Ottawa Radio: Shake-Out Continues At CFRA 580 AM

CFRA's longtime morning host Steve Madely suddenly retired Monday  11/16/15

There are more changes coming to Bell Media’s Ottawa operations, the Ottawa Sun has learned.

Starting Monday, CTV news anchors are taking over the reading of the radio’s newscasts from their CFRA 580 AM colleagues. For CFRA employees, it’s a a kick in the teeth - demoting them from reading the news on-air to writing it for the television anchors.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” said Gord McDougall, a former news reporter with CFRA before he was let go several years ago.

The news comes on the heels of longtime newsman Steve Madely announcing his retirement on Monday.

Then on Tuesday, Bell Media announced layoffs at both CTV Ottawa and CFRA - including TV news anchor Carol Anne Meehan, morning radio host Shelley McLean and popular radio news producer Mike Murphy - and a married couple - both in sales.

Social media has been going fast and furious with outrage over the layoffs - most notably about Meehan’s firing.

CFRA 580 AM (50 Kw-D, 30 Kw-N) Red=Local

As of Friday morning, almost 17,000 people had signed an online petition calling for her reinstatement - and of those - almost 10,000 have taken the time to comment on her exit.

According to an internal CFRA email, CFRA news reader Mai Habib will write the news from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. for CTV’s Annette Goerner to record and read. CFRA’s Chris Holski will write the news for Graham Richardson to read and record from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., and CFRA’s Jenn Pritchard will be writing for Patricia Boal from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

“Nobody really knows what’s going on,” McDougall said, adding several key radio personalities - including Lowell Green, newsman Norman Jack and Madeley’s producer Tom Woodward are all on holidays.

But there’s plenty of speculation about who will have jobs, and what they will be, when the shakeup finally ends.