Kitchener Loses 570 NewsRadio in Rogers Cuts: What Happened
A radio voice that served Waterloo Region since 1929 has gone silent, part of a sweeping round of cuts that eliminated 230 jobs and left four Canadian cities without their all-news stations.
A sudden sign-off
Listeners tuning in to 570 NewsRadio on Tuesday, July 7 heard something no one expected. A recorded announcement told the audience it was the station's final day on the air, thanking everyone who had contributed to the station over the years. There was no farewell show, no final broadcast from familiar hosts. The station simply stopped.
Kitchener was not alone. Rogers Sports & Media announced it was shutting down six spoken-word stations across the country: Sportsnet 650 and News Radio 1130 in Vancouver, News Radio 660 and Sportsnet 960 in Calgary, News Radio 95.7 in Halifax, and News Radio 570 in Kitchener. The closures leave 680 News and Sportsnet 590 The Fan in Toronto as the company's only remaining spoken-word stations.
The abruptness of the shutdown was striking. In Vancouver, News Radio 1130 went silent at 10:45 a.m. Pacific time, replaced by a recorded message redirecting listeners to CityNews online and cable television. In Calgary, there was only dead air on Sportsnet 960 and 660 News on Tuesday.
The scale of the cuts
The station closures are part of a much larger restructuring. Rogers Sports & Media is eliminating 230 jobs in total, and a company spokesperson confirmed that 80 of those positions belong to people working directly at the shuttered stations. Roughly half of the total cuts affect corporate and support roles such as sales, marketing and programming, and the company also said a small number of other on-air jobs across television and radio would be affected due to programming changes, including some unionized TV newsroom positions in Toronto and Vancouver. Those newsroom changes will begin with a voluntary departure program, with departures taking place in August.
In its official statement, Rogers pointed to industry-wide pressures, citing declining advertising revenue and changing audience habits, and described the closures as a "difficult but necessary decision" following a review of its radio operations. The company said it will return the six broadcast licences to the CRTC, and it emphasized that it continues to own and operate 44 radio stations in nearly 30 communities across the country.
Rogers also told CBC News that audience numbers had fallen dramatically. Neither of the over-the-air sports stations in Vancouver or Calgary had an average audience of more than 2,100 listeners.
For sports fans, the practical fallout is immediate. Radio production of Vancouver Canucks games will move to another Rogers-owned station in that market, while Sportsnet will step away from producing Calgary Flames radio broadcasts altogether. The company says local news coverage will continue in the affected markets. The websites for the four closed all-news stations will remain online, CityNews will continue streaming on its 24/7 channels in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, and TV newscasts will continue in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Montreal.
The end of a 97-year legacy in Kitchener
For Waterloo Region, the closure carries particular weight. The station, CKGL, had been on the airwaves since 1929. It came under the Rogers umbrella in 1994, carried talk radio programming through the 1990s, and was rebranded under the CityNews banner in 2021.
The station was woven into the sporting life of the community as well. 570 NewsRadio had been the local broadcaster of Kitchener Rangers hockey for roughly three decades, with talk show host Mike Farwell serving as the team's play-by-play announcer. The Rangers called the station an incredible partner and are now weighing their options, which a team spokesperson said include producing all broadcasts internally, pursuing a radio simulcast while launching digital streaming, and selling a presenting partnership to offset costs.
Farwell himself, one of the most recognizable voices in the region, declined an interview request from CBC, saying only that there was nothing he could say.
Local reaction: grief and frustration
Reaction across Waterloo Region was swift and emotional. One local leader described feeling sad, angry and betrayed by Rogers, calling CityNews Kitchener part of the heart and soul of the community, a trusted news source and a vital space for democratic accountability.
Kitchener Centre MP Kelly DeRidder issued a pointed statement, saying the region "lost an essential platform for local journalism." She noted that Rogers receives millions from taxpayer-funded programs designed to support local journalism and benefits from limited competition in the Canadian telecom industry, yet chose to close the stations anyway. In her view, the closure demonstrates that the federal government's strategy for safeguarding local news and employment is not working.
Local journalism advocates echoed the concern. Mirko Petricevic, founder of the local journalism group Ink-stained Wretches, called journalism a public service and warned that as verified news sources disappear, rumour and misinformation circulate more freely in the community.
National reaction: politicians and the union respond
The backlash extended well beyond Ontario. British Columbia Premier David Eby responded on social media, writing that everyone benefits from local news outlets and that the closures were "a blow for British Columbians." Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles was among the first political leaders to respond nationally, and former employees and listeners across the country lamented another blow to local journalism and Canadian radio.
Unifor, which represents thousands of media workers across Canada, did not mince words. National President Lana Payne called the layoffs "another devastating blow to Canada's already fragile news industry," and pointed to the contrast between the cuts and the company's recent $4.35-billion investment to acquire the remaining stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, saying the juxtaposition speaks volumes about the company's priorities. The union warned the closures will expand the growing number of news deserts across the country, and said Rogers has asked employees for voluntary departure packages before confirming final layoff numbers, meaning the full impact on its membership is not yet known.
Unifor also connected the cuts to policy failures in Ottawa, citing uncertainty around the government's review of the Online Streaming Act and ongoing delays in extending journalism tax credits to broadcasters. The union has consistently warned that delays in implementing support for Canadian news would put more journalism jobs at risk.
The timing question
Part of what has fuelled public anger is the timing. The closures came just one day after Rogers Communications announced it had become the sole owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, parent company of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, paying $4.35 billion to buy out Kilmer Sports Inc.'s 25 per cent stake. That deal followed an earlier $4.7-billion purchase of BCE's 37.5 per cent stake in MLSE, which had already made Rogers the majority owner.
Nor is the company struggling overall. In April, Rogers reported first-quarter profit attributable to shareholders of $438 million, up from $280 million a year earlier, on revenue of $5.48 billion, up from $4.98 billion. However, the company noted that advertising revenue was lower for the quarter despite higher media revenue overall.
What the experts say
Media analysts see the closures as part of a long, painful structural shift rather than an isolated event. Jeffrey Dvorkin, former director of the journalism program at the University of Toronto, said the cuts were not a surprise, describing media organizations as searching for ways to restore shareholder satisfaction, with Rogers recognizing it cannot make the same amount of money doing what it did before.
Christopher Waddell, former director of Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, said the move partly reflects how audiences, especially sports fans, now consume audio, with many listeners migrating from traditional sports radio shows to podcasts.
The research paints a sobering picture. April Lindgren, co-director of the Local News Research Project at Toronto Metropolitan University, said waves of cuts have left Canadians facing what she calls news poverty. Her research shows Canada has seen a net loss of nearly 200 local news outlets since 2008, and she warned that the loss corrodes democracy, both in informing the public and in holding leaders accountable, while creating openings for misinformation and conspiracy theories to take root.
A pattern years in the making
The Rogers closures fit a well-established pattern in Canadian broadcasting. In 2024, Rogers cut what it described as a few dozen jobs in its audio business, citing an unpredictable advertising market. That same year, BCE sold 45 regional radio stations and ended multiple television newscasts as part of a larger restructuring that cut nine per cent of its workforce. In Vancouver, the closures mark the latest blow for sports radio after Bell Media shuttered rival station TSN 1040 in 2021.
Industry watchers note the closures leave AM and talk radio in a precarious position nationally. Rogers now has only two talk stations, both in Toronto, and its only other remaining AM station is a country outlet in North Bay. The company previously shut down its CityNews station in Ottawa. Bell Media, meanwhile, has just nine AM stations left, and observers suggest stations like TSN 690 in Montreal and 580 CFRA in Ottawa could face a similar fate. There may yet be a glimmer of hope for the frequencies themselves: some independent broadcasters have shown interest in acquiring AM stations in recent years, though any buyer would need to move before the licences are handed back to the CRTC.
What it means for Waterloo Region
For nearly a century, 570 was where this community turned when the snow squalls rolled in, when council made a controversial decision, or when the Rangers went deep into the playoffs. Its website will carry on, and CityNews content will continue online, but the region has lost its only all-news radio station and one more set of professional journalists dedicated to covering local stories.
The question now facing Waterloo Region is the same one facing Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax: who fills the gap?
