Six Rivers News Closes up Shop Tomorrow
The time has come to say au revoir to Six Rivers News, Radio, and TV.
After eight years as a labour of love, especially as volunteer operated, the venture is no longer serving the vision for the community.
Owned and operated by the not-for-profit Hope Centre Ministries, it opened to fill the void left by the departure of the Oxford Journal, a void that grew to become immense as the Amherst Daily News and Cumberland News disappeared, while remaining newspapers everywhere are at death’s door.
Meanwhile, radio, which has often witnessed its own obituaries — clearly prematurely — continues to chat along comfortably. That is why the operators of the web based enterprise chose to say au revoir instead of goodbye. The french means until we see each other again, while goodbye is, well, goodbye!
Six Rivers News, the online newspaper, will say goodbye and cease publication tomorrow. Six Rivers Radio will use the au revoir to transition to a new and larger role as Radio from Hope Centre, the home of the studio and the location for a new partnership with Inspire FM, a successful network of traditional stations, meaning transmitters and radio dials to tune, covering the three Maritime provinces.
The two parties have experimented over the last few months, finding a certain synergy they hope will keep growing through the partnership.
Hope Centre gains an immediate audience, a large audience, in PEI, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, including stations in Charlottetown, Moncton, and Halifax, along with repeaters in Summerside, Buctouche, Sussex, Amherst, and Annapolis Valley.
Inspire FM gets a new and expanded version of the popular talk show — Morning Talk — which adds an hour from noon to 3 pm, called Talk of the Maritimes.
The formula includes the daily short interviews mixed with music, and many of the morning guests will make the transition to the afternoon. They will also be joined by colleagues and counterparts from communities across the Maritimes.
Program host, Bill Martin says, “I am truly excited about this change. We will have so many wonderful guests, with new and wide-ranging topics of interest.” He added, “It has always been about people and now we will have a lot more people to talk with.”
Martin admits the print news had become quite a burden, requiring much more attention than radio. He noted that Six Rivers News meant lots of travel to attend meetings, gather news, quotes, details, and photos. He said, “In radio you can let people speak for themselves from the comfort of your chair.”
The man who often refers to himself as “the old, fat, bald guy” hinted the tasks were getting heavy. After all, he has had nearly fifty years in the business.
What started in the Baptist church basement now steps into the limelight with accomplished professionals, back-up systems, and committed partners who really know what they are doing, and they will now do it together.
Martin expressed his heartfelt thanks to a few key people. He especially thanked Clyde Jones and Gary Bent for their amazing ability to make things work and allow the old facilities to meet the the modern challenges.
He also is deeply grateful to two journalists who helped cover the news scene allowing multiple events to get coverage at the same time.
Larry Duchesne handled a big share of coverage at Oxford Town Council and Cumberland County Council when conflicts took Martin elsewhere, and in more recent years, the yeoman's service of Mark Rushton who took charge of the Oxford beat, and whose background in radio may allow him to continue the partnership in a new way with the new Radio from Hope Centre.
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