Re: why is the CBC doing this anyways?

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Kevin Vahey wrote:
>Maybe I am missing something, but isn't the shutdown of AM CBC service
>costing them more money in the longrun?
>Plus losing the nightime audience in the upper 2/3's of the US, which I
>assume promoted some goodwill.
<snip>

        Apparently the bottom line is budget. The AM signals were judged
(correctly or incorrectly) not to serve the Canadian audience as well as
the FM signals would. And they didn't want to pay to run both sets of
stations. And the politics there apparently is that the secondary,
coincidental signal coverage of the U.S. by the AMs is not considered of
any value when it comes to spending $$. I find that ironic because of the
Canadian concern about being overwhelmed by American culture. And now, of
course, there's some back-tracking in terms of the CBC saying it may want
or does want one or more of the AM assignments back (I forget the details
right now).

        I wrote to the CBC a couple years ago making your argument about
the good will factor, etc.--that some Americans get Canadian news and
entertainment that they otherwise would not get. The reply said the
programming would still be available on SW. Period. [Imagine that I
inserted here a long blurb about why the AM signals give Canada a radio
profile in the U.S. that's about a million times higher than with SW].

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Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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