The NL Broadcasting centre in downtown Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Google Maps
September 24, 2024 - 11:20 AM
Kamloops is without a news radio broadcaster for the first time in decades.
Members of the newsroom at RadioNL were terminated today, Sept. 24, according to a social media post by employee Brett Mineer.
Mineer wouldn't immediately comment on the firings.
It appeared to be a surprise move at CHNL and the news programming was operating as normal Tuesday morning until the station suddenly cut to music.
Around 11 a.m., what was supposed to be the syndicated Mike Smyth Show was replaced with classic rock. The station is still broadcasting brief The Canadian Press news updates.
Radio station 610 AM has been broadcasting in the Kamloops area since 1970, and was owned by NL Broadcasting Inc. until 1993. Newcap Broadcasting bought the station until it was sold to Stingray Group Inc. in 2018.
Premier David Eby was among those mourning the loss of RadioNL's newsroom on social media Tuesday morning. He said the newsroom's closure is "just bad for local journalism."
"(RadioNL) has long been a trusted source of information for the community, and (Brett Mineer's) voice has been a steady presence in their lives," he said on X.com.
Stingray Group, which owns several other FM radio stations around Canada, did not immediately respond to questions about the decision.
The company's most recent quarterly report to shareholders, published last month, does not mention any issues or impending cuts to its Kamloops newsroom. What it does say is that that company revenues "soared" with a nearly 13 per cent increase over the same quarter last year. From April to the end of June, the media company raked in $89 million in revenue, according to the report.
Its news division represented a very small fraction of the media company and wasn't mentioned in the report.
The move by Stingray comes 11 months after Kamloops This Week published its last newspaper.
— This story was updated with a social media statement from David Eby and with information from a Stingray Group Inc. shareholder report at 11:40 a.m., Sept. 24, 2024.
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