Random comments...
- Moses Znaimer co-founded CITY with several others. The station was heavily in debt (as most TV stations are) and they sold their interest in the 1970s. CHUM (owned by the Waters family) later came in and bought them. Znaimer was just another employee who happened to be their front face.
- CITY has been losing money for a long time (a million here, a million there) and only a handful of shows were ever rating toppers. BT is their moneymaker, but the News at 6 pm has been 3rd or 4th in the ratings for years. The difference is that Znaimer was smart to make the station's hosts and news reporters recognizable faces in the community, thus building cache and recognition in the city.
- CHUM hired family, extended family and friends of family to work at CITY. Nevermind that many didn't have experience in the television or radio industries, it was a family business and that's who they hired.
- Reporters didn't choose to go to CITY/Rogers or CP24/CTV. Before the sale and split, reporters were hired for a specific station and that's where they stayed after CTV and Rogers came in.
- Rogers won't be hiring new, younger, cheaper staff at CITY. CITY is running on skeleton crew right now. No sick days allowed or a show won't be able to air. That's how thin things are. Rogers has never owned or run a TV station before, and their lack of experience is showing.
- Rogers has been laying off staff at all their divisions. It's been about 30% across the board, so at least they're consistent. CITY is just more well known, but their finance/accounting dept, home phone, call centres -- huge layoffs at Rogers have gone on the past year.