AS A REPORTER, IT’S EASY to tell when a company is pushing hard. They tell you about everything they do, no matter what.
Corus Entertainment’s AM640 Toronto Radio has been doing that for months, and for good reason. It’s trying to establish itself as a news/talk station in a very crowded news market. And, if one were able to measure the nebulous concept of "buzz", 640 would certainly have it.
The station has brought on name hosts such as former Toronto Police Association head Craig Bromell and OPP traffic expert Cam Wooley is in its new helicopter in the mornings. Then, when Toronto teen Jane Creba was gunned down on Boxing Day during a gang shootout, 640 Toronto devoted a full day of airtime on January 5th to explore the growing gun culture and fear in Toronto called "Silence the Guns."
It beat its main competitor, 1010 CFRB by weeks with such a program (and when RB did try to do one, it was forced to cancel it because, well, it had already been done).
AM640 is still looking for its ratings legs, though. It was well back in the last book. The station likely still suffers from its former incarnation as Mojo Radio: Talk Radio for Guys, which was often Talk Radio for Frat Boys and a place on the dial to be avoided by women, and by men who didn’t share the often
ribald sense of humor.
The focus of the station now is the 35-49 year old male and is far more female friendly, with work ongoing to bring in more 25-54 year-old adults.
AM640 is edgier talk, if that makes sense. For example: When, a few weeks ago, a woman gave birth on a Toronto subway platform, most media giggled and cooed over the birth of a baby underground. AM640 Toronto’s drive host, Mike Stafford, instead asked: "It’s her fourth child, her water breaks and she takes the subway? What was she thinking?" remembers program director Gord Harris (right). 
Talk radio still has the power to move people to act and with 640 making a lot of noise in the nation’s media capital, cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien sat down with Harris as well as Corus’ news/talk vice-president Doug Rutherford (left) to discuss strategy. What follows is an edited transcript.
Greg O’Brien: Let’s back up and start with the end of Mojo. Why didn’t Mojo work and why decide to make the switch to news and current affairs when you did?
Doug Rutherford: Some quick thoughts on that. The Mojo concept was designed to move talk radio into somewhat of a niche format that had more of a male appeal. The current metamorphosis of 640 has really been an effort to mainstream the radio station and broaden its appeal across a number of demographics as opposed to aiming more at the male side and I think that Gord and his team have been very successful at doing that.
GOB: Since the switch then, you’re coming in as a talk, news, current affairs station – a space with a few players already – what are you doing to make 640 Toronto different than what’s in the market?
Gord Harris: There are a number of points of differentiation. One is the Toronto-centric nature of the station. We’re all about Toronto and all about issues that are of concern to the people of Toronto, so we’re really focusing on the 416 primarily. But, having said that, we know a lot of the 905 has a strong connection to Toronto, too.
So, the Toronto-centric nature is a key factor. We focus most of our news coverage on Toronto. We focus our topic selection on Toronto.
Another element is the personality of the radio station. We encourage our personalities to really be personalities and bring that to the table which, because of format, a lot of our competitors are not in the position to do. We encourage them to – not to go out of their way to be politically incorrect – but to not always be politically correct.
GOB: Such as?
GH: One of the things we always talk about around here is "Get it said." Things need to be said, need to be talked about and we encourage that. We pointedly encourage dialogue with the community so that it’s a forum for the community to come and talk about the issues and express their points of view. This is a very multi-racial, multi-ethnic community now and we try to reflect that with the callers who call in to the programs and take part in the programming.
There are some frictions that go on between some communities and we’re trying to air those frictions and try to make the city a better place by having a space where people can come and talk about those things.
GOB: Can you give me a recent example of those frictions?
GH: Certainly the shootings in Toronto. Many have been talking about how it’s all around a "certain community", some have gone as far as to say it’s a "black community" problem and the Jane Creba shooting certainly brought that to the forefront because here’s a person who wasn’t involved in any kind of illegal activity and was an innocent victim and it elevated the issue.
We were one of the first to start talking about it being a Jamaican sub-culture problem and really focusing down on what the real issue is – and we have had a lot of support from the black community. It wasn’t politically incorrect to do that. It’s the truth and we’re not afraid to say those kinds of things and drive it right in the direction it needs to be taken so we can get public opinion on it.
GOB: And since then, I think I’ve seen other journalists hop on that as well.
GH: Exactly. You can dance around issues or you can attack them head on and we’re encouraging our people to attack them head on.
GOB: When you’re talking about the personalities aspect of it, what’s the best example or examples among your people. Who’s taking the strongest stands?
GH: John Oakley, our morning show host is an icon in the community – very much a long-time part of Toronto radio and a citizen of Toronto with a passion for the city. He takes a stand on every issue. We have numerous situations where he’ll take a stand and say ‘I think it’s right,’ or ‘I think it’s wrong.’
He questioned the mayor the other day on Bob Marley Day saying: "Bob Marley did a lot of wonderful things for music, but Marley also had 11 kids with seven different women, so should we be honoring that kind of thing given, again, the Jamaican subculture gang problem… which we were addressing on the air.
He’s not afraid to push those buttons where everyone is rah-rahing Bob Marley day, John’s not afraid to say "hey, there’s another side of this and we may be going down the wrong road here." This kind of thing stimulates deeper thought about what the community is doing and why.
GOB: What was the thinking behind hiring (former Toronto cop and former president of the Toronto Police union) Craig Bromell who didn’t have much broadcast experience?
GH: Craig is one example of what we’re trying to do here. Another example is Bill Watters for Leafs Lunch as our Leafs expert. What we try to do is rather than bring just the talking heads or pundits to the table, we go to the experts. So Craig is an expert in crime and crime prevention, security and anything to do with policing because of his background and what he brings to the table is absolutely unique in North America. There is no other show on radio that has a person like him hosting it.
He has very strong opinions – a very strong point of view that comes across every day – the same with Bill Watters, the same with Lou Schizas – the same with Cam Wooley up in the helicopter right now doing traffic. We get the experts doing the primary reporting job for us.
GOB: So, with the station being news and current affairs, fit the Leafs into this for me.
GH: If you were to describe 640 Toronto Radio, you would say we’re a station focused on the city of Toronto with a commitment to openly discussing the issues that affect the people of Toronto. The Leafs are a big part of this community, so they fit into the station very very well – it’s the number one sports brand in North America.
GOB: Steinbrenner might have something to say about that.
DR: What about the Edmonton Oilers? (Rutherford is Edmonton-based)
GH: If you’re a Toronto-centric radio station, you have to have the Leafs.
GOB: You’ve been pushing really hard and I see that through the original programming you’re doing – and the press releases that come out touting it. Are you hopeful the next ratings book will reflect that?
GH: Obviously, yes.
GOB: Okay, that question wasn’t worded very well. But the sticking point since (the switch from Mojo) has been to get the station’s ratings to reflect the work you’ve been doing.
GH: Yes. The station has had some format changes – it’s been fairly confusing the listeners. We’ve got to give them a reason to come back and try us again but I think when they do come back they’re going to hear a kind of talk radio that’s not done elsewhere, that is more edgy and current, more focused than typical traditional news/talk radio.
Frankly, the reason for that is as you said earlier, we’re not the first in this business in this market and we have to differentiate. But, the feedback we’re getting from listeners on the new traffic reports we’re doing, on the bus board and billboard campaigns – I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people who are saying they didn’t know we were here. I had one yesterday and as a program director, when someone calls and says "I really like John Oakley, or I really like Craig Bromell or Mike Stafford," you’re always waiting for the ‘but.’
This guy yesterday though, talked about how he used to listen to one station and switched to another and now he’s on 640 and he stopped and I was waiting for the ‘But’, but there wasn’t one. I asked how he found us and he told me "I saw your bus board and I thought I’ll give it a try, turned it on and I really liked it. I didn’t know you were there."
I’m hoping there are other people out there like that doing the same thing – trying us out for the first time and finding something that’s a bit different.
DR: It’s also important to remember that news/talk is very slow growth. Unlike FM, where radio stations can flip a format and have a significant impact on a market in a matter of a few weeks or months, news/talk takes a long time… Corus invests in this format across Canada more than any other private broadcaster with heritage news/talk stations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton, London – and in Toronto we’re building towards that as well as in Montreal with all-news. It’s a big investment that takes a long time to establish a format that will come back to you with regularity.
So, 640 is working towards that and doing some great things to get there.
GOB: You need more reporters, you need more equipment…
DR: It’s the most expensive format in radio and it takes an enormous amount of people-power to make it work so we’re committed to making the investment and we know that it’ll pay off at some point, but we also know it will take some time to establish that kind of consistency with the audience.
GH: The whole consistency thing is important. You have to be there for your listeners every single day. We can’t pre-test the music, like a music station. The topics are the topics. They’re driven by things that happen in the community and we have to always have the radar out for that – which leads us to things like Silence the Guns.
We had the shooting of Jane Creba on Boxing Day – a typical down time where most people are off that week. We had the story but we said we need to do something more about this. It’s gone too far and let’s start the new year off well. So, what can we do as a radio station do to tell the community that this is a major thing and what can we do to help solve the problem?
So we thought, let’s do an off-site broadcast – the whole day. Let’s bring in experts from all aspects of the community. We had gang members there. We had hip-hop artists there. Federal, provincial, local politicians – and people from the community. Parents – including the mother who found an AK-47 under her son’s pillow (and turned him in to the police) – were there.
We brought everybody together for one day to look for solutions. It wasn’t just a rehash of old things, we actually took an inventory that day of what solutions were available and what we could pursue. And, that was day one because Silence the Guns continues – we continue to talk about that and explore solutions and go further than just reporting what happened and why. It’s "what can we do about it."
DR: Talk radio has evolved over the last decade and the emphasis we’re putting on all our news/talk stations is to help people find solutions to problems. It’s one thing to go on the air in a talk show environment to indicate the challenges and problems a community faces and point fingers and say who is to blame. The real upside now is helping people find solutions and I think that’s what 640 did with their special programming on Silence the Guns.
GOB: Interesting to see other stations sort of follow your lead on that (RB had one planned but cancelled it. CHUM did one a month or so later on Citytv, CHUM FM and 1050).
DR: That’s great but guys like Gord who have done a great job moving 640 forward, keep coming up with issues that need to be addressed and finding solutions to community problems.
When Gord was talking about community news and his focus on Toronto, there’s also been a shift in "what is local news?" Years ago, we used to try to include as much local content in the news as possible. But now, because of the world wide nature of news… we have to stay attuned to what people are talking about locally – and that’s not always a local, Toronto-central story necessarily. It’s about what people are talking about locally, whether it’s Toronto or not… The Internet has made this world very small and we have to be cutting edge in everything we do and have to create reasons for people to listen.
GOB: An example of that would be the protests from the Muslim world right now over those cartoons. Even though it’s not happening here and the cartoons weren’t made here, it’s still happening here.
GH: Our definition of local is what the people of Toronto are affected by, physically, financially or emotionally. In many cases, the cartoon story is an emotional story and it deeply affected people in this community one way or another. Some people can’t figure out why people are upset and others were very upset – and that’s the kind of thing we need to expose on the air. It’s been tremendous having both sides – it’s been a learning process.
GOB: As technology moves forward, where it becomes easier for people to, for example, use the Internet to broadcast whatever they want – and with cities using wireless to be one big local Internet bubble, do you see opportunities there or are you looking to fend that off?
DR: What we have to keep doing is find ways to keep ourselves at the front and centre of local events and properly reflect what’s going on in our communities. Satellite radio is certainly a competitor with its commercial free music and some all-news channels. What satellite radio can’t do is tell you is what happened in Toronto or Edmonton or Vancouver last night. Can’t do it. Our radio stations can.
And there’s a heritage that comes with that in that people know where to go when it comes to news from their community. So, as long as we’re doing those kinds of things, we’re going to be able to stand up to competition.
GH: Even the sniper sort of competition, the personality who starts a blog or starts a chat line or evolves that into a personal talk radio station or something, what that individual isn’t supported by is a dedicated, well-trained, experienced news department that goes out and finds the stories and reports on them as well.
So, when I have an announcer who goes on the air and stakes out an opinion on something, that opinion is grounded in a lot of fact and a lot of background and research. It’s not just a knee-jerk kind of opinion, so it has a lot more credibility in the community.
