NorthEast Radio Watch 9/9/2024: Evanov Closes 3 FMs

In this week’s issue… Evanov shutters Ottawa signal, two others – Quinn’s new gig at WICC – New morning shows at WKTU, WAWZ – WFME lives again

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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*It’s becoming an unfortunate trend in CANADA: on the heels of Bell and Corus shutting down some of their less profitable stations in bigger markets, Evanov Communications announced last week that on September 20, it will pull the plug on its three FM signals in Ottawa and two smaller outlying communities.

“All broadcasters are now contending with the challenges of increased competition, a difficult media climate, and the residual effects of the pandemic,” said CEO Paul Evanov in the announcement of the impending closure of CJWL (Lite 98.5) in Ottawa and its two “Hot Country” signals to the east, CKHK (Hot Country 107.7) in Hawkesbury and CHRC (Hot Country 92.5) in Clarence-Rockland.

Evanov has always been a fairly small player in that part of the country, entering Ottawa in 2006 when the CRTC licensed CJWL, then part of its soft AC “Jewel” format. It added the Hawkesbury signal a year later, followed by Rockland in 2013. In Ottawa, Evanov’s relatively small standalone 98.5 signal has struggled to find footing against the much bigger signals and larger multi-station clusters of Bell, Corus and Stingray, and in the smaller towns there simply wasn’t much local revenue to be had, especially with signals from Montreal, Ottawa, Cornwall and across the US border all competing for ears.

There is, of course, a political element to all of these recent Canadian closures, as broadcast companies look to the government for more regulatory support against what they say is the completely unregulated digital landscape dominated by US-based companies.

“I regret that the media industry, still regulated and a trusted source of news and information in a quagmire of fake news, misinformation and open social media borders, has not received the necessary support and relief sought during the crises or as a pre-emptive and insurance measure that would have us and our fellow broadcasters at a different place at this point,” Evanov said.

Broadcast Dialogue reports the closure will claim six jobs across the three stations, which had already been running on a thin staff based in Ottawa. PD Ted Silver will remain with the company at its CHSV (Lite 106.7) outside Montreal, as will newsman Brian Sylvester and sales manager Danielle Cyr.

Those with long memories may recall this isn’t the first time Evanov has shut down a signal in the region. During the early days of the pandemic in May 2020, it closed down adult standards/ethnic CHRF (980) in Montreal, returning that license to the CRTC.