Blood in the Halls at CKNW

The cause of radio news took another hit this week, as the once dominant Vancouver station CKNW went on a firing spree that seems to have punched its news department squarely in the stomach. Long considered the news source for the lower mainland and the province for that matter, NW is following the lead of many other radio stations and cutting back on staff and programming in the competitive, but apparently not overly profitable radio business.

It’s a bit of a surprise that the axe would fall at such a station as NW, as it always seemed to be the bell weather of all media in Vancouver. But over the last few years there have been changes that have shown that bean counters have no loyalty to a market or a definitive sound.

With some serious programming changes already having taken place in the last year, the departure of long time morning host Frosty Forst and the controversial dismissal of talk show veteran Rafe Mair, there were rumblings for a while now that all was not happy on the former Big Dog.

Anyone who listened to Rafe Mair’s programs in his final days at NW would sense the underlying tension between the local staff and the management class brought in to run things. Even today if you listen between the sentences when Neil McRae delivers the sports you sense that there is a possible coup waiting to break out in the tall building in downtown Vancouver. Interestingly enough, McRae has been away all this week as developments reached their final stage.

The latest cuts seem to hit the newsroom much harder than the programming side, with a couple of veteran reporters given their walking papers and the legislative reporter cut back to a few days a week. It’s indicative of an industry that lately has claimed that all is well, but then go and make moves like this that dictate that things obviously are not as good as they would like to suggest.

It’s the kind of thing that residents of small town Canada have come to expect, the complete demise of newsgathering and bottom line accounting that leaves many radio markets in Canada completely abandoned in matters of news, but to see the same kind of thought process put in place in the second largest English market in the country leaves one shaking one’s head.

The Globe and Mail had a complete report on the happenings at NW, which we reprise below. Give special attention to the remarks made by one former long time employee, who sums up the situation at NW quite well.


CKNW slashes heralded news team
ROD MICKLEBURGH
The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, April 6, 2006.

VANCOUVER -- The city's paramount radio station, CKNW, is drastically chopping its highly regarded news operation, just three weeks after losing the rights to broadcast games of the Vancouver Canucks.

Known for their reporters' hustle and being first with breaking stories, all-talk CKNW has dominated local news coverage in the city for years.

But yesterday, in a terse, four-sentence statement that offered few details, Corus Radio, owner of a cluster of Vancouver-based stations including CKNW, announced that 12 employees were being let go "to ensure that the stations are appropriately structured to remain successful in a competitive marketplace."

Among those on the hit list were Leanne Yuzwa, a veteran of 14 years as a CKNW reporter, and highly regarded reporter Jason Howe.

As well, news coverage by the station's legislative reporter in Victoria, Sean Leslie, has been cut to three days a week. Also dismissed were morning traffic reporter Jennifer Thompson and several veteran radio engineers and producers.

Last month, the station was outbid by TEAM Sports Radio 1040, owned by rival CHUM Ltd., for the broadcast rights to Vancouver Canucks games. CKNW had held the rights since the team entered the National Hockey League nearly 36 years ago.

Newly arrived general manager J.J. Johnston called the layoffs a restructuring designed to improve the company's bottom line. "We are sitting in the No. 2 market in Canada, and the returns to Corus were not what they should be."

He said CKNW still has the largest private radio-station newsroom in Canada, and existing news resources will be improved by realigning them with the station's many talk shows.
"We will continue to deliver fantastic service," Mr. Johnston said, adding the layoffs were not confined to CKNW.

George Orr, a former CKNW reporter who now teaches broadcast journalism at BCIT, called the move another sad day for a station that has been "the news station of record for a generation.
"Everybody listened to 'NW. They decided what was news in Vancouver. There was a real principle of excellence there."

But in recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on profit and cutting costs at the station and less on quality news, Mr. Orr said. "The station seems to have been taken over by the messengers, marketers, positioners and branders. Another day, another squeezing of the financial lemon."

Under the direction of its legendary news director Warren Barker, the newsroom produced a number of high-profile journalists over the years, including former TV anchor Russ Froese; CBC documentary producer Jerry McIntosh; Cameron Bel, who pioneered the Newshour on BC-TV; and Harry Phillips and Arden Nostrander, both of whom went on to network producer jobs in the United States.

For many years, CKNW was considered to have perhaps the best local news coverage of any radio station in North America.

"These goofs from Toronto just don't understand that," one former long-time employee said. "Where are we supposed to go now for our radio news? The city is not being served at all by what's happening."

The ex-employee said the handful of reporters remaining at the station are mostly younger and relatively inexperienced.

In Vancouver, Corus Entertainment owns Rock 101 (CFMI), the Fox (CFOX), MOJO Radio and CKNW, as part of its string of 51 radio stations across Canada.

CKNW has been the ratings king of the Lower Mainland for years, although analysts have pointed out that 70 per cent of the station's listeners are over 55 years of age.

The station's talk shows will remain intact, except for the demise of David Berner's weekend show.