by Steve Kowch
February 2, 2021
Never thought this would happen to Montreal’s CJAD radio station – one of Canada’s crown jewels of local radio stations. A life line to Montreal’s English community when it came to radio news. Only months after celebrating the station’s 75th anniversary, CJAD will no longer have any reporters! Gone as of Monday. Instead, CTV television reporters in Montreal will cover the news on CJAD. A Newstalk radio station with NO reporters. SHAME on Bell Media for making these cuts to save money. SHAME on Bell Media for turning its back on Montreal’s English community. I have fond memories of my days as a CJAD reporter. It was more than a job, it was a commitment to the English community to provide the best news coverage possible. To carry the torch of the legendary CJAD reporters before me. A lot of talented reporters are now out of work through no fault of their own. A sad day for radio. Now I fear Bell will eventually do the same at CFRB in Toronto where it has a couple of TV stations with big newsrooms.
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As a comedian on Facebook remarked the other day…”It’s Bell Let’s Talk Day…Let’s talk about the hundreds of people that Bell Media has fired over the last year. I wonder how their mental health is?”
The even sadder part of this whole debacle is that they are now going to rely on CTV Montreal (CFCF-12), which is also a shadow of its former self, thanks to multiple owners stripping the once proud station of its assets, firing most of the production staff, and moving the “studios” from a large stand-alone broadcast complex complete with a helipad on the roof to what is essentially a broom closet shared with many other stations.
There was a time when both stations could be relied upon to find and report news as it happened. Now, I imagine, we have to wait for the various authorities to issue press releases so that they can be read verbatim by the gender studies graduates that pass for reporters.
But these info-babes look good on camera, so I guess that’s okay.
Meanwhile, the governments in that province are as corrupt as ever, organised crime is still very organised, and draconian measures to restrict freedom are being implemented “for our protection”.
Response from subsidised corporate media? Not one word in opposition. No analysis. No research. Nothing. But their CEOs got bonuses. So that’s all right, then.
WOW grew up in Montreal with CJAD,great memories very sad.
@oh brother
“but these info-babes look good on camera”
A friend of mine was in serious need of losing weight and said that he was going to try the Noome method because it is supposed to be based on psychology.
I told him to save his money and simply watch Sunday Scrum on CBC. That will kill anyone’s appetite.
So no “FAKE NEWS” from this station. Excellent news.
Not surprised; CFRA shut down its news department years ago and now relies on CTV Ottawa and even simulcasts the weekend morning news on the radio … kind of weird on Thanksgiving weekend when I am listening to hosts “showing” me how to debone a turkey.
CHQT Edmonton has also decided to shut down their newsroom and rely on Global TV for their news. I imagine CHED will be next if it hasn’t already happened.
Surprisingly, the TV websites have better news than the local “news”paper websites. Perhaps Postmedia can increase their profits by ceasing publication altogether – we won’t miss them.
And what is up with the Globe and Mail? We are in the middle of a pandemic, an unprecedented restriction of freedoms, corrupt government members doing the bidding of China, people suffering loss of livelihood and income at record rates and the Globe focuses on Gender Equality in corporations!? Really? That’s what Globe editors think Canadians want to read?
If I still had a subscription to this paper, I would cancel it. Maybe I should start one just to cancel it.
I remember the days when there were news kiosks in my hometown downtown. There would be a seller selling 3 editions of the NEWSPAPER. One came out at 10 a.m., a second at about MID DAY. What do we do we have left today?? One late in the afternoon. The Pacific Press as it was known was busy all day doing their work, selling advertising and keeping it’s readers up to date. I also recall when USA TODAY. showed up. Where can you find that? Do we have time to even look for it? What’s left NOW??? I wish we could RID ourselves of those filthy NEWS BOXES that everyone uses as TRASH RECEPTACLES. Wouldn’t want to even come close!
CHQT was getting fun to listen to as an oldies station when programming director Jay Hamilton downloaded about 3,000 songs, including obscure Canadian songs from the ’60s. Then it suddenly became an all-news station. I always suspected the switch of being a WKRP-type scenario of the owners not wanting anyone to listen to the station so that they could write it off as a loss.