Facing continued revenue pressure across its conventional television operations, Rogers Media announced today that it is replacing its Winnipeg morning TV show, BT Winnipeg, with a new TV/radio hybrid called Wheeler in the Morning.
Debuting at 6 a.m. Monday, the new show is being described by Rogers executives as an extension of the city’s top-rated morning radio show Wheeler in the Morning with Philly and Rena, which has been broadcasting on Rogers-owned 92 CITI-FM since 2012.
The show will feature Winnipeg radio personality Dave Wheeler and his co-hosts Phil Aubrey and Rena Jae (pictured above), joined by City personalities Drew Kozub and Jenna Khan.
According to a Rogers spokesperson, 14 full-time positions at BT Winnipeg – including hosts Jeremy John and Courtney Ketchen – have been eliminated as a result of the decision. Eleven BT employees are being transferred to the new show.
While the radio component of Wheeler’s show remains unchanged, it will now be broadcast from a newly revamped studio at Rogers’ City station in Winnipeg, with live segments shown on TV when the radio program cuts away to music. City will show approximately seven hours per week of TV-only content, said Jordan Schwartz, VP of in-house productions for Rogers.
“That ‘Plus more’ is what excites us, because it allows us to utilize and go with the strengths of Dave Wheeler and his team and extend that into the community, and be hyper-local,” he said.
Schwartz said the hybrid approach will create cost-savings for the company, though he didn’t provide a figure. He said there are no plans to adopt a similar model in City’s six other markets.
“We are all looking for ways to meet the challenges in these markets – conventional [TV] has been hit hard – but we want to be relevant,” he said. “This [strategy] allowed us to do that, yet remain robust and have a full TV presence in this market, which from a content perspective was really important to us.”
Rogers has previously adopted a similar hybrid approach to sports programming, with shows including Hockey Central at Noon and Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown currently carried across Sportsnet’s TV and radio operations.
According to the CRTC’s most recent Communications Monitoring Report, private conventional TV revenues were $1.9 billion in 2013, a 4.6% decline from 2012. Local time sales accounted for an estimated 18% of total revenue.
