By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — Ratings for sports-talk radio stations in Canada’s five largest markets rebounded this summer after losing half their audience in the spring as the Covid-19 pandemic ground sporting events to a halt, according to a Cartt.ca analysis of public Numeris data (please see charts below).
The eight stations (four TSN, three Sportsnet and one RNC Media) in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal saw a combined average minute audience of 17,200 in the three months ending Feb. 23. In the spring, when NHL and NBA teams would normally be making playoff runs and MLB and MLS teams starting up their seasons, the AMA plummeted to 8,000, a drop of 53%. Compared to spring 2019, it was an even steeper 59% drop.
With league play resuming in July, the numbers rebounded, with a total AMA of 11,400.
A similar drop was seen, unsurprisingly, in traffic radio. Vancouver’s AM730 and Montreal’s Circulation 730 had a combined AMA between 1,000 and 2,000 before the pandemic but dropped to 400 in the spring before rebounding to 1,200 in the summer.
For news-talk stations, the effect was less dramatic. While listening to metered stations in the five markets dropped 13% from winter to spring, listening to news-talk actually increased slightly, likely as Canadians sought daily updates on the pandemic. For private news stations, the year-to-year drop was only three per cent this summer.
Music stations, meanwhile, dropped 17% from winter to spring, rebounding only slightly in the summer as Canadians stayed home from work, depriving music stations of both rush-hour listening and office listening.
One bright spot was apparently the rock music format, with Toronto’s Q107 showing a 44% year-over-year jump, moving it into the top spot among adults 25-54 and second overall behind CBC Radio One. Montreal’s CHOM 97.7 and Énergie 94.3 also had good summers, though their increases in market share seem mainly because of a smaller audience for its competitors.
Overall, though, the rock and alternative formats were flat in the major markets year-over-year, with big gains from Q107 offset by double-digit losses from other stations including Vancouver’s Rock 101, Edmonton’s Sonic 102.9, and all three stations in Calgary. The biggest drop, 41%, was at Calgary’s CFGQ-FM, which is also branded Q107.
