Exactly. I'll bet that Melnick and Moffatt are the only guys at 690 who don't need to have a second job to pay the bills. Pretty much everybody else needs another gig because what they get paid by the station doesn't cut it. I have a friend who used to be a producer at CJAD. Nice title but it barely paid better than minimum wage. And speaking as someone who got satellite radio a few months ago, I can safely say that terrestrial radio is largely un-listenable in comparison, and not just because of the ads.
Montreal is a city with an ever-aging, ever-shrinking English speaking population. It's no coincidence that the caliber of English media there (TV, radio and newspapers) are second-rate on a good day. Think about it. Would a lazy hack like Pat Hickey be able to get a job in a real media market? Toronto has a huge Italian population but Marinaro couldn't get a job cleaning the toilets at a Toronto radio station. Melnick is the only sports guy on English radio who has any talent and, quite honestly, he's good but hardly great. He's hard on Bergevin but he puts on the kid gloves with McGuire because they're buddy-buddy. The segment with Pierre always frustrates me because I'm waiting for Melnick to call Pierre on his BS and he never does. He never presses him. It never gets heated. Just softball after softball.
