Quoted from spiffiness

This won't hurt CHED all that much in the ratings, if at all.  This is like Headline News on the radio, unless you like hearing the same thing over and over again you're really only tuning in for 30-35 minute stretches max.  Most people will tune in for top stories, or a traffic or weather update, sports score, or a breaking news update and then return to what they were listening to.  It's been said before, it's all about the cume with all-news.  I don't expect ratings will be stellar out of the gate for iNews; they weren't for 660 in Calgary.  But CHED does excellent in the ratings and that will help iNews when they cross-promote each other.

But there's only so many people that want to listen to NEWS Radio in a market the size of Edmonton. So where are the numbers going to come from?

They'll have to steal some from current News stations (CHED and CBC) and it's bound to weaken CHED's numbers in some respect. It has to. The older demo that primarily listens to CHED won't be inclined to flip, they seldom do.

But the real question is, why take a risk of splitting your audience? Why not just make the Number ONE property better?  

Blooper happened early this morning where a station ID interrupted the headlines. Long story short, turns out the overnight hours on iNews are pre-recorded. Plus the anchors don't do time checks at this time of day.

Quoted from Kumquat

But there's only so many people that want to listen to NEWS Radio in a market the size of Edmonton. So where are the numbers going to come from?

- From people currently not listening to radio.  (Folks who are citizens of the iPod nation... but need to find out why they're not moving on the Whitemud.)
- Heavy cross-tuning with other stations.  It's about building cume... not share.

There's no real danger of iNews eating CHED's lunch, as long as CHED continues to do what it's supposed to... be a talk station.

Plus... you forget that the audience (however meager) that was listening to Cool 880 has to go somewhere.  It'd be unrealistic to actually believe every one of them will find their way over to 96.3... which is what these days... Alternative 'Hit' Music... no the Mix... no Big Stan or something... Oldies?  Really?  Hey... wait a second... Huey Lewis isn't Oldies!  (REAL people aren't as in-tune to the machinations of CKRA's identity crisis -- nor could they care about hit/no-hit rules - as much as folks on PSR are and do.)

660News did the same thing a couple of times.  When they don't do a time and temperature check at points in the hour they would typically do during the day you know it probably is recorded.

a couple of things to note ...
    ..news anchors sometimes work for both iNews and CHED .. but it would be good for them to scribble in front of them which station they're on at any given time.      They're familiar with the CHED slogan .. but they're stumbling at times .. saying that slogan on iNews.  It's still early in their switch to all-news .. but ....
    ..also .. has Jamie switched from his role in the world of sports .. to doing iNews on weekends .. or is this because of a lack of personnel in the newsroom ??   He used to do news on CHED .. but switched to sports when the last vacancy opened up .. and he's not even reporting the sports this afternoon       on iNews ....

Quoted from YIKES

I realize that you need to hire  a lot of personnel for this type of format but I find that some of the announcers sound really green. If you want to be a major market station you have to bite the bullet.

Hey Yikes, Corus is infamous for NOT paying a living wage. (Hello to all you Corus folk living with Mom an Dad.) If you have a heartbeat and can make audio from your mouth, you're in baby. "Just sign here." Sad to say, too many newbies are lined up out the door for those "glam" gigs.

One more thing, i880 will ultimately fail. Why ? (Are you listening D. Rutherford ?) Because as most radio vets know, the Rogers wheel is driven by traffic and weather. TRAFFIC AND WEATHER. Unless you're putting resources into those two things, you'll lose when Rogers comes to town. Good luck and good night.

Gee I wonder if RA has a hate-on for Corus.  Hmmmm......

Listening to 880 while I was in Edmonton a couple of days ago and didn't find it to be that bad.  The mid-day talent wasn't that bad.  That said, I'm not a fan of the news wheel in general.  My concern is that if Rogers gets a news wheel in Edmonton, where are they going to pull the talent from?  The talent pool is already pretty shallow.

Tried the "Listen Live" link and got nothing today (Thursday morning)

(Just checked (5pm Thurs) and the 'listen live' link is up and working.)

I've been checking it out, it's useful having that all-news available when I want an update.  Turns out most drives I take are around 20 minutes, so it fits perfectly.  Fortuitious timing, what with 'construction season' starting up the same time the station did.

With iNews doing the updates every 15, I'm wondering why 630 CHED still does the same schedule in the mornings.  I'd like to see it relaxed to an every-30 wheel, and let Whitey have a little more freedom to do a talk show rather than the crammed show he has now.  Yeah, it's gonna steal some audience from CHED - but think of it more as an adjunct to CHED's service, like CHED on two channels.

wow, it's like listening to a flashback of 1979....Do the call letters CKO ring a bell with anyone. The whole "all news" format is virtually a cut-and-paste of the CKO format from almost 30 years ago. Rogers does the same thing. It's not a new formula but it can work if you get the right people on the air and if you can build in the flexibility to break format to cover breaking news. I chuckled when I heard the "give us 17 minutes and we'll give you the world" sell line. I still have a window sticker from CKO Toronto (circa '79) that reads "give us 20 minutes and we'll give you the world"....That's radio, very few new ideas, just old ideas redone with a new flavour.

Corus has brought in an interesting mix of on-air talent to drive the i-news machine. Sheila Gardner is a perfect fit, and Don Lawson still has the pipes to do the job. They've got some good up-and-comers in people like Quinn Phillips, but I can't figure out why they've done their lineup card this way. Gardner's the best they've got and they don't seem to be using her in their prime spots. Here's some advice for Syd....put Gardner and Lawson on your morning drive show to build a solid tandem.

Oh, and lose the "exclusive traffic and weather" BS...Everybody knows there is only ONE chopper in the air in this town, with a couple of staff feeding reports to Global, CISN, CHED, Joe-fm and inews...stop trying to make it sound like anybody has "exclusive" stuff. Kind of reminds me of the old CKO daze when the "traffic reporter" in Toronto was actually one of the newsroom staff who stood next to a torcan fan atop a filing cabinet in the studio (no air conditioning) and did her reports from the "torcan weather chopper"...what a hoot!

The basic i-news product is good, they just have to be carefull about keeping it simple, slick and smooth. If they get tripped up with all of the sponsor mentions, sell-lines and miscellaneous junk, it could get clumsy pretty quickly.

I'm with you on the product mentions - personally I'd love to ban the phrase "brought to you by" on any station.  Makes the station sound cheap.

I thought there were two traffic report providers in town?  Could be wrong about that.

Yeah, you're right about CKO, although they were a lot more of a national service than a local one.  Their 'studio' was on Jasper at about 117th street, across the hall from the former Bob Layton School Of Broadcasting.  I don't think they ever had more than a couple of local staffers total.

There are two traffic services in town, but only one chopper in the air. If you listen to the Newcap stations they subscribe to "air traffic" which is only a brand name. You won't find "air traffic" in the air anywhere. From what I've heard, all they really do is monitor websites and scalp info from other outlets, the old fashioned way. CBC radio has Rod Kurtz drive through traffic in their morning show, relying mainly on people calling in with cellphone tips.

The old CKO was actually in a building on the corner of 109 street and 103A avenue. They had a morning show crew, but were mainly networked from Toronto during the rest of the newsrun. They had some good reporters on staff, but never really had the deep pockets to make all-news radio work. Being on FM didn't help.

Corus has the cash to make I-news a going concern for the long haul, but i'm not sure the whole "citizen journalist" thing is a winner. They'd be better off to hire a few good people to hit the street and dig up some compelling local news and do live hits. That's the key element that's missing in the format right now, LIVE stuff.

If you listen to all-news formats in Toronto and other markets, you hear a lot of "live" hits that are repeated over and over again, ad nauseum. That doesn't exactly build credibility with the listener. If I-News is going to take things to the next level, they have to start weaving LIVE hits into their news wheel. The whole idea of running a 20-minute news wheel is to make sure the information is as fresh as possible in order to keep hours-tuned high. If the news package isn't updated every time the listener punches the button, they'll tune in less frequently because they won't have an expectation of hearing anything new. Of course, in order to weave live hits into the format, you've got to have on-air reporters who can sound concise and compelling during a 30 second live-shot. Right now, the roster is a little thin in that respect.

Thanx oldnewsguy - I do recall visiting someone at a small makeshift studio down the hall from the school, but I could certainly be mistaken.

I'm with you on the live hits.  I expected repetition, but there's been a bit too much... especially on the 'blog' segments.  I swear I heard the same copy being read three days straight on one of them.  Guys, if you can't find anything new and interesting on the internet in 3 days, give up.

Quoted from oldnewsguy

There are two traffic services in town, but only one chopper in the air. If you listen to the Newcap stations they subscribe to "air traffic" which is only a brand name. You won't find "air traffic" in the air anywhere. From what I've heard, all they really do is monitor websites and scalp info from other outlets, the old fashioned way.

Actually Newcap contracts Skywords and they have a fixed wing in the air doing traffic. Yes Corus is the only CHOPPPER but it's not the only one up there. [color=purple][/color][b][/b]

Quoted from Skittles

[face=Verdana]
Actually Newcap contracts Skywords and they have a fixed wing in the air doing traffic. Yes Corus is the only CHOPPPER but it's not the only one up there.

That being said, since Skywords dropped Ashley, I haven't heard the new guy in the air too much.  Anyone know what the deal is?  Aircraft problems?  Scared of flying?  It can't be weather because I hear (and see) the CTN chopper in the air most days.