EDMONTON – Squeezed out of its niche by a couple of new stations in the market, Edmonton’s 96X became Big Earl today.
Branded as the hit music alternative, Newcap Broadcasting’s 96X felt the ratings push from two recent launches in Edmonton, The Bounce 91.7 (the CHUM/Milestone-owned urban/Top 40 station launched in 2005) and Sonic 102.9 (OK Radio’s recently launched modern rock station). Both took some of the 96X’s younger audience with it, a fact borne out in the latest ratings.
“We weren’t surprised by that,” Newcap Edmonton’s operations manager Rob Mise told www.cartt.ca this afternoon. “When the CRTC licensed those two new stations, we knew we were going to get squeezed.”
So given that Edmonton “is the country music capital of Canada,” added Mise, the company moved its Big Earl concept from 98.1 FM in Camrose (about 90 kms down the road) to the 96.3 frequency in Edmonton. Big Earl is designed as the Jack or Bob of the country format (“Picture an iPod set on shuffle,” says the release – as long as your iPod is exclusively country, we gather) and will take on the ratings king of Edmonton, Corus Radio’s CISN Country.
CISN is the highest-rated music station in the market (A12+), just behind news/talk station 630 CHED.
“There’s lots of room for two FM country stations in the market,” said Mise, “it’s all about choice, right?”
AM mega-station CFCM 790 – also a Newcap outlet, is heard nearly province-wide and will maintain a different sound than Big Earl, more driven by heritage country music and on-air personalities, says Mise.
As for Big Earl’s former frequency, it’s being re-branded as CAM FM, Classic Hits 98.1, “better than Jack or Joe,” added Mise.
– Greg O’Brien
