Hamilton.
Hockey.
Think about it Mikey I.
Lotsa hockey fans in this country and lots of them live in 905.
WFDS
Showing posts with label Hamilton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamilton. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
343...I Lied
Again.
More Hockey.
Front page of The Gazette, Montreal's Anglo newspaper, trumpets the sale of the Montreal Canadiens to the Molson family.
The brewers of Export and other fine ales, the Molson's have owned the Habs off and on since 1957 and are now back in the game paying 550 million, give or take, to George Gillett for an operation that he bought from them for 275 for at the turn of the century.
Would some one please forward this to Gary Bettman with the note that, Mr. B., franchises in towns that enjoy hockey, like Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, appreciate. Towns like, oh say Phoenix, not so much on the appreciation.
WFDS
More Hockey.
Front page of The Gazette, Montreal's Anglo newspaper, trumpets the sale of the Montreal Canadiens to the Molson family.
The brewers of Export and other fine ales, the Molson's have owned the Habs off and on since 1957 and are now back in the game paying 550 million, give or take, to George Gillett for an operation that he bought from them for 275 for at the turn of the century.
Would some one please forward this to Gary Bettman with the note that, Mr. B., franchises in towns that enjoy hockey, like Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, appreciate. Towns like, oh say Phoenix, not so much on the appreciation.
WFDS
Sunday, June 14, 2009
293...Did Y' Hear About Harper's Town Hall Meeting?
It was Friday night in Cambridge.
Chris Charlton, the NDP MP from Hamilton, Ont., had the best take on Prime Minister Harper's invitation-only, mock town hall meeting in Cambridge, Ontario, which was hosted by unctuous TV-host-turned-Tory Senator Mike Duffy. Mr. Charlton said that the meeting "...had all the substance of a 30-second spot for ShamWows. [sic]''
Brilliant take.
WFDS
Chris Charlton, the NDP MP from Hamilton, Ont., had the best take on Prime Minister Harper's invitation-only, mock town hall meeting in Cambridge, Ontario, which was hosted by unctuous TV-host-turned-Tory Senator Mike Duffy. Mr. Charlton said that the meeting "...had all the substance of a 30-second spot for ShamWows. [sic]''
Brilliant take.
WFDS
Friday, June 5, 2009
212...Sidney Comes Back
Last night, did you see the sea of Terrible Towels? Kid Sidney Crosby leads his team, Pittsburgh Penguins don't you know, to a come from behind victory over the Windsor Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals.
For those of you keeping track at home, the series is now tied at two games per.
For those of you keeping track at home, part two, Pittsburgh is one of the many NHL teams Jim Balsillie has tried to buy and move to Hamilton.
WFDS
For those of you keeping track at home, the series is now tied at two games per.
For those of you keeping track at home, part two, Pittsburgh is one of the many NHL teams Jim Balsillie has tried to buy and move to Hamilton.
WFDS
Thursday, June 4, 2009
208...Statistics and Lies
I believe, working from memory here, I believe it was Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who later would be honoured by having Eric Clapton's band Cream name an album after him, that said something like "Statistics and lies are similar". And if he didn't, well, someone else did.
Point being.
In yesterday's Toronto Star which, of course, also serves the Hamilton, Ontario market, there was a statistic, a poll to be more accurate, that Jim "I want an NHL team" Mr. Balsillie paid for in both Hamilton and Phoenix, Arizona, the home of the hopefully future Hamilton Steelers of the NHL.
[Get to the point.]
Right.
Point being, what was polled was the preferences each community had for local professional sports leagues. What smelled of bulls't was that in Phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona, USA. In the Southwest corner of the United States of America allegedly 3 per cent of the Phoenixians [?] follow the Canadian Football League.
Get out of here.
WFDS
Point being.
In yesterday's Toronto Star which, of course, also serves the Hamilton, Ontario market, there was a statistic, a poll to be more accurate, that Jim "I want an NHL team" Mr. Balsillie paid for in both Hamilton and Phoenix, Arizona, the home of the hopefully future Hamilton Steelers of the NHL.
[Get to the point.]
Right.
Point being, what was polled was the preferences each community had for local professional sports leagues. What smelled of bulls't was that in Phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona, USA. In the Southwest corner of the United States of America allegedly 3 per cent of the Phoenixians [?] follow the Canadian Football League.
Get out of here.
WFDS
Thursday, May 7, 2009
99...Buzz Words/Follow up to Post 98
Gary, the commish d'NHL, Bettman, throws around buzzwords like market size with great regularity without knowing what they mean.
Hamilton/Vaughn/Winnipeg/Quebec City/Saskatoon are all bigger markets than Phoenix/Washington/Nashville. Not in gross numbers, no, but Gary ain't selling Coke or Hondas, he is selling hockey and there are 10 times more hockey fans in Vaughn than in Phoenix.
Research, Gar', research.
If I can do it from my laptop on Elgin Street in Ottawa, you can do it too!!!
WFDS
Hamilton/Vaughn/Winnipeg/Quebec City/Saskatoon are all bigger markets than Phoenix/Washington/Nashville. Not in gross numbers, no, but Gary ain't selling Coke or Hondas, he is selling hockey and there are 10 times more hockey fans in Vaughn than in Phoenix.
Research, Gar', research.
If I can do it from my laptop on Elgin Street in Ottawa, you can do it too!!!
WFDS
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
95...Stephen Harper Does Something Right
After all these years, I knew he had it in him.
Well, I didn't know, but pleasant surprises are pleasant.
The headline in the online version of the Ottawa Citizen says it all:
Harper supports another Canadian NHL franchise
Blackberry Jim Balsillie wants to buy the money pit that is the Phoenix Coyotes [formerly the Jets of Winnipeg] and move them to Southern Ontario. My guess would be either Hamilton, Kitchener or Vaughn, but anyhow, is smart idea.
Of course the NHL is famous for rejecting smart ideas because, well, because they are maroons.
In my opinion the NHL would be well served with another team in the Greater Toronto Area, a club in Kitchener and one in Hamilton. And I am right about this. Ain't gonna happen, but I am right.
WFDS
Well, I didn't know, but pleasant surprises are pleasant.
The headline in the online version of the Ottawa Citizen says it all:
Harper supports another Canadian NHL franchise
Blackberry Jim Balsillie wants to buy the money pit that is the Phoenix Coyotes [formerly the Jets of Winnipeg] and move them to Southern Ontario. My guess would be either Hamilton, Kitchener or Vaughn, but anyhow, is smart idea.
Of course the NHL is famous for rejecting smart ideas because, well, because they are maroons.
In my opinion the NHL would be well served with another team in the Greater Toronto Area, a club in Kitchener and one in Hamilton. And I am right about this. Ain't gonna happen, but I am right.
WFDS
Monday, March 9, 2009
24...Americans are smarter than we are, Part 3
At least when it comes to local TV.
To get you up to speed on this, last week CTV decided that they couldn't make money with the number one TV station, A Channel Windsor, in a market of about .25 million adults 12 plus, directly adjacent to a market of 3.8 million 12 plus, Detroit. They also claim they cannot make money with other properties including the only locally licensed stations in Wingham, London, and Pembroke, Ontario. The Pembroke station has profile as a local station, repeater and all, in Ottawa/Gatineau, the number four market in Canada with a metro of about 1.0 million adults and London is a top ten market of about 400 K, 12 plus.
E!, an arm of Global, claims it cannot make money with its Hamilton station, which has repeaters all over Ontario and is ensconced in Canada's number nine market, with a 12 plus population of over half a million, a population that makes it a top 100 market in North America and so on and so and so on.
How is this so?
How can you lose money in a business that is, to quote the first Lord Thomson of Fleet, a license to print money?
Especially when you have the only game in town in a lot of towns.
Get out your clicker and play along with me.
They get greedy, they do and try to cut costs by getting rid of local programming. Contrast what Canadian stations do to what the stations in Detroit do. Local 4 and 7WXYZ and FOX2 run like a zillion hours a day of local news and make bags of money off it and it is the same in virtually every market in the States. I ask you this: how do you make more money out of your store if you close it? And when you watch the local news it is L O C A L or localized. In a lot of respects we are such a backwards nation. If the airwaves are public and TV stations are the servants of the people isn't tons of local content the way to go?
Most stations in the US are privately owned affiliates of networks, for example, CBS has 200 plus affiliates but only owns and operates 16 sticks; they pay the affiliates to run their programming, but have to be sensitive to the wants and needs of the Heartland and Dixie and the Northwest and and and so, unlike a lot of the Toronto centric CanCon crap that we try to force fee the populace [remote please] they are market driven, driven to serve their markets.
TV and radio is about getting stories out; the fact is there are not enough stations in this country. Just look across the water from Kingston, is Watertown, New York, 90 000 people 12 plus, about 2/3 the size of Kingston but, snap: 12 commercial radio stations, 5 TV stations. Kingston, one local TV station and like six or seven local radios. Heck, good old battered steel town, Hamilton, seven times the size and yet only 1 TV station, which, because of greed, instead of dominating Hamilton and making bags of money, is trying to be everything everywhere in Ontario [remember ON TV?] and ends up being a non factor everywhere. Where are the local stories being told?
When you watch Detroit, Watertown, Buffalo local TV, you see local stories and local ads. Little guys are shut out in Canada; it is go big or fold up thy tent.
Back to my fave story: A Channel in Windsor is the number one station in Essex County, which, if cleaved off from Detroit would be the about the 110th biggest market in North America and when combined with Detroit is the 10th or 11th and they cannot figure out how to make money with the number one station in a town that size? Oy vey, what about these things called commercials? Or, infomercials?
You have to spend money to make money; there are larger on air staffs in the Motor City and that talent in Detroit is making exponentially more money than talent in Toronto. T.O. is a much bigger market, but less competitive and less money and less money and less competition means less talented talent. You have the internet; listen to Toronto radio personalities and compare them to those down the 401 in Detroit. You get what you pay for.
The big danger for Canada is that TV is a reflection of the people who are consuming it; when I watch Detroit/Seattle/Buffalo TV I see those towns reflected in the local news, which is L O C A L; when I see Canadian TV it is a reflection of Toronto and how people from the Big Smoke perceive the rest of the country.
WFDS
To get you up to speed on this, last week CTV decided that they couldn't make money with the number one TV station, A Channel Windsor, in a market of about .25 million adults 12 plus, directly adjacent to a market of 3.8 million 12 plus, Detroit. They also claim they cannot make money with other properties including the only locally licensed stations in Wingham, London, and Pembroke, Ontario. The Pembroke station has profile as a local station, repeater and all, in Ottawa/Gatineau, the number four market in Canada with a metro of about 1.0 million adults and London is a top ten market of about 400 K, 12 plus.
E!, an arm of Global, claims it cannot make money with its Hamilton station, which has repeaters all over Ontario and is ensconced in Canada's number nine market, with a 12 plus population of over half a million, a population that makes it a top 100 market in North America and so on and so and so on.
How is this so?
How can you lose money in a business that is, to quote the first Lord Thomson of Fleet, a license to print money?
Especially when you have the only game in town in a lot of towns.
Get out your clicker and play along with me.
They get greedy, they do and try to cut costs by getting rid of local programming. Contrast what Canadian stations do to what the stations in Detroit do. Local 4 and 7WXYZ and FOX2 run like a zillion hours a day of local news and make bags of money off it and it is the same in virtually every market in the States. I ask you this: how do you make more money out of your store if you close it? And when you watch the local news it is L O C A L or localized. In a lot of respects we are such a backwards nation. If the airwaves are public and TV stations are the servants of the people isn't tons of local content the way to go?
Most stations in the US are privately owned affiliates of networks, for example, CBS has 200 plus affiliates but only owns and operates 16 sticks; they pay the affiliates to run their programming, but have to be sensitive to the wants and needs of the Heartland and Dixie and the Northwest and and and so, unlike a lot of the Toronto centric CanCon crap that we try to force fee the populace [remote please] they are market driven, driven to serve their markets.
TV and radio is about getting stories out; the fact is there are not enough stations in this country. Just look across the water from Kingston, is Watertown, New York, 90 000 people 12 plus, about 2/3 the size of Kingston but, snap: 12 commercial radio stations, 5 TV stations. Kingston, one local TV station and like six or seven local radios. Heck, good old battered steel town, Hamilton, seven times the size and yet only 1 TV station, which, because of greed, instead of dominating Hamilton and making bags of money, is trying to be everything everywhere in Ontario [remember ON TV?] and ends up being a non factor everywhere. Where are the local stories being told?
When you watch Detroit, Watertown, Buffalo local TV, you see local stories and local ads. Little guys are shut out in Canada; it is go big or fold up thy tent.
Back to my fave story: A Channel in Windsor is the number one station in Essex County, which, if cleaved off from Detroit would be the about the 110th biggest market in North America and when combined with Detroit is the 10th or 11th and they cannot figure out how to make money with the number one station in a town that size? Oy vey, what about these things called commercials? Or, infomercials?
You have to spend money to make money; there are larger on air staffs in the Motor City and that talent in Detroit is making exponentially more money than talent in Toronto. T.O. is a much bigger market, but less competitive and less money and less money and less competition means less talented talent. You have the internet; listen to Toronto radio personalities and compare them to those down the 401 in Detroit. You get what you pay for.
The big danger for Canada is that TV is a reflection of the people who are consuming it; when I watch Detroit/Seattle/Buffalo TV I see those towns reflected in the local news, which is L O C A L; when I see Canadian TV it is a reflection of Toronto and how people from the Big Smoke perceive the rest of the country.
WFDS
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