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Originally Posted by ScreamingViking
I doubt they put similar resources into local news programming though. The rest of their content comes from the network, shared nationally, supported by Big Money.
This is horrible news for so many people that put so much into CHCH. Hopefully it does keep going long-term, even if it means less local content. And hopefully the talented people who lost their jobs find something new, if not locally then elsewhere. But times are not getting easier in this business.
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Not quite 80 hours a week, but in smaller cities in the US, you'll find an immense amount of locally produced news with local staff reporting on local issues. Just across Lake Erie in Erie, PA, there's two station operators: Lilly Broadcasting, which owns the NBC affiliate WICU and also provides news programming for the CBS affiliate WSEE, and Nextar Broadcasting, which owns the ABC affiliate WJET and provides news programming for the FOX affiliate FOX 66. Erie as a metro area has a population of 280,000, similar in size to Saskatoon. But it also is located in the shadow of both Cleveland and Buffalo, and could just as easily have been served by local television stations in those much larger cities, much as Global serves all of Ontario from a single station in Toronto.
WJET airs a 2-hour morning show, a 30 minute newscast at noon, 90 minutes starting at 5pm, and 35 minutes at 11; in addition they produce a one-hour morning show and one-hour 10pm newscast for FOX 66. WICU produces the same amount of local output for its own channel as WJET, and also produces a noon newscast, one-hour morning show, and 11 pm news for WSEE.
It just proves that much smaller markets in the US have no problem with local news production, even if the station is not owned by the network. Though affiliation with a national network like CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX does help with national advertising, something CHCH doesn't have.