CLEVER TITLE, HUH? Maybe that’s why I’m writing about the ratings as opposed to participating in them.
Who am I? A 30 year veteran of nearly 120 books, and for the last year or so, an interested observer from the sidelines.
Okay, here’s a hint. My name rhymes with Mumble Foward.
In Toronto the story of the Spring/Winter book was as always, “The AC Domination Continues” – the never-changing saga of Adult Contemporary music and its’ strangle-hold on tuning.
CHFI, EZ-Rock, CHUM FM (Hot AC blend) and MIX Fm add up to nearly 25%! I’ve wondered for years why this huge metropolis continues to devote so much programming to this format.
The simple answer is revenue. Revenue’s nice. Revenue’s our friend. Radio likes revenue. I asked a few different people about Toronto’s love affair with AC and turned up some interesting perspectives.
Theory One: Half the population of the city has roots outside of Canada.
No connections to Classic Rock or Country so Global Pop and Pop (AC) music in general appeals to the widest variety of Toronto humans. I don’t know if I believe or even get that but it’s a theory.
Theory Two: The Canadian content effect.
Anytime government legislates art and taste, something bizarre is bound to happen. Don’t get me wrong, I dig a lot of CanCon, but the biggest pool of it is arguably in the AC genre, both current and gold.
If you have to play 35% or more Canuck you’d better be able to squeeze in Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado and Jan Arden. They’re all played on EZ, CHFI, CHUM FM and The MIX, if not more, and there’s your 25% AC share.
Smooth jazz, which the city has, Triple A which we don’t, Urban, kinda have one: These formats don’t have enough of a CanCon pool to swim in so everyone then ends up pushed to the middle. Not the deep end, not the shallow end but the boring old revenue-generating AC middle.
Now the numbers
CHFI is tops 12+, but a little softer inside the money demo of 25-54.
CHUM FM rules that along with Q107, FI and EZ which has now had a couple soft books in a row.
CFNY is up nicely S-1 06 to S-1 07 and is third 18-49 and 5th 25-54.
Z103.5 continues to march on and past The Mix with a 12+ share up to 5.1 and a full coverage cume of nearly 850,000.
The Mix was soft, down slightly Fall to S-1 and season to season, but still with a solid cume of 768,000. Lost a little on the older side, gained nicely 18-34.
Classical music had a bunch of good gains as Moses Znaimer (the newest owner of CFMX 96.3 FM) tries to expand and young-up the audience. Good gains Adults 25-54, 18-49 and a very solid 5.0 share 12+.
CBC, Q107 and 680 NEWS were strong as always, JACK FM, now with DJs, still flattish 12+ and overall.
CFRB not quite the good news book they were hoping for. Down 7.1 to 5.4 12+ S-1 to S-1, down slightly from the Fall. Down 4.9 to 3.7 adults 25-54 Down women same demo. Down slightly men 25-54 S-4 to S-1, which is where they need to start making some gains.
I heard Bill Carroll`s show was up and I hope so cause he’s a good guy who’s doing a fine job.
The Battle of the Guy AMs
The FAN 1.9 12+ AM 640 1.9. Down for one up for the other but the big story is Men 25-54 and Other Men 18-49 The Fan had a nice book in both, while 640`s was medium. With 25-54 men The Fan is top seven and up nearly 15% 25-54 men, while 640 is 11th and flat.
In 18-49 men The FAN s 6th, up again nearly 15%. In 18-49 640 was 11th , up from S-4 but flat year to year.
640 did have a nice bump in full coverage cume to tie The Fan at 381,000, up nearly 70 thousand from the fall and I’m guessing it’s their biggest cume to date.
In fact 640 beats The Fan Central cume by almost 20 thousand and that’s got to feel good even if it doesn’t’ earn you anything except bragging rights and who in radio doesn’t like that!
Didn’t see any thing too different in the morning show stories where they are outperforming the station like they should: Derringer, RR+M, Blundell, Scott Fox.
680 NEWS is again the number 1 cume-monster with 1, 193,000 full coverage!
Of course you knew that if you’ve heard the station, because they remind their listeners of that fact every 15 minutes on the ones.
So for Toronto other than a couple of CFRB changes- Carroll and Leslie Roberts and another two guys over at JACK coming out/laying an egg, nothing much happened.
Calgary:
The new stations are on the way! CJAY is down from the fall coinciding with the beginning of X92 the alt station’s first book a tidy little 3.9 12+.
CJAY will always be the bench mark but it’s certainly vulnerable to the onslaught of the new stations. Almost like invasion of the number snatchers. Up next is Fuel, a triple A, Chum’s Energy 101, hot AC, The range-AC/classic/hits and then the Rawlco entry, some kind of Folk music.
Country CKRY FM is number one because it’s Calgary and that’s the law.
Vibe does very nicely in the money demo’ and it was a very good book for Q107. The Corus station shot up big time from the fall 5.9-8.9 . I spoke to an “industry insider”, (really just a bud of mine in management) who said that didn’t wash as the hours tuned were up like 75% which didn’t match the cume rise.
Who knows, there’s always an element of voodoo to the whole thing anyway.
Montreal:
QR Flat but solid. CHOM flat but solid. CJAD up in the money demo of 25-54. CJFM down 12+ fall to spring 20.3 to 13.5 but for no real good reason.
13.5 is closer to last years S-1 number of 15.5, so the question is, which was the blip S-4 or S-1?
I spoke to another “industry insider” (yes just another dude I know!) who claimed a million hours tuned are missing this survey from the MTL MIX. 600,000 seemed to go to CBC1 but there are still 400,000 unaccounted for. CJFM want to know where they went and they want them back!
After last fall’s 20 share they were getting huge rates on 60’s, I’m guessing now not so that will be coming down a touch.
Apparently The Team and The All News stations would have had better success with smoke signals while French Rhythm FM rules all demos by apparently appealing to everyone who doesn’t’ speak English!!
I did uncover something else interesting. PPM. Personal People Meters are coming and MTL is going to be the test market by Fall 2008.
Spoke with Gary Belgrave, the president of the Radio Marketing Bureau, and he said the results will give a more accurate picture and be a positive for stations and advertisers alike. He’s a good dude and answered his phone himself..
Preliminary results are already in and they numbers are vastly different than the tradition diary method.
Morning shows down 30%. Evenings up 40%, and there is way more tuning on weekends. Diaries as you know are mostly filled out by women who sit down at the end of a week and try and recreate their listening habits for the past seven days. They also fill out a lot of ballots for their families.
PPMs will record all tuning as it happens giving us a more realistic view of the audience and their true response to programming.
I’d like to throw in my favorite stat from across the country: Charlottetown and station CFCYFM.
They used to be AM 630 a country station and switched over to FM in December and had a nice book overall but something fantastic happened in 18-34 men. They went from 0.1 share in S-4 to a 4.7!
That`s way behind CKQK FM, the leader in that demo, but is an increase of 4600%. Wow. I just hope the PD had some of their bonus tied to that.
(GM: Congratulations it was a good book overall but especially 18-34 men
PD: Yes I’ve calculated my ratings bonus in that category to be 180,000 dollars.
GM: Sound of falling off chair!)
In the end, whether you’re in Charlottetown or Victoria, Moncton or Moose Jaw it’s clear that Canadian radio isn’t getting less competitive. Everyone can figure out the music thing – it’s just science.
Our audiences can get the music they want from so many other sources.
It’s now clearer than ever that radio, in order to continue to thrive, needs to offer strong personalities that make powerful and compelling connections with the audience.
I just hope I’m not watching from the sidelines for too much longer!
