By SCOTT FYBUSH
Rogers Media surprised listeners in CANADA‘s capital on Thursday afternoon with a three-way format flip, killing its “Jack” adult hits brand, relocating its country station, and adding an FM simulcast for its news-talk station – plus a new brand that might hint at bigger plans down the road in other markets.
As “101.1 Country” becomes “92.3 Country,” the 101.1 signal has flipped to a simulcast of CIWW (1310 Ottawa) – but it’s no longer “1310 News” for that hybrid news-talk format. Instead, Rogers has unveiled a new “CityNews” brand for the 1310/101.1 simulcast. It’s an interesting choice: Rogers’ CityTV national brand doesn’t have a local Ottawa outlet (though CITY-TV from Toronto is on cable and satellite there), making this a curious market to launch the brand, if in fact it’s something Rogers is planning to expand in other markets where it does have both news-talk radio and local CityTV newsrooms.
(How can Rogers juggle an AM-FM simulcast and a total of three FMs, including top-40 “Kiss” CISS 105.3? Because Smiths Falls is technically a separate market – which may mean 92.3 Country, in particular, becomes less of a competitive threat to the bigger country competition in Ottawa, Bell’s “Pure Country” CKKL 93.9.)
Much more, of course, in Monday’s full issue of NERW…
WE’RE WELL INTO 2025…
Do you have your Tower Site Calendar yet?
Now is the time to get it — and we have reduced the price. It’s now 20 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We have quite a few calendar left and are still shipping throughout the week.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025 ready to ship, too. Why not order both?)Â
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