By the time Montreal news station Info690 and Greatest Hits AM940 went off air for good last Friday evening, national advertisers had all been accommodated on other Corus properties – it still owns 12 in Quebec, four of them in Montreal.

The Corus sales team was contacting local advertisers on Friday, and all ads would be moved at ‘favourable conditions,’ Corus Quebec VP Mario Cecchini tells MiC.

‘From a share point of view, they gather more rating points,’ he says.

The two Corus Entertainment radio stations were closed due to low revenues and audience numbers. The closures resulted in 10 layoffs.

Info690 had about 1.5% of the audience share of the English market, Cecchini says, and about 2 to 3% of the revenue. Greatest Hits AM940 had about 2.5% audience share in the English market.

‘The cost structure was more than those shares. Advertising revenue based on those shares played a big role.’ 

Revenues have been flat for more than five years, and it became too difficult to keep costs flat over that time, he says.

Corus even tried changing the format of AM940, in June 2008 switching it to from talk to a greatest hits format. But building an audience on the AM band was too difficult, says Cecchini.

‘There’s a certain generation that’s never been on the AM,’ he says.

Corus’s other properties in Quebec like 98.5 FM and CKAC Sports are extremely viable, says Cecchini, attracting some of the largest audience numbers yet, according to PPM.