Submitted by Paul Larsen, Strategic Media Advisor and former Founder and President of Clear Sky Radio
It’s been two weeks since Rogers Sports & Media abruptly shut down six spoken-word radio stations across Canada.
Like many in the industry, my first reaction was sadness. Not so much because radio stations closed—that has unfortunately become less unusual over the past several years—but because approximately 230 Rogers employees, including about 80 directly affected by the station closures, lost their jobs that day. They were the real victims of this decision.
Many of those talented broadcasters, journalists and producers will land on their feet. Sadly, many of those new opportunities will be outside broadcasting. At a time when trusted journalism has never been more important, Canada can ill afford to lose experienced news and sports professionals.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve read countless opinions and watched the debate unfold. There has been plenty of criticism of Rogers and considerable discussion about whether the company made the right decision.
Rogers certainly did themselves no favours by announcing the station closures one day after revealing their $4.35 billion purchase of the remaining MLSE stake.
Having spent nearly 40 years in Canadian broadcasting—and having personally fought to save a radio station that went dark in my hometown of Kelowna—I understand why many people reacted so negatively.
However, I think we’re asking the wrong question. I believe the better question is this:
Did Rogers really have many other viable options?
That may sound like an odd question coming from someone who has spent much of his career building radio stations.
I love this business. I’ve built stations from scratch, bought struggling stations, rescued stations and sold stations. I hate seeing heritage brands disappear.
But I also understand something that many people commenting publicly may be overlooking. Sometimes there simply aren’t any good options left.
In 2020, just as COVID was beginning to devastate local advertising, CKOO-FM in Kelowna entered bankruptcy and went off the air. I decided to try to save it.
Having recently sold Clear Sky Radio, I believed the station still had value, even if others didn’t.
Saving the station meant far more than buying assets out of bankruptcy. It required presenting the successful bid to the Trustee, obtaining CRTC approval, overcoming strong opposition from competing broadcasters, rebuilding operations, restoring the historic CKOV call letters, hiring a new team, modernizing the station and relaunching the business—all during one of the most challenging periods in our industry.
I’m proud we succeeded. I’d make the same decision again. But I also came away with a much deeper appreciation for just how difficult these decisions become when a business is losing money every single day.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve repeatedly seen one question:
Why didn’t Rogers simply sell the stations?
It’s a reasonable question. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t nearly that simple.
Even if Rogers had found buyers—and that’s far from guaranteed—the regulatory approval process alone would likely have taken many months, perhaps even longer than a year. Meanwhile, the financial losses wouldn’t stop.
The Halifax FM station, 95.7 NewsRadio, presented a different challenge. Because it operated under a Specialty FM licence, Rogers couldn’t simply change formats the way broadcasters routinely move between Country, Classic Rock or Adult Contemporary when a station underperforms.
Changing the Halifax format would have required another lengthy regulatory process with no guarantee of success, potentially triggering competing applications or a review of whether the market could even support another music station.
These aren’t excuses. They’re simply the business realities broadcasters operate within.
Many Canadian broadcast leaders have recently begun saying publicly what many have believed privately for years: our regulatory framework needs meaningful modernization.
I agree. In fact, I believe the current regulatory system is partly responsible for outcomes like the Rogers station closures.
When I was building Clear Sky Radio almost 20 years ago, share transactions could move through the CRTC in roughly 90 days. When I sold CKOV in 2024, that same process took almost a year. That’s an eternity in today’s business environment. In a world that has sped up dramatically, our regulatory processes have moved in the opposite direction.
Media companies operate in real time. Regulation still largely operates on government time.
There’s another reality that many of us have been reluctant to acknowledge. AM radio is approaching the end of its commercial life.
Outside a handful of Canada’s largest markets, commercial AM radio has already largely disappeared. The major markets are simply catching up.
According to Rogers’ own numbers, average weekly audiences for Sportsnet 650 Vancouver and Sportsnet 960 Calgary had fallen to approximately 2,100 and 1,200 listeners respectively outside major hockey and playoff programming.
Given the costs of operating high-power AM transmission facilities and the significant staffing required to produce around-the-clock local spoken-word programming, those economics become increasingly difficult to justify.
Could Rogers have continued subsidizing those stations? Certainly. But for how long? And to what end?
I’ve witnessed audience behaviour change firsthand. At BCAB and WAB conferences over the past decade, I’ve sat in rooms full of broadcasters during Stanley Cup playoff games.
Years ago, everyone would have gathered around a radio. More recently, almost everyone was watching the game on their phones during the conference dinner.
Not listening. Watching. Technology didn’t suddenly change this year. It’s been changing for years. Audience behaviour has simply evolved alongside it.
Ironically, I believe CRTC regulations originally designed to protect AM radio may have unintentionally accelerated its decline.
For decades, broadcasters wanting to move spoken-word programming from AM to FM have faced significant regulatory hurdles.
Imagine if News/Talk, All News or All Sports formats could have moved to FM as easily as broadcasters have long been able to change one music format to another.
Instead of fighting to preserve the AM band, broadcasters could have focused on preserving what mattered most—the programming, the journalism and the local voices.
Would every station have survived?
Probably not.
But I suspect several heritage brands—and many talented journalists—would still be serving Canadian audiences today had those transitions been easier.
Instead, broadcasters wanting to make the move would have had to convert an unrestricted FM licence into a permanently designated Specialty licence—a restriction many broadcasters understandably concluded wasn’t worth accepting.
Years ago, the CRTC removed regulations that prevented Top 40 music from moving from AM to FM because the marketplace had clearly changed.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe the regulatory framework evolved quickly enough to recognize that spoken-word radio would eventually require that same flexibility.
Recently, I found myself facing a much smaller—but personally difficult—business decision. Should I continue operating a business that was losing money with no realistic path back to profitability?
It’s an awful position to be in. Employees depend on you. Customers depend on you. Communities depend on you. Yet financial reality doesn’t simply disappear because the decision is difficult.
Radio is supposed to be a public service. And it is. But it is also a business.
Having recently faced that decision myself, I have a much greater appreciation for just how painful and difficult it can be.
That’s why I can better understand how a company like Rogers ultimately concluded that one chapter had simply come to an end.
That doesn’t mean I celebrate the decision. Far from it. But understanding a decision and agreeing with it are two very different things.
I’ve spent nearly forty years believing in the future of radio. I still do. What I no longer believe is that every delivery technology lasts forever.
AM radio has served Canadians extraordinarily well for more than a century. That’s an incredible legacy. But technologies evolve. Audiences evolve. Businesses must evolve.
I believe the biggest lesson from the Rogers station closures isn’t that radio is dying. It’s that successful media companies must be allowed to adapt before circumstances leave them with no good options at all.
Radio has reinvented itself before.
It will again.
But the next generation of successful broadcasters won’t succeed by protecting yesterday’s technology.
They’ll succeed by protecting what audiences truly value: trusted local journalism, compelling storytelling and meaningful community connection, regardless of how and where they consume it.
