Mayor: New Year’s show needs $2M in tourism support

From the Niagara Falls Review:

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati wants to avoid last year’s mess with the New Year’s Eve show, but once again “the challenge is money.”

He needs to convince the city’s tourism partners to help pay about $2 million to get the concert back on a national broadcaster, which is much the same predicament he found himself last year.

“The funding model has completely changed,” he said. “Because of that, the networks can’t afford to subsidize the show the way they once did.”

Last year’s New Year’s Eve show at Queen Victoria Park was the first in 25 years not to be broadcast by either an Ontario or national network. Negotiations with Global came to an end in November when the network announced it would not televise the show for the first time since taking over from CHCH in 2009.

As a result, the line-up for the untelevised concert wasn’t announced until Dec. 16. The scaled back show featured Tom Cochrane, Dennis DeYoung and Alan Doyle.

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