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<\/p>\n\u201cThe media business continues to face headwinds driven by declining advertising revenue and changing audience habits. These changes are part of our plan to focus our investment in areas that will drive growth long-term,\u201d said Rogers spokesperson Zac Carreiro in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter a thorough review of our radio stations, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to close six radio stations in four markets due to declining audience and revenue trends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carreiro said Rogers will continue to own and operate 44 radio stations in nearly 30 communities and would \u201cinvest in local news in the impacted markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers will continue broadcasting Vancouver Canucks games on one of its radio properties in that city but will no longer produce Calgary Flames broadcasts for radio.<\/p>\n
Sean Kelso, a spokesperson for Flames-parent company Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., said in a statement the Flames \u201clearned of Sportsnet 960\u2019s closure Tuesday and were looking at options.\u201d<\/p>\n
From October to May of this past year, Rogers said its Calgary sports radio station had an average of just 1,200 listeners. The Vancouver sports station had an average audience of 2,100 listeners during that same period.<\/p>\n
The move in part reflects the evolution in how consumers consume audio content, particularly sports fans, said Christopher Waddell, former director of Carleton University\u2019s School of Journalism and Communication.<\/p>\n
He said many listeners have migrated over to podcasts from traditional sports radio shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor people who are interested in sports, almost everybody has an opinion about sports and many of them have podcasts now, too,\u201d said Waddell.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe audience may be declining and when audiences decline it gets more difficult to get advertising, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waddell added that sports radio stations are not only competing with new media for listeners and ad revenue, but also the teams they cover, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe leagues themselves do a lot of their own work. They have their own websites, they have their own reporters at some games, they may be doing podcasts, athletes are doing podcasts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat came as an outgrowth of sports radio has now devoured sports radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers said its Sportsnet 590 station in Toronto will continue to operate.<\/p>\n
Among the 230 total job cuts, Rogers said about half of those affect corporate and support roles such as sales, marketing and programming.<\/p>\n
Rogers said the cuts would affect a \u201csmall number of other on-air jobs across TV and radio\u201d due to programming changes. That includes some unionized TV newsroom positions in Toronto and Vancouver.<\/p>\n
The TV newsroom changes will begin with a voluntary departure program, with departures taking place in August. <\/p>\n
The company is also making \u201cadjustments\u201d on the non-media side of its business \u201cto reflect current market realities as part of our multi-year plan to drive growth long-term.\u201d It said the changes affect a small percentage of its workforce, including corporate and frontline roles.<\/p>\n
For Vancouver, the news marks the latest blow for sports radio in the city after Bell Media shuttered rival station TSN 1040 in 2021.<\/p>\n
Rogers launched Sportsnet 650 in 2017 as it acquired the radio broadcast rights to Vancouver Canucks games. The company signed a deal with Canucks Sports & Entertainment four years ago to remain the team\u2019s regional TV and radio rights holders through 2033.<\/p>\n
B.C. Premier David Eby said in a social media post that journalism is more important than profits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all benefit from having local news outlets and this is a blow for British Columbians,\u201d Eby said.<\/p>\n
\u201cB.C. is going to miss Sportsnet 650 and AM 1130. I\u2019m thinking of all their staff, producers, and journalists today.\u201d<\/p>\n
A day prior to the announcement, Rogers announced it will acquire the remaining 25 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment that it didn\u2019t yet own for $4.35 billion. <\/p>\n
MLSE owns the NHL\u2019s Maple Leafs, NBA\u2019s Raptors, MLS\u2019 Toronto FC and the CFL\u2019s Argonauts. Last year, Rogers closed a separate $4.7-billion deal with rival BCE Inc. to buy its 37.5 per cent stake in MLSE, making it the sports conglomerate\u2019s majority owner.<\/p>\n
In April, Rogers reported its profit rose in its latest quarter as total revenue was up 10 per cent year-over-year.<\/p>\n
Rogers\u2019 profit attributable to shareholders in its first quarter was $438 million, compared with $280 million a year earlier, as its revenue totalled $5.48 billion, up from $4.98 billion.<\/p>\n
Despite higher media revenue overall, Rogers said its advertising revenue was lower for the quarter.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Rogers cut what it said was \u201ca few dozen\u201d jobs in its audio business, citing an unpredictable advertising market that had led to declining revenue.<\/p>\n
That same year, BCE sold 45 regional radio stations and ended multiple television newscasts as part of a larger shakeup that saw it slash nine per cent of its workforce.<\/p>\n
Waddell said it was \u201cdiscouraging\u201d but not surprising to see more local news disappearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s already been a big cutback in print versions of local news, or online versions of local news as traditional newspapers who went online have shut down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRadio still has a place and the public broadcaster, I think, does fairly well with radio still, but the private broadcasters are having more trouble, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B)<\/p>\n
Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe media business continues to face headwinds driven by declining advertising revenue and changing audience habits. These changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-787904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}