independent.
Ungaro made a point of saying how “stoked” she was to have been a part of something that was truly independent, where they were given a lot of leeway to speak freely and share stories that might not be heard elsewhere.
They stayed true to their “Our City, Your Voice” mandate and will certainly be missed when they shut down at the end of this month.
We’ve reached out to station manager Don Shafer for comment and will share more news as we receive it.
Original Story HERE
I’m thinking the talk will go and it will just go music. They have a few people that are good with music. It might make sense
It’s hard to attract advertisers when you’re drawing 0.0 in the BBM ratings.
Here’s an excerpt from Kirk Lapointe’s FB on this matter:
I’m terribly sorry to report that the Board of Directors at Roundhouse Radio 98.3 FM has decided it will discontinue its financial support beyond April 30.
We were told at the station today that if new investment is not found, the local radio and online outlet will “go dark,” as the broadcast saying goes.
It has been a great privilege to be a day-one host at the station. I didn’t particularly love getting up at 4 to be the morning person, but I did love what I could discuss. My evening show permitted me to stretch some discussions a bit, and the hour-long Business in Vancouver show I now co-host with Tyler Orton and Hayley Woodin is the only local show with a focus on business.
no more Coast to Coast AM.
I started listening to this station in the New Year and was really enjoying a few of the talk shows. The music they were playing was a little repetitive, you can only take so much Alanis Morissette in a single day. In fact it sounded like Terry David Mulligan was giving them some bad music advice. Sorry, the kids aren’t listening to Tom Cochrane anymore and neither am I . Anyway, I’ll guess I’ll ride this one into the sunset. There is very little good radio in Vancity. Back to the CBC I guess.
Very unfortunate for RR Radio. They’ll need more than a format flip to go to the next chapter. 1800 watts was simply a wrong choosing of power for a city the size of Vancouver. That hurt them. Part of the attraction with CBC is, you can hear them, loud and clear, any time of day, in any Canadian city or small town. Clearly, you need at least 50,000 watts to be heard in any large city.
Shafe should have gone to the CRTC for a power boost, to make the eventual fire sale more feasible. There’s lots of good, talented talk show hosts within that station, so they could sell it in pieces, or as someone said, they or someone else could move it to AM.
Sad day …..
‘Will certainly be missed when they shut down at the end of the month’. By who? The Pulse in Surrey maybe next, very low ratings. I read that they are giving out gift cards to restaurants that are closed.
Re: CBC/50kW … CBU 690 has recently cut its power. No one at the station will acknowledge that it has affected the signal. I’ve fired in several complaints. In my car 690 now has a volume level far below all my other presets (on AM) and I’ve taken to skipping it. Some mornings the volume is lower than that of KGO, which is amazing seeing as I only have one of those small shark fin antennas on my car.
And might C2C be headed back to 1410?
Roundhouse covers an area of 1 million people.
Why didn’t YOU listen ?
I’m not sure about the 1 million people. I’m in Vancouver and can’t pick it up, at least not with a clean signal. So let’s chop it back to 450,000 at most, and within that pool, we still have large areas that cannot receive the signal well.
This is sad news. I’ve been listening on the Radioplayer Canada app since it launched and thoroughly enjoy all the Roundhouse programs and personalities, many of whom are former colleagues. To all those people who complain that radio is bland, repetitive and corporate crap why weren’t you listening to Roundhouse with their intelligent, original, passionate, independent programming? I hope a knight in shining armour rides in to save the day. Big love to the phenomenal team there.
All boils down to personalities, content, target demo, execution. You can’t be all things to all people. Sorry to see its demise which narrows my choices and regardless of their skill level, puts people out of work and flaying in an already diminishing business. Time for all to seriously consider a career change.
News watcher: I sympathize with the lower power issue for CBC 690. But, no one listens to AM, anymore. Maybe that’s why your emails go unanswered.
The bits and pieces you get from the inside point to systemic leadership problems. It’s going to take some serious innovation just to keep commercial radio afloat, let alone independents with low power. It’s a shame, but we all saw this coming from a mile away.
Of course the reference to “no one listening to AM” is a form of Yogi Berra-ism (“no one goes to the ball games anymore; it’s too crowded.”). I think if we look at the regular radio audience numbers, that AM is actually still pretty solid.
RHR Fan – it is extremely difficult to listen to the tinny noise of the broadcasts and that was when it didn’t completely go silent during broadcasts due to very poor reception.
I feel for people losing their jobs yet it is also sad that us, the listening public is losing so many options.
Print, tv, and radio are all rapidly declining and journalists we trust are being phased out and the city suffers for it. Keeping track of who goes where for news by journalists I respect takes more time than actually listening, watching or reading the information they impart.
I read and listen to people I trust, regardless of what dial or paper they are employed by. It’s the individual I value, not the corporation.
Sad but not a surprise
Just heard the morning guy talk about the rat problem in Vancouver, and then in a snarky, condescending voice, mock people in West Vanwith their ‘big houses and big cars’ not having a rat problem. Wow, total ignorance and a major turn off. No wonder the station is heading to the radio dumpster.
Coast to Coast going?