Vancouver’s TSN 1040 taken off the air as Bell Media cuts continue

Bell Media’s mass layoffs and cuts across the country hit British Columbia’s radio industry in a big way today.

The latest victims are not just individual layoffs, which we saw plenty of last week, but full radio stations, including TSN 1040 (CKST) in Vancouver.

It was business as usual this morning with Jason Brough and Mike Halford’s morning show starting at 6 am, but the programming was interrupted at 9 am.

At 9:30 am, an announcement played over the air saying that a new format for CKST would be announced on Friday at 7 am.

For now, the station is just playing music on loop.

Breaking: Carnage at Bell continues, ENTIRE radio stations this time, @TSN1040 @tsn1150 amongst the stations eliminated. Very sad day.. more coming

— jonah (@yyzsportsmedia) February 9, 2021

“We have some news to share today about changes to our programming. CKST 1040 AM will no longer be a sports talk radio station,” says an announcement on the TSN 1040 website.

“It was a difficult decision, but the realities of the quickly evolving broadcast media landscape in Canada have made this change unavoidable.”

All of TSN 1040’s social media accounts have been disabled, but that hasn’t stopped sports fans from all over BC from expressing their anger on Twitter.

As was the case with the firing of notable TSN television personalities and radio hosts from all over Canada last week, many pointed to the hypocrisy of Bell doing this so soon after its annual Let’s Talk Day.

Some of the station’s employees, including notable on-air figures, have taken to social media as well, but seemingly haven’t been able to process the shocking news as of yet.

“(It’s) been an incredible run,” wrote Jeff Paterson, long-time Canucks host and reporter. “Will have more to say later.”

Iain Mcletchie, the station’s sports director, tweeted a video of him driving home with 1040 AM playing music and wrote, “that doesn’t seem right.”

That doesn’t seem right pic.twitter.com/dPR5mXm3fT

— iain mcletchie (@mcletch) February 9, 2021

Today’s surprising news brings an end to TSN’s 20-year run on Vancouver radio.

The station launched two decades ago as Team 1040, the city’s original all-sports radio station, and has been a staple in the market ever since.

After rebranding to TSN 1040 in 2014, the station lost the Canucks regional radio rights in 2017, but still remained an important part of both the city’s and province’s radio landscape.

In fact, the most recent numbers from Bell show that TSN 1040 was the company’s second largest sports radio station with an average reach of 254,000 listeners, behind only TSN 1050 in Toronto.

It’s not just Vancouver sports fans who feel frustrated today, as TSN 1290 in Winnipeg and TSN 1150 in Hamilton have received the same fate as well.

“We want to thank our on-air personalities, advertising partners and sponsors, and everyone who has contributed to this station, but especially we want to thank our listeners,” continued the announcement on the TSN 1040 website.

“Our work here at TSN 1040 was driven by our passion to bring you the very best sports, news and discussion. We sincerely appreciate the time you have spent with us.”

_{Thumbnail photo courtesy of Twitter.}