Corus chief executive John Cassaday
Two more Montreal AM radio stations are being silenced after Corus Entertainment Inc. announced Friday it was closing the stations in a move that will cost 10 employees their jobs.
The media company said AM Info690 and AM940 were not profitable or viable in the current economic climate and would cease operations at 7 p.m. Friday.
Corus said it unsuccessfully tried to increase audience and revenues at both stations while operating them as efficiently as possible.
"We put tremendous effort into trying to find the right format and content to grow our audience base and operate profitably, but after years of effort it is clear these AM stations are not viable," said Mario Cecchini, vice-president of Corus Quebec.
The operating licences for the two stations will be returned to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
The layoffs affect eight employees at Info690, including three journalists and two traffic reporters. One on-air host and a technician will be cut at AM940 Montreal's Greatest Hits. The news station had previously eliminated 12 newsroom jobs in February, 2009.
Five other journalists and three traffic reporters at Info690 will keep their jobs, moving over to the newsroom at Corus' 98.5 FM station. CorusNouvelles, as the newsroom at Info690 was known, will continue to provide news to the entire Corus Quebec network, Corus said.
Info690, whose call letters are CINF, took to the airwaves in December, 1999, after it was purchased from Metromedia CMR. The station replaced CKVL which opened in 1946.
AM940 switched to playing greatest hits from an all-news format last year. The station opened in the 1920s as CFCF Radio 600 before changing radio frequencies and owners.
The closings leave Corus with just one AM station in Quebec: CKAC Sports.
In Montreal, there remain two AM stations owned by large broadcasters, a multicultural channel and a few specialty stations.
Corus, Quebec's largest private broadcaster and employing 466 people, reaches more than 4.5 million listeners weekly through several stations across the province, including CKOI.
Corus Entertainment recently filed a preliminary prospectus to raise up to $500-million in new debt securities.
It operates a broad array of specialty cable channels, including YTV, Treehouse, W Network and Cosmopolitan TV, as well as Movie Central and HBO Canada in Western Canada.
The company has said it may be interested in buying some of the specialty channel assets of CanWest Global Communications Corp., which is restructuring its business under court protection from creditors.
Corus and CanWest are partners in the Food Network Canada and thriller genre-focused DuskTV .