'Losing an icon': Long-running Lloydminster TV stations abruptly shut down

The owner of two local television stations in Lloydminster shut them down on Tuesday, abruptly terminating the jobs of 19 employees and ending more than 60 years of local broadcasting. 

Stingray Group, a media conglomerate with several dozen radio and television stations across the country, announced the closure of CKSA-TV and CITL-TV in a staff meeting on May 13. A former employee who lost her job on Tuesday said on social media that there was no advanced notice of the shutdowns. The stations were closed down that day, denying the workers the opportunity to send out a farewell broadcast.

CKSA began broadcasting in 1960, while CITL launched in 1976. Both were affiliates for larger outlets including CBC, Global and CTV.

Steve Jones, the president of Stingray Radio, said the financial situation of the outlets had been deteriorating for years and became especially dire after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"It was an absolutely agonizing decision," he said. "The fragmentation of audiences across different digital and streaming platforms, and away from over-the-air television, has been a big factor. The migration of some advertisers over to digital has been a factor as well."

According to Jones, the stations' revenues declined by more than 50 per cent over the last six years.  

Jones said Stingray spent months trying to find a buyer for the stations and that the company's regional manager for Alberta spoke to the mayor of Lloydminster about the closure.

But Mayor Gerald Aalbers disputed that claim.

"This was a total surprise," Aalbers said. "I would have certainly welcomed the opportunity to at least try and change their minds if that opportunity had been given to me. But it wasn't. So I was just in this much in the dark as the employees who got their news Tuesday morning."

Aalbers said people in Lloydminster, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and the surrounding communities will now have to rely on Edmonton and Saskatoon for local news.

"It was deeply, deeply saddening from the perspective that we're losing an icon in our city," Aalbers said. "It really rips the fabric of the community.

"How is community information going to be shared? How are sporting events being recorded and captured for the future? It just opens up a whole bunch of things from the perspective of the city's communications."

Aalbers also said the loss of the stations is indicative of the wider problem of local news decline in Canada.

"There's been a lot of conversation in the country about how we try and maintain Canadian media content," he said. "Certainly CBC, CTV, Global have all provided great coverage across Canada, but who fed you that information with a major event here in Lloydminster? It was our local TV station."