by West Coast Als Fan » 04 Oct 2011 02:24
Well look at it this way: CJAD has the Alouettes right now and what do they give you? The games and little else. Aside from the game broadcasts CJAD doesn't really have any other programs dedicated to covering the Als. This stands to reason since they are a news station. The Als broadcast is pretty much 100% of their sports programming.
Now if the Als were to move to the TEAM...err...I mean TSN Radio 990 (or soon to be 690?) then you could expect more coverage of the Als outside of the game broadcasts than you currently have. (Of course, anything more than nothing is significant, right?) The BC Lions' radio rights are held by the TEAM affiliate in Vancouver which is also the rights holders of the Canucks broadcasts. There's plenty of Lions coverage during the season.
But here's the thing: shortly after securing the Lions' radio rights, the TEAM 1040 in Vancouver announced that they were starting another station, TEAM 1410, to handle all of their excess programming. A lot of people enjoy listening to the Jim Rome show, for example, but it conflicts with the local morning show in TEAM 1040 so they bumped it to TEAM 1410. Now listeners can choose which show they listen to. And now that they have this extra station they no longer have to worry about scheduling conflicts between the Canucks and Lions. All Canucks games are heard on 1040 while all Lions games are heard on 1410.
In Montreal, having the Als' games on an all-sports station would be great in some respects and you'd hear a lot more Als-related programming on 990 than you do now. But as long as they hold the rights to the Habs, the Als would always be sucking hind teat. And whenever there was a scheduling conflict, the Habs would take priority. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword. I suppose they could do the same thing they did in BC and just grab another frequency on the dial and make it the home of the Alouettes and Impact but I don't know if they're thinking that far ahead right now. The demographics are different in Vancouver compared to Montreal. The English population in Montreal is smaller and much older than what you have in Vancouver. I'm not sure you could sustain a second English all-sports station in Montreal which, aside from those Als games, would be fat-packed with syndicated US shows for the most part.
But then again, I never thought the city could sustain the one all sports station it already has. Now that they have the Habs and have partnered up with TSN Radio their immediate future is assured. If they started a companion station to handle the overflow, you could have the Als and Impact along with the MLB playoffs, NFL football on Sundays and Mondays, the NCAA Final Four, etc. The TEAM in Vancouver carries the Seahawk games as well as other selected Sunday NFL games as well as Monday Night Football. During the NHL playoffs they even picked up the Habs-Bruins series (albeit with the Boston feed) so there are possibilities. If and when Quebec gets another NHL team they might put their games on that extra station.
In any event, right now all you can hope for is that the TEAM or TSN Radio talks up the Als because CJAD isn't going to.
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