News 1130 Radio and Sportsnet 650 Close
This morning, some of the airwaves in Vancouver have gone silent as Rogers ceased broadcasting 1130 NewsRadio (CKWX-AM) Vancouver and Sportsnet 650 (CISL-AM), Vancouver’s last remaining sports radio station. Rogers Sports & Media says it is cutting 230 positions across the division as it announces it’s shuttering six radio stations.
News 1130 Radio and Sportsnet 650 Close
The announcement comes a day after Rogers announced it will become 100% owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
From Broadcast Dialogue: The stations, set to go off the air today, include 1130 NewsRadio (CKWX-AM) Vancouver; Sportsnet 650 (CISL-AM), Vancouver’s last remaining sports radio station; 660 NewsRadio (CFFR-AM) Calgary; 960 AM (CFAC-AM) Calgary; NewsRadio 95.7 (CJNI-FM) Halifax; and 570 NewsRadio (CKGL-AM) Kitchener. A Rogers Sports & Media spokesperson said those licenses will be returned to the CRTC.
Employees across the country were notified this morning, with 80 connected to the radio station closures. Overall, about half of the positions impacted are corporate and support roles across sales, marketing, and programming, in addition to primarily production and some on-air roles on the television side. Some unionized TV newsroom positions in Toronto and Vancouver are also affected and will begin with a voluntary departure program, set to take effect in August.
Radio production of Vancouver Canucks games will move to another Rogers Sports & Media-owned station in the market, while Sportsnet will step away from producing Calgary Flames radio broadcasts, the company said.
It added that the impacted markets will continue to be served by local news content through CityNews on web and social, in addition to television newscasts in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, and the CityNews 24/7 news channels in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Local news, traffic and weather will also continue across Rogers’ music radio stations.
Earlier this year, 1130am celebrated 30 years of news radio in Vancouver, when CKWX became News1130, now known as 1130 NewsRadio Vancouver. The station has been a cornerstone for local news and traffic updates throughout the decades, and was an early media adopter of social media having hosted several Tweetups in the 2010s to connect with the online community.
Related: Aerial Photos of Vancouver From the News1130 Traffic Plane
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