The decline of Vancouver sports media & its effect on Lions

[Belize City Lion]

Whether you guys like it or not, Canucks talk is what gets the metre moving in this town. Losing the rights doesn't change that. If anything they will now be able to control the conversation even MORE with the leeway to be more critical, etc. I wish it were different and I understand the frustration, but that's just the way it is.

TSN 1040 has an opportunity to be the unshackled sports talk station now. The Canucks are not going to be good for a long while and 1040 will be free to be as critical as they want. That will earn them credibility in the market IF 650FAN comes off as being soft on the Canucks.

Yes, as Matt Baker says, Canucks chatter moves the meter. That's a fact whether you like it or not. But 1040 also has an opportunity to position themselves as a better rounded sports talk station by making sure the Lions and Whitecaps are part of the offering. Especially if the Canucks continue to struggle and the fan base starts to lose interest in Canuck-centric discussions about what the twins ate for lunch or what line with the 4th round pick will play on in Utica.

[Tighthead]

In some markets, and nationally, Rogers largely ignores the CFL as it is an important TSN property.

[mountaincat]

this rogers radio thing is starting to look more and more like part of a purrfect storm that, along with many other issues currently in the bigger picture could help conspire to paint the lions into the irrelevant corner. 650 has gone for young and diverse in their talent hires, and in that cbc article is already taking digs at 1040 to make the home of the lions sound like the boring station for old white guys. just what the lions need right now lol. i'm sure 650 will turn their nose up at the lions, unless a storyline really screams for attention, and offer a steady diet of nfl flavoured pigskin talk when not discussing rogers properties... meanwhile, non-game lions content will, bizarrely, still be hard to find on 1040 unless you are very patient/obsessed or know where to look. and, still holding the local seahawks rights, i'm sure 1040 will be sure to try and squeeze what they think they can out of them in competition with 650. i haven't paid super close attention to this the last couple years, but i'm under the impression that 1040's been doing some of their own in-house pre-game shows for seahawks games, even sending a crew down to seattle to do these shows on location at times? ugh!!

[Hambone]

Just an observation on the now dueling radio stations. I'm working up an hour east of Kamloops this week at Adams Lake. On the drive in at 7:00am on Tuesday TSN1040 was coming in loud and clear every day while whatever they call CISL650 now ranged from an inaudible hiss of static one day to a listenable through the static type broadcast on another day.

[Matt Baker]

this rogers radio thing is starting to look more and more like part of a purrfect storm that, along with many other issues currently in the bigger picture could help conspire to paint the lions into the irrelevant corner. 650 has gone for young and diverse in their talent hires, and in that cbc article is already taking digs at 1040 to make the home of the lions sound like the boring station for old white guys. just what the lions need right now lol. i'm sure 650 will turn their nose up at the lions, unless a storyline really screams for attention, and offer a steady diet of nfl flavoured pigskin talk when not discussing rogers properties... meanwhile, non-game lions content will, bizarrely, still be hard to find on 1040 unless you are very patient/obsessed or know where to look. and, still holding the local seahawks rights, i'm sure 1040 will be sure to try and squeeze what they think they can out of them in competition with 650. i haven't paid super close attention to this the last couple years, but i'm under the impression that 1040's been doing some of their own in-house pre-game shows for seahawks games, even sending a crew down to seattle to do these shows on location at times? ugh!!

A big reason for the more hands on Seahawk coverage is the fact a sponsor had stepped up and paid for that pre and post game coverage in the last couple of years. Not sure what the deal is this year. And not sure who would do a majority of those as Rintoul has left and now Bob Marjanovich is more focused on the Lions. If you're going to air the Seahawks coverage, you might as well just pick up there pre and post as they have access to players, can run Pete Carrol's live post game presser etc.. But that was the reason for sending a 1040 crew to every home game: $$$ coming in.

[BC 1988]

After a few days of the 650 vs 1040 war:
I tried listening to each new 650 show, but am finding it hard--no one is grabbing my attention right now--both 9am-4pm slots suffer from one host dominating the conversations. (Rintoul doesn't have that issue, but he's on at a time that I'm not near a radio much.)
On 1040 yesterday I noticed that LU was on in his old 10-11am timeslot with Halford-Brough (he began with a joke about whether they are still called the Kurtenbloggers). While they have lost most of the hoser persona they had in their previous incarnation--I can actually listen to them talk Canucks--it was painful hearing them try to carry on a Lions talk with LU.

It's interesting that 1040 appears to be staying with Canuck castoffs as their go-to sources--Lawrence Gilman, Dave Tomlinson and even Jon Abbott was still on this past week.

In terms of transmitter power, Sportsnet 650 still has the poor sound quality CISL had compared to 1040 (even where I am in Richmond). They are probably relying on HD Radio becoming available in new vehicles eventually making that a moot point, but it's a decidedly poor way to kick off being the new Canucks broadcaster. Look at these early complaints coming from further out in the valley:
https://about.rogers.com/2017/08/23/spo ... ptember-4/

[BC 1988]

That's funny. Matt Baker anticipated what I was thinking when I just heard him do the 3pm update on 1040:

[David]

I am surprised you guys don't listen to 3 Down Radio, Mondays from 7:00pm - 9:00pm on TSN1040 (some of you may listen, but it doesn't seem to get much traction on these boards). It's the most complete "all you can eat" Lions/CFL discussion around, and hosted by LU, Farhan, and Giulio. They bounced around time slots (and days) during the summer, principally because of Vancouver Canadians baseball but have settled into a regular Monday slot. It's first-rate analysis, plus Wally calls in to talk about execu....I mean, the state of his team.

They've even started taking listener calls, which is a good place to vent (Farhan totally skirted my comment about Dorazio's long period of mediocre to poor results with the O-line for such a respected coaching guru - coaching fraternity etiquette I guess).


DH

[DanoT]

I am surprised you guys don't listen to 3 Down Radio, Mondays from 7:00pm - 9:00pm on TSN1040 (some of you may listen, but it doesn't seem to get much traction on these boards). It's the most complete "all you can eat" Lions/CFL discussion around, and hosted by LU, Farhan, and Giulio. They bounced around time slots (and days) during the summer, principally because of Vancouver Canadians baseball but have settled into a regular Monday slot. It's first-rate analysis, plus Wally calls in to talk about execu....I mean, the state of his team.

They've even started taking listener calls, which is a good place to vent (Farhan totally skirted my comment about Dorazio's long period of mediocre to poor results with the O-line for such a respected coaching guru - coaching fraternity etiquette I guess).


DH

I will have to make note of the TSN 1040 7-9 Monday broadcast as i have never listened before...conflicts with NFL Monday Night Football but that is what PVRs are for.

[B.C.FAN]

I am surprised you guys don't listen to 3 Down Radio, Mondays from 7:00pm - 9:00pm on TSN1040 (some of you may listen, but it doesn't seem to get much traction on these boards). It's the most complete "all you can eat" Lions/CFL discussion around, and hosted by LU, Farhan, and Giulio. They bounced around time slots (and days) during the summer, principally because of Vancouver Canadians baseball but have settled into a regular Monday slot. It's first-rate analysis, plus Wally calls in to talk about execu....I mean, the state of his team.

They've even started taking listener calls, which is a good place to vent (Farhan totally skirted my comment about Dorazio's long period of mediocre to poor results with the O-line for such a respected coaching guru - coaching fraternity etiquette I guess).


DH

I listen when I can, and heard your question. I thought Farhan's comments were interesting. Olafioye's play had declined last year before he was traded, as many of us had noted. He said the play of the O-line had declined marginally this year but not significantly. (He used percentage ranges which I can't fully recall but he suggested it was more like 10% than 25%.) I didn't get the sense that he held Dorazio accountable for the increase in sacks surrendered.

[B.C.FAN]

That's funny. Matt Baker anticipated what I was thinking when I just heard him do the 3pm update on 1040:

Congratulations, Matt. I saw a similar tweet yesterday from Rob Fai that he was launching a nightly show on TSN 1040 while keeping his day job with the Vancouver Canadians.



I'm happy to see 1040 broadening its reach and expanding local programming in the face of new competition. I still haven't listened to the new station.

[BC 1988]

I am surprised you guys don't listen to 3 Down Radio, Mondays from 7:00pm - 9:00pm on TSN1040 (some of you may listen, but it doesn't seem to get much traction on these boards). It's the most complete "all you can eat" Lions/CFL discussion around, and hosted by LU, Farhan, and Giulio. They bounced around time slots (and days) during the summer, principally because of Vancouver Canadians baseball but have settled into a regular Monday slot. It's first-rate analysis, plus Wally calls in to talk about execu....I mean, the state of his team.

They've even started taking listener calls, which is a good place to vent (Farhan totally skirted my comment about Dorazio's long period of mediocre to poor results with the O-line for such a respected coaching guru - coaching fraternity etiquette I guess).


DH

I listen when I can, and heard your question. I thought Farhan's comments were interesting. Olafioye's play had declined last year before he was traded, as many of us had noted. He said the play of the O-line had declined marginally this year but not significantly. (He used percentage ranges which I can't fully recall but he suggested it was more like 10% than 25%.) I didn't get the sense that he held Dorazio accountable for the increase in sacks surrendered.

http://www.tsn.ca/radio/audio/3-down-ra ... h-1.866801
3 Down Radio is usually on when I'm not near a radio, but I found it. David's question starts at 1:28:40. I noticed neither LU or Farhan commented in their response about the effect of Foucault on this year's O-line.

[David]

Yea, Farhan mentioned the 2 best O-lines (in his opinion) are Winnipeg's and Saskatchewan's and they both play 3 imports. He didn't even mention Calgary who use 2 Internationals (1 usually but injuries have forced them to use 2). Anyway, the implication was that you can get better results going that route but you'd better be able to have talented Canadians at the skill positions (i.e. a running back like Harris or receiver).


DH

[DanoT]

Yea, Farhan mentioned the 2 best O-lines (in his opinion) are Winnipeg's and Saskatchewan's and they both play 3 imports. He didn't even mention Calgary who use 2 Internationals (1 usually but injuries have forced them to use 2). Anyway, the implication was that you can get better results going that route but you'd better be able to have talented Canadians at the skill positions (i.e. a running back like Harris or receiver).


DH

The problem with the Lions O line is that neither of the Import tackles are very good and their best tackle CDN Hunter Stewart is most often playing guard.

Stewart is a free agent in 2018 and I suspect that he will test the waters and Wally or whoever is calling the shots in 2018 might feel inclined to stay out of a bidding war which from a marketing point of view would be a loss since Stewart is from Victoria. Do the Lions even have a marketing department?

It is a shame that this team is so poorly run.

[TheLionKing]

Excellent questions posed by David.