Rogers Sports and Media is shutting down its Sportsnet 650 radio station in Vancouver and Sportsnet 960 station in Calgary, in addition to 4 other stations.
Calgary’s 660 NewsRadio can be being closed, together with Vancouver’s 1130 AM, Halifax’s 95.7 NewsRadio, and Kitchener’s 570 NewsRadio.
The corporate said the station closures will end in 80 employees losing their jobs. Those are amongst 230 total job losses at Rogers Sports and Media from these and other organizational changes announced Tuesday.
Rogers cited declining audience numbers and lower commercial revenue for the choice.
“The media business continues to face headwinds driven by declining promoting revenue and changing audience habits. These changes are a part of our plan to focus our investment in areas that can drive growth long-term,” said Rogers spokesperson Zac Carreiro in an emailed statement.
“After an intensive review of our radio stations, we now have made the difficult but crucial decision to shut six radio stations in 4 markets as a consequence of declining audience and revenue trends.”
Carreiro said Rogers will proceed to own and operate 44 radio stations in nearly 30 communities and would “spend money on local news within the impacted markets.”
Rogers will proceed broadcasting Vancouver Canucks games on one in every of its radio properties in that city but will now not produce Calgary Flames broadcasts for radio.
Sean Kelso, a spokesperson for Flames-parent company Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., said in a press release the Flames “learned of Sportsnet 960’s closure Tuesday and were taking a look at options.”
From October to May of this past 12 months, Rogers said its Calgary sports radio station had a median of just 1,200 listeners. The Vancouver sports station had a median audience of two,100 listeners during that very same period.
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The move partially reflects the evolution in how consumers eat audio content, particularly sports fans, said Christopher Waddell, former director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication.
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He said many listeners have migrated over to podcasts from traditional sports radio shows.
“For people who find themselves excited by sports, almost everybody has an opinion about sports and plenty of of them have podcasts now, too,” said Waddell.
“The audience could also be declining and when audiences decline it gets tougher to get promoting, obviously.”
Waddell added that sports radio stations will not be only competing with latest media for listeners and ad revenue, but in addition the teams they cover, too.
“The leagues themselves do quite a lot of their very own work. They’ve their very own web sites, they’ve their very own reporters at some games, they might be doing podcasts, athletes are doing podcasts,” he said.
“What got here as an outgrowth of sports radio has now devoured sports radio.”
Rogers said its Sportsnet 590 station in Toronto will proceed to operate.
Among the many 230 total job cuts, Rogers said about half of those affect corporate and support roles comparable to sales, marketing and programming.
Rogers said the cuts would affect a “small variety of other on-air jobs across TV and radio” as a consequence of programming changes. That features some unionized TV newsroom positions in Toronto and Vancouver.
The TV newsroom changes will begin with a voluntary departure program, with departures happening in August.
The corporate can be making “adjustments” on the non-media side of its business “to reflect current market realities as a part of our multi-year plan to drive growth long-term.” It said the changes affect a small percentage of its workforce, including corporate and frontline roles.
For Vancouver, the news marks the newest blow for sports radio in town after Bell Media shuttered rival station TSN 1040 in 2021.
Rogers launched Sportsnet 650 in 2017 because it acquired the radio broadcast rights to Vancouver Canucks games. The corporate signed a take care of Canucks Sports & Entertainment 4 years ago to stay the team’s regional TV and radio rights holders through 2033.
B.C. Premier David Eby said in a social media post that journalism is more vital than profits.
“All of us profit from having local news outlets and it is a blow for British Columbians,” Eby said.
“B.C. goes to miss Sportsnet 650 and AM 1130. I’m pondering of all their staff, producers, and journalists today.”
A day prior to the announcement, Rogers announced it’s going to acquire the remaining 25 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment that it didn’t yet own for $4.35 billion.
MLSE owns the NHL’s Maple Leafs, NBA’s Raptors, MLS’ Toronto FC and the CFL’s Argonauts. Last 12 months, Rogers closed a separate $4.7-billion take care of rival BCE Inc. to purchase its 37.5 per cent stake in MLSE, making it the sports conglomerate’s majority owner.
In April, Rogers reported its profit rose in its latest quarter as total revenue was up 10 per cent year-over-year.
Rogers’ profit attributable to shareholders in its first quarter was $438 million, compared with $280 million a 12 months earlier, as its revenue totalled $5.48 billion, up from $4.98 billion.
Despite higher media revenue overall, Rogers said its promoting revenue was lower for the quarter.
In 2024, Rogers cut what it said was “a couple of dozen” jobs in its audio business, citing an unpredictable promoting market that had led to declining revenue.
That very same 12 months, BCE sold 45 regional radio stations and ended multiple television newscasts as part of a bigger shakeup that saw it slash nine per cent of its workforce.
Waddell said it was “discouraging” but not surprising to see more local news disappearing.
“There’s already been a giant cutback in print versions of local news, or online versions of local news as traditional newspapers who went online have shut down,” he said.
“Radio still has a spot and the general public broadcaster, I believe, does fairly well with radio still, however the private broadcasters are having more trouble, obviously.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2026.
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