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| iNews880 On-The-Air... This thread currently has 8,070 views. |
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 spiffiness |
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iNews didn't get on the air until 6:30. The last song to play was Kenny Loggins, 'Your Daddy Don't Rock and Roll'. It should be noted that if iNews did get on the air at 6:00, the last song would have been Don McLean's 'American Pie'. The switch over and sign on of iNews880, available here: http://www.brilliantidea.ca/inews880_edit_2.mp3The file is roughly 8 MB in size. I also have the entire first half hour if anyone wants it. Those looking to get away from Bryan Hall by switching to iNews -- no such luck, he's doing the sports reports, although he only gets 2 minutes every half hour. |
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| canuckkid |
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| sasklight |
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Big Member |
I've been listening to inews880 this morning and have been pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds. Obviously, they've prepared well. My only complaint is that the station's subdued sound doesn't fit Bryan Hall, who is doing sports. I've always liked Bryan, but he doesn't fit in with the sound. |
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| ED1 |
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Medium Member  |
Those looking to get away from Bryan Hall by switching to iNews -- no such luck, he's doing the sports reports, although he only gets 2 minutes every half hour.
This is exactly what I was dreading when I first heard CHQT was going all news... Hope News 102.3 gets approved. |
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| formerly_bobinedmonton |
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 Big Member Gender:  Male
Location: Canada : Alberta : Edmonton
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Those looking to get away from Bryan Hall by switching to iNews -- no such luck, he's doing the sports reports, although he only gets 2 minutes every half hour.Sigh.  |
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| formerly_bobinedmonton |
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Big Member Gender: Male
Location: Canada : Alberta : Edmonton
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Took me four or five tries to listen online - I suspect that they've underestimated demand. The intros to the newscasts are the same as CFRA's , overall the station sounds like a breath of fresh air. Why pollute it with Bryan Hall? Dump him now, Rutherford. NOW! |
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| spiffiness |
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Big Member |
I am liking what I am hearing for the most part. I would be interested to know if other 660News listeners have had a listen to 880 and what they're opinions are.
I wouldn't be surprised if Reelworld did their jingle package, since the signature of their music is similar to some of their other news/talk/sports packages. |
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| Lawrence |
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Big Member |
I'm listening right now... Jamey Nie is dong sports. Overall sound has been wonderful for the past half hour. I had no problem at all getting on, online. |
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| TV_ON_THE_RADIO |
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Big Member |
I listened for a bit this morning. Interesting take on the Rogers wheel. Noticed the production package is nearly identical to CFAX 1070's latest sounders. Haven't heard any dual anchoring going on, sounds like they have the two anchors working off one workstation. It would sound better if there was more interplay between them and the other people on-air. |
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| fine tuning |
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Medium Member |
http://inews880.com/thats the link to the site.... Sounds good! Does anyone know who is doing the liners? He sounds familiar! |
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| Gotobreak |
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 Big Member |
The style of format for news information has been done for sometime. Vancouver's News 1130 - Rogers or King out of Seattle are leaders in delivery. I like the citizen journalists idea that provides a new twist plus female imaging is a nice change. Sheila Gardner knows the format delivery has worked at CKWX, CKNW ETC. For listeners in Edmonton it will be a nice change. |
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| albertaboy4 |
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Big Member Gender: Male
Location: Victoria BC
Age: 36
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I think the liners are voiced by Ross McIntyre (100.3 the Q! fm Victoria). |
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| canuckkid |
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Big Member |
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| TRENT |
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Medium Member Location: Edmonton, Alberta
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Well, that was amazingly 660news-esque, even the 'just before the half hour' credits (ok, except maybe without identifying the station calls). But...they have everything down to having the nearest CTV meteorologist just like CFFR (but over the phone). At the :15 and :45 I guess they run sports instead of doing a recap.
It's still in stereo, which is weird because announcers seem a bit ... 'hollow' (wide seperation). It sounds good for the jingles (and ads).
Timing is a bit off occasionally (Don! Mic channel up! now! OK, no, don't bring down the other announcer...oh...sigh.), but I guess that's just things that happen on the first day in production. (I know I mess up things the first time when I'm at the mixing desk for live events.) - The jingles don't last as long as they should, maybe that's a feature, but I feel that for the beginning of every half-hour cycle the background should last until the :01 / :31 traffic. Whatever. Moving on...
I still hate the way Corus does their downlink from the helicopter. LTR (Logic Trunked Radio) is fine for communications, but it sounds bad when it is used for broadcast radio. I don't know what kind of processing they're doing to the audio, because it sounds better on my scanner. Skywords seems to have a proper wideband FM UHF system in place.
Currently lacking excessive ads, which is what I like to hear, but this may or may not change. Let's hope it stays. (I am taking this from a listener point of view, not the station's business manager.)
And everyone off-site seems to be phoning in reports instead of using the usual system...I thought they had a dedicated line to National Bank Financial. Oh well.
I feel this i-everything is getting out of hand and could get annoying. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue as much 660news or 680news or news1130. I don't have to say it though, can't complain.
User generated content? This isn't exactly digg.
Seems OK for now. I'm happy the all news station ended up being on AM and not FM, because then that leaves more space for the coming FM stations, so hopefully they can leave 107.x alone. Interestingly, both the stations in Edmonton and Calgary were switched from an oldies format. |
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| WolfBlitzer |
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Thanks for posting the mp3 of the launch! Seems like All-News Stations launch with the same Breaking News story - That They Exist!
"This just in...Edmonton Gets a New Radio Station...it's the one you are listening to right now...now to Jenny with Sports.." |
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Spewing Out Justice...with a hint of beard
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| TV_ON_THE_RADIO |
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Big Member |
Happening Now....we're happening....now! |
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| spiffiness |
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Big Member |
Trent, they do the quarter-hour recap between business and sports. It probably, like 660, works out to be at either side of :15 or :45. When 660News started they had David Spence on the phone for his reports outside of morning drive until they put in the direct link from CFCN, in fact most of their reporters were phoning it in - now that doesn't happen as often. I wonder if they will ever go to a dedicated in-house business reporter or if they stick with the industry-based correspondent. One thing they could do different is trim the ad copy and just give the name of the sponsor and not their tagline. And one thing I do notice on iNews is the lack of 'breaking news', 'happening now', and 'this just in' stingers.
I would agree that the 'i' thing is a bit overdone on their website and 'I-NEWS-8-80' does sound a bit awkward when its said, but then again they want to push the 'internet-driven, you are so much involved in our format' and what else could they use that wouldn't make Rogers bark? WCBS uses 'NewsRadio 880', and they used to have the trademark on that phrase, but I believe Westinghouse let that lapse. That would have been a better name, but there's nothing in that name that focuses their push.
It is interesting to see the differences between the launch of the Corus station in Edmonton and Rogers' station in Calgary. Rogers surprised the market (most of the listeners were surprised by the change - anyone who read this board knew at least two months in advance), whereas Corus gave everyone two months warning. Rogers started with talent from their other stations, talent that went back home within two weeks while those in charge hurriedly interviewed and hired prospective talent. Corus had (has) the luxury of using staff from CHED but their other hires sound decent, something 660 struggled with for a time.
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| Venus |
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Baby Member  |
Tuned in for a while today. I have no "corperation loyalty or preference" as I have worked for both but I would have to say that 880 sounds much better than 660 news. American Pie would have been the best song choice if they had been able to pull it off. I think 660 played We built this city by Starship which was a bad choice because 660 hadn't played that song in well over a decade. Yep....I need to get a life!!! |
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| ED1 |
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Medium Member |
Currently lacking excessive ads, which is what I like to hear, but this may or may not change. Let's hope it stays. (I am taking this from a listener point of view, not the station's business manager.)
Really? I felt that iNews had way more ads than it should... then again it must be the flow of the program. Speaking of flow, some things need to be tightened up on iNews when it comes to the writing or ad-libing. For example, Claasen's weather forecasts are WAY too long... please save the mumbo-jumbo for TV and just get to the forecast. |
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| NBeaconIsBack |
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Big Member |
iRehashallofhtecrap630CHEDbutchers.com.org
Hopefully everyone had cases of "the nerves" today or they better start pulling airchecks right away to see if anyone can get through a cast without stumbling through their reads.
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| TRENT |
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Medium Member Location: Edmonton, Alberta
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Really? I felt that iNews had way more ads than it should... then again it must be the flow of the program.
Speaking of flow, some things need to be tightened up on iNews when it comes to the writing or ad-libing. For example, Claasen's weather forecasts are WAY too long... please save the mumbo-jumbo for TV and just get to the forecast.
I also love that at this point, it is a recording off phone and the announcer tries to make a handoff as if it were live. I listened to the station for 6 hours straight today and they managed to cut off the recording before it was done about 2 times, and it was updated at 6PM. "Mother nature, it's like sheeeeeeeeeeee did..." I agree that it should be a bit more to the point, but not as boring as Weatheradio. Other points to note: It's not as 'exactly every half hour as per our master clock' as the Rogers stations are. I have no clue why they're using a gmail address when they own their own domain. I just find that unprofessional. At least use Google Apps... Also, some people tend to repeat their name more than the time. I personally find the latter more useful, and some announcers throughout the day did do just that, but most didn't. Ex. "You're listening to iNews880. I'm Kimberly Hopkins." OK, excellent, what time is it!? Currently all the iNews iComment iSubmit things are all iModerated. iMean.. yeah. But it could be mostly inefficient if many people decide to comment on something for whatever reason, because most people are used to normal commenting systems which instantly insert the text into the site DB. I guess the idea is more like a feedback into the station, without being able to see such feedback, even though it was advertised otherwise. Feature coming soon? Please, dial-up modem noises are not representative of how your station is all about using the latest modern technologies for listener-station interaction. Weather on the website: no one uses millibars in Canada. People need to pay a bit more attention, because they're getting a lot of dead air when attempting to introduce people who are either not ready, not responding, or forget to bring up the mic. I don't remember the CFFR launch being this awkward...maybe I need to check the old tapes again or something. They're also trying to get used to the new namig - I do remember at launch, the temporary people on 660 would accidentally try to ID as 680. Same here ("Six-thirt....iNews880 reporter...") But I know these things will get figured out with time. They also need to switch between announcers between stories or something, because it's just weird and sounds like there is only one announcer. I guess I'm ranting about pointless and minor things into a forum which may or may not lead to changes on the actual station/website. |
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| spiffiness |
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Big Member |
But the Rogers station in Calgary uses the same format for their anchors. When 660News first started, the morning drive anchors tag-teamed, both for the first 5, then one anchor for the remainder of the half-hour. Now both anchors will deliver the news for the majority of the half hour (possibly the same in PMD). The rest of the clock, both anchors deliver the first 5 minutes, then one delivers the rest of the half hour while the other supposedly edits, re-writes, or checks on developing stories, and typically the order is male in the first half and female in the second half when you have a male-female pairing.
'Exactly every half-hour as per our master clock' -- okay, the thing with this is that in Toronto and Vancouver they use a real time signal attached to the clock. You can tell because if the anchors are not on time with their speil (which rarely happens), the beeps will sound over their voices. In Calgary, the time beep is a recording. The anchors are supposed to run the recording at exactly the half hour but half the time it's either a bit late or a bit early. I am surprised iNews doesn't have a time signal though -- it's another 'utility' (as Doug Rutherford called his station).
I think it would be good to put Classen in the studio for AMD. And as for the dial-up modem sounds, as 'mid-90s' as that may sound, what else could you use?
As for the weather, all the Corus stations are pulling in their weather info from the same place; a site that will allow you to show weather info for a fee. The info is probably provided by an American company, and they typically use millibars instead of kilopascals. There probably are very few, if any Canadian type sites that would allow them to show the data on their own site and not divert them off their site to places like The Weather Network, for example. If they want something better they would have to hire a developer to build that, and my guess is there's no room in the budget. |
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| YIKES |
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Medium Member |
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. |
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| CheezyPoofs |
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Baby Member |
Quoted Text
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.
Like SONIC does for middays? Or any station for evenings? C'mon, cut the CORUS slagging and realize every major market station is cutting back on talent and replacing it with inexperience and therefore money. How many new people did that station bring in? 12? 15? More? It's practically a training ground for new people in the broadcast journalism field now. And why not, look at who they've got there to train them. From mornings all the way through the p.m. drive there are solid people there. And the station doesn't sound bad, heard worse, heard better. I'd imagine a few things will be tweaked and they'll be fine, as long as the corporation is supportive. |
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| Kumquat |
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Sounds OK... but aren't they just going to build their audience by stealing audience away from CHED?
Where's the sense in that? Unless CHED is planning on becoming less NEWS and more TALK?
Also, having so much cross promotion of CHED and it's talent on the station only hurts the new station's image as being a possible 'younger and fresher' sounding alternative.
This may work, but I see it hurting CHED in the long run. |
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| spiffiness |
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Big Member |
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. |
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| AB-radio |
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Medium Member |
I haven't been able to listen all that much, but when I did, I heard only one tinny sounding traffic person, obviously phoning the report in from somewhere. The Rogers brand of these stations has been built on their traffic, a ground person and then someone up in the air, providing the best traffic reports. I wonder how the iNews traffic can be as good, if they arenn't in the studio answering those traffic calls that flood in. |
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| freqfreak2 |
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Big Member |
This won't hurt CHED all that much in the ratings, if at all.
Let's not lose sight of what this is all about: fending off Rogers. Whatever iNews 880 costs to run, it would be less than what CHED/Corus would lose to a successful Rogers all-news application. If iNews 880 garners a 3.0 share after a book or two, that would place the station in Cool 880 territory.
It's practically a training ground for new people in the broadcast journalism field now. And why not, look at who they've got there to train them.
Training ground ... for a career where exactly? And from under the tutelage of Bob Layton? Gag me with a Sennheiser. |
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| boredop |
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ALL NEWS, ALL THE TIMEby Graham Hicks Edmonton Sun May 22 Looks like Corus Entertainment has made a serious commitment to news radio. With the conversion Tuesday of Cool 880 to iNews880, the CHED/iNews880 news team has doubled, from 15 to 30 full-time (or equivalent) staffers. CHED's veteran reporters Scott Johnston and Simon Ostler, after somehow getting to every big story in the city for years and years on their own, now have been joined by four to five more street reporters. I had thought the CHED news broadcasts would simply be simulcast on iNews880, but such is not the case. iNews880 has its own news anchors and news shows, running in quarter-hour cycles of news, sports, weather. Plus there's http://www.iNews880.com, but that's direct competition to the Edmonton Sun, so we won't give it too much of a plug! Suffice it to say the more news coverage there is locally, the better it is for everybody. And of course Corus Entertainment's emphasis on news has nothing to do with cutting Rogers Broadcasting's proposal for an all-news FM radio station off at the pass. Only cynics would think that way. THE AGE OF GOLDEN OLDIES The conversion of iNews880 to an all-news format didn't mean the death of nostalgia radio. Far from it! The moment Corus Entertainment (CHED, Joe, CISN and now iNews880) flipped Cool880's blasts from the past to all news iNews880, Newcap Radio switched 96.3 FM from country Big Earl to nostalgia pop Capital FM. So at this point, five of the nine major commercial radio stations on the FM dial - Joe, Capital, K-Rock, Magic and EZ Rock - feature nostalgia or quasi-nostalgia music formats. |
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| YIKES |
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Medium Member |
Like SONIC does for middays? Or any station for evenings?
C'mon, cut the CORUS slagging and realize every major market station is cutting back on talent and replacing it with inexperience and therefore money. How many new people did that station bring in? 12? 15? More? It's practically a training ground for new people in the broadcast journalism field now. And why not, look at who they've got there to train them. From mornings all the way through the p.m. drive there are solid people there.
And the station doesn't sound bad, heard worse, heard better. I'd imagine a few things will be tweaked and they'll be fine, as long as the corporation is supportive.
Give me a break I'm hearing mid-day talent booting words and names left and right. |
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| Kumquat |
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Baby Member |
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? |
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| ED1 |
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Medium Member |
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. |
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| canuckkid |
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Big Member |
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.) |
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| spiffiness |
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Big Member |
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. |
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| Ole_silver_top |
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Medium Member |
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 ....
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| Ra2000 |
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Baby Member |
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. |
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| Old Unreliable |
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Big Member |
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. |
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| paddyboyy |
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Big Member |
Tried the "Listen Live" link and got nothing today (Thursday morning) |
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| DaveTheCompGuy |
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Medium Member |
(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. |
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| oldnewsguy |
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Big Member Gender: Male
Location: Edmonton
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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.
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| DaveTheCompGuy |
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Medium Member |
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. |
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| oldnewsguy |
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Big Member Gender: Male
Location: Edmonton
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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.
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| DaveTheCompGuy |
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Medium Member |
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. |
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| Skittles |
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Baby Member |
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] |
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| edmontonradiodude |
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Minimum Member  |
[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. |
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| Skittles |
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Baby Member |
The new guy is/was Bob Preston.
He is being replaced in the coming weeks by Garret McGowan who is currently doing CHED Chopper Traffic.
From what I hear Bob didn't fare so well in the plane.
Ashley went back to CHED. |
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| cjor600 |
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Gender: Male
Location: Grosvenor Hotel
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wow, it's like listening to a flashback of 1979....Do the call letters CKO ring a bell with anyone.
What? Do you mean Garfield Chesson is there? 
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!
I forgot about the fan. When Paul Hughes was on the air, you could really hear it in the background. -OR60- |
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| freqnut |
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Baby Member Gender: Male
Location: Edmonton, AB
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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, rely | | |
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