ALBERTA IS BOOMING, and so are its airwaves. Calgary is getting four new radio stations in the latest licence award by the CRTC. One of the most recent to launch was Fuel 90.3, a second Calgary FM station for Halifax-based Newcap Broadcasting, which has been operating california 103, a smooth jazz/blues station, for five years. Fuel pulled in respectable numbers in its first BBM ratings period, according to the spring book just released.
The aptly named Fuel hopes to cash in on the region’s energy boom with a “Triple A” format—adult album alternative. At the helm is Stephen Peck, general manager and general sales manager for both Newcap stations in Calgary. He’s been heading up california 103 for the past two and a half years. Before that, he was based in Toronto with CHUM as director of new business development for all CHUM radio stations across the country.
He spoke recently with Cartt’s Ottawa-based radio editor, Laurel Hyatt, about the crowded Calgary dial, Fuel’s niche audience, and Newcap’s continuing growth outside its Atlantic base.
Laurel Hyatt: I realize this is an open-ended question, but what was it like launching Fuel?
Stephen Peck: It was absolutely fantastic. It was awesome. There are not that many radio stations that get launched in Canada. Being part of taking something that is just an idea and all the procedures you go through and then finally turning the radio station on to a frequency that has never been anything before and hearing it coming out of the speakers—it’s indescribable how thrilling it is.
LH: Did you do a lot of research before you launched?
SP: Yes. We did a lot of the research going through the application process with hearings to actually get the licence and then after the licence was granted we did more research on the Calgary market on what music preferences were out there that weren’t being totally satisfied.
LH: What about hiring your on-air staff? Did you look within the Newcap family or look within the Calgary market?
SP: Both, plus we looked across the country. A couple of our announcers came from the Newcap family. BJ Wilson, who is half of our morning team, came from our Edmonton operation. Our afternoon drive announcer, Jerhett (Schafer), came from our Red Deer operation. A big part of the hiring for the announcers was Murray Brookshaw, who is operations manager for Newcap Calgary, and the program director for Fuel, and he did a search across the rest of the country for the best announcers that would really appreciate and be music lovers.
LH: Your first book just came out. For all adults 12+, which I realize is not a terribly scientific demo, overall you grabbed a 1.7 share, which I think is pretty decent. How do you feel about that?
SP: It’s an OK start. We are certainly not satisfied with staying with just a 1.7 share. Launching a radio station, when you turn on the station, unlike a (format) flip where you’ve got an existing audience already tuned to that frequency, when you launch a radio station, nobody’s listening. From day one it’s zero and you start getting people to change their existing habits to come to listen to a new station. We find that it’s better to start getting people on board and continually growing the product and awareness of the product as time goes on. There’s been a lot of launches of radio stations in other markets where they launch with a lot more people listening but then there’s a gradual decline in listenership because people aren’t satisfied with the product or the product changes. We take the philosophy that it’s better to launch and grow the radio station by building awareness and keeping it a consistent format.
LH: But you must have known going in that with the alternative format, you’re not going to grab the same kind of numbers as AC or CHR. You realized that you’re going to have a certain niche in terms of listeners, but the thing is they tend to be loyal to their station as opposed to the CHR and AC listeners who kind of flip among the three or four in the market. Is that what you found?
SP: You’re absolutely bang on there. With the Triple A format, we’re aware that it’s not targeted to be mass appeal or to be the number one radio station in the market. It is a targeted group that we’re going after. You’re absolutely right—when people have found the radio station, our current listeners listen for a long period of time, and that tells us that we’ve got the product right, they’re enjoying it, and these listeners wouldn’t be satisfied through some of those other alternatives out there.
A lot of our music is going deeper on albums than the other radio stations dare to. And we’re pioneering something. Triple A is not a wide format in Canada. There’s only one other station that’s doing what we’re doing and that is where Murray Brookshaw came from, in Windsor with The River. It’s a big format in the United States and it will grow. But you’re absolutely right, the listeners that love the music are very dedicated to it and are waving the flag saying how great Fuel is, which we’re very pleased about.
LH: You probably get a lot of word of mouth advertising, right?
SP: Yeah, quite a bit and that’s obviously one of the best ways. People are sitting around at a party and talking about that new radio station and finally they’re able to put down their iPods and not play their CDs as often. We hear that a lot: “You’re playing the music that’s on my iPod” and the mix of the music is unique. And we do get a lot of people talking about it at parties or around the watercooler, that type of thing.
LH: Well, I’ve certainly converted some listeners here to Live 88.5 (a Newcap alternative rock station), who didn’t even know it was around.
SP: From a marketing perspective, when you’re running a business and we hear about people who don’t even know we’re around, that doesn’t make us happy, because we do other external advertising. But as many champions out there talking about the radio station for us, thank you for getting them to tune into Live, because that’s one of our two stations in Ottawa that we’re very proud of.
LH: But you can’t use Ottawa as a litmus test because we have the most stations per capita in the country so the radio dial is very, very cluttered here. So the fact that somebody didn’t know about (Live), I wouldn’t take that too much to heart.
SP: Ottawa is, you’re absolutely right, it’s a very, very competitive market.
LH: You were mentioning one aspect of Triple A is certainly that you go deeper into an album, you aren’t just playing the crossover hits on the other stations.
SP: Really our radio station is a mix between some of the best music of the last five decades and the newest stuff that’s going to stand the test of time. For those hits and recognizable songs and those that you may have just heard at a party have never been played on the radio plus the new up and coming talented artists that we’ll be looking to in another 10, 15, 20 years. Music is important to us.
LH: Which demos are you targetting?
SP: We are primarily targeting adults 25 to 49 and the real area that we’re going after is 35 to 49, pretty evenly split with who we’re targeting, male/female. Now our first book came out with a little bit younger, some strong numbers 25 to 34 and a little more male skewed, but it’s not surprising when we’re in the very early stages in the life of this radio station because of the fact that they are truly music lovers, they’re early adopters, but we know the others will follow and the growth will be there.
LH: Who are your main competitors in the market?
SP: I guess our number one competitor would not be radio stations. It would be people have become dissatisfied with what Calgary was offering them and that would be people that are primarily listening to their iPods and their own music. And then it really is very evenly split among all the other rock stations. If you like rock music, you like rock music. So it’s a little bit of Jack (by Rogers), a little bit of CJAY (by Standard), a little bit of Q (Corus’ Q107), but there isn’t just one station that we would say is our number one competitor and we’re dukeing it out with them. It’s really across the board.
LH: Now there were two radio stations launching in Calgary this spring, the other one of course is Energy 101.5, which is owned by CTVglobemedia, formerly CHUM, your former employer. So the Calgary market is getting tighter in terms of the number of stations and yet the city is part of the overall Alberta boom—growing population, growing affluence. Is it safe to say that while your shares might be limited in terms of each station’s percentage, that the actual advertising pie is growing and that’s what’s going to keep the radio station growing?
SP: Yes to the fact that the advertising pie is growing. But more importantly, and why the CRTC granted actually four new licences at the same time for Calgary, is that the Calgary market for a long time was underserviced with regards to the number of radio stations. So launching in late 2006 was X92.9, which is an alternative radio station, and the commission felt that there was a hole in the market for that, not being fully serviced, as you said with the Hot AC with CHUM with Energy, with ourselves with the Triple A format, and the fourth station yet to be launched is from Rawlco and that’s a folk station, which will also be very targeted. Calgary is growing, it’s now just over 1 million people, and there’s enough room for all of us, from a listener’s perspective as well as from an advertiser’s perspective. It starts to make everyone a lot more competitive with regards to pricing. There isn’t any one group that can just go in and say, “Hey, you have to spend 100% of your money with us or we’re going to substantially charge you higher rates.” Those things disappear when there are more competitors out there, which is great for the advertisers’ point of view, advertising agencies’ point of view, and actually everybody wins.
LH: Is there any group that has more than two stations in the market?
SP: Oh yes. Harvard, CHUM, and Rawlco all have one. At Newcap we have two. And then Standard, Rogers, and Corus all have two FMs and at least one AM.
LH: So even though there are lots of competitors, there are still some groups that have some mass power there.
SP: Absolutely. Being in the market for quite some time with just a standalone FM station, california 103 the jazz/blues station, when competing with the Standards, Rogers, and Coruses, who have multiple radio stations, we were very much at a disadvantage. Now with the other players coming in, it’s certainly making it a lot more competitive.
LH: I’m not sure how much you’re able to speak on behalf of Newcap but I’m just curious to see how the company’s westward march from Atlantic Canada is going. As I said, here in Ottawa we’ve got the two stations and now in Calgary there’s two and I know you’re in other locations. Are you gradually becoming more of a national player?
SP: Yes; when the situation is right, absolutely. We have great representation throughout all of Alberta. The vast majority of Newcap radio stations are in smaller markets. While we do have some major market stations, as you mentioned in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, as well as Halifax, the vast majority of the stations—and we have 76 licences altogether—are in smaller cities and towns, throughout Newfoundland as well as throughout rural Alberta. You know: Drumheller and Brooks and Stettler and Edson…
LH: And Wainwright, too?
SP: ….and Wainwright. And a lot of the company’s success is in these smaller markets.
LH: But you’re proving you can play with the big boys in the big cities, too.
SP: Yeah, and it’s a great mix.
