by Mike Cleaver » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:48 pm
Kat: Regarding your post about "those bastards on Yonge Street."
CHUM was the best run, best place for people and always in the black when Alan Waters was in charge.
It started to go downhill when Jim took over and the mistakes in radio snowballed with the TEAM debacle and the internet portal, which ended up costing over 60 million dollars with nothing to show for it.
When Mr. Waters kicked Jim upstairs and brought in the TV people to run the business, radio was shoved into the background where it remains today.
I assume those are the bastards to whom you refer.
The CRTC allowed CHUM to become as big as it did because CHUM was a responsible broadcaster.
At least two Windsor radio stations would have gone off the air unless the Commission allowed CHUM to buy them.
The company also rescued other failing enterprises, among them CITY TV, which Moses had run into bankruptcy before CHUM aquired it.
In response to another poster, if the deal goes through, I don't know what BGM will do with the radio division.
In the current form, the company has little radio experience.
Hopefully if the buy is approved by the Commission with whatever divestiture orders it makes, BGE, if it decides to keep some or all of the radio properties, will hire someone who knows something about how radio should be run and will weed out the deadwood in the current CHUM operations and perhaps invest some much needed dollars in improving programming and talent.
At least the company isn't falling into the hands of the "usual suspects", companies which can only dream about operating the way Mr. Waters did, by hiring the best and letting them do their jobs without interference from "muddle management."
Mike Cleaver Broadcast Services
Engineering, News, Voice work and Consulting
Vancouver, BC, Canada
54 years experience at some of Canada's Premier Broadcasting Stations