{"id":67033,"date":"2015-12-11T23:20:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-12T04:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=67033"},"modified":"2015-12-11T23:20:52","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T04:20:52","slug":"hamiltons-chch-channel-cuts-back-on-local-news-in-an-effort-to-save-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/12\/11\/hamiltons-chch-channel-cuts-back-on-local-news-in-an-effort-to-save-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton\u2019s CHCH channel cuts back on local news in an effort to save costs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Channel<\/a>
Channel Zero logo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013 Hamilton\u2019s CHCH channel is cutting back on local news in an attempt to right its troubled finances and 129 full-time employees have been let go.<\/p>\n

The broadcaster broke into its regular news programming on Friday to announce the changes.<\/p>\n

Romen Podzyhun, chief executive of CHCH\u2019s parent company Channel Zero, told viewers the channel would not be airing its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news broadcasts on Friday.<\/p>\n

He did not give a reason for the brief stoppage, but said the station would resume reduced local news coverage on Monday.<\/p>\n

Chris Fuoco, Channel Zero\u2019s vice president of sales and marketing, said 58 of the full-time employees have been given new offers of employment.<\/p>\n

Under the new plan, CHCH will air fewer overall hours of news programming, but will be able to continue to deliver local stories to the community, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision will allow us to continue to deliver local stories that matter most to this community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the faces you have grown to love over the years will remain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Podzyhun highlighted that CHCH been operating with \u201cgreatly reduced funding in national ad revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Channel Zero said Friday night that programming would be reduced to 17.5 hours per week.<\/p>\n

As part of the changes, Channel Zero said that Channel 11, the holding company for CHCH, has also filed for bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

CHCH first hit the airwaves in 1954, covering the Hamilton, Halton and Niagara region, but the station has faced financial turbulence over the past decade.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Channel Zero snapped up CHCH-TV from struggling media giant Canwest Global Communications Corp. and began a foray into local television, despite assertions from its former owner that over-the-air television model was broken.<\/p>\n

With experience running only a few small specialty channels, Channel Zero tapped into cheaply-acquired content to pad the hours between its local coverage.<\/p>\n

Breaking news aired in the day while second-run Hollywood movies were shown in prime time. Overnight it was mostly content in the public domain.<\/p>\n

Eventually that business model shifted to airing more popular TV shows alongside news programming.<\/p>\n

Channel Zero hit a snag last year when the CRTC discontinued the Local Program Improvement Fund, a subsidy created to help smaller TV channels survive the economic downturn and declining advertising market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a crisis in local broadcasting in smaller centres around the country \u2013 Hamilton would be the largest of those centres,\u201d said Ian Morrison, a spokesman for the advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a warning of things to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Hamilton\u2019s CHCH channel is cutting back on local news in an attempt to right its troubled finances and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[9636],"class_list":["post-67033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-cp","mauthors-david-friend","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}