Overall market share for anglophone Montreal (note that this includes only BBM members)

Ah, ratings. That time of the every-few-months where people who own radio stations gloat about their rising numbers, and if they don't have rising numbers they selectively comb through demographics and time periods until they find something to gloat about, and if they don't find anything there either they just bullshit their way through a press release.

Normally I don't pay much attention to them, because the changes are so insignificant. But with some major programming changes this fall, and some corresponding jumps and plummets in audience, it's worth taking a closer look this time.

Here are some more objective highlights from the ratings numbers from what I've been able to find. The top-line numbers from BBM Canada are here (PDF, first page is English audience, second page French audience). You can compare that to the spring report or last year for the same period.

Astral Media also does a presentation (PDF) that looks into the numbers overall for key demographics, and for important time periods for adults 25-54, which advertisers apparently covet.

CJAD 800AM (Astral)

Programming changes: Aaron Rand show added to evenings, moving Ric Peterson to early afternoons and Kim Fraser to weekends. Barry Morgan does 7-10pm weekdays, replacing Dan Delmar. Loss of Canadiens games to CKGM.

Overall (adults 2+, seven days a week), CJAD is still the highest-rated station in the Montreal English market. It has a 24% market share, within 0.2 percentage points of this spring and last fall. But it's losing audience in key demographics, especially young adults. In the 18-34 demo, it's down from 17% this spring to 11%. Though losing rights to Canadiens games is undoubtedly part of that, it's not the whole story.

If CJAD thought Aaron Rand would give a ratings boost for its evening drive, that hasn't happened. Its audience for 4-7pm weekdays is stagnant, and it has dropped to fifth place, behind Mitch Melnick on CKGM, for 25-54.

CKGM 990AM (TSN Radio 990, Bell Media)

Programming changes: Rebranding. Acquisition of Canadiens games. Denis Casavant leaves morning show.

The biggest change to CKGM is the addition of Canadiens games, which is giving a significant boost to the evening audience, making it No. 1 on game nights. "Canadiens games are registering an impressive 28.2 share among males 25-54," Bell Media's Greg McIsaac tells me. Previously, the station was fifth place with a 3.7 share during that time period. Now, overall, it's 19.8, ahead of Virgin Radio, station manager Wayne Bews tells Mike Cohen.

But the station is seeing ratings gains everywhere. Overall, CKGM is reaching more listeners, 131,000 a week compared to 93,000 in the spring. Its market share overall has gone up from 2.7 to 4.

Mitch Melnick's afternoon show has the most impressive gains, going from 3,490 to 4,540 listeners during an average minute, representing a 30% increase in audience. It was enough to push CKGM past CJAD for this time period among adults 25-54, particularly impressive since he's now up against Aaron Rand.

For me, the big question out of this is: Was getting Canadiens games worth it? Obviously they won't get into details about their business plans, but the mood seems to be pretty positive.

Bell Media also wouldn't comment on whether the station is still losing 30% of its audience after dark, as it complained to the CRTC during hearings that eventually granted it the right to move to the clear channel of 690 kHz. But critics might argue it's hard to get a 28% share if you're having significant reception problems.

There was also speculation that the station might be picking up francophone listeners after the closure of CKAC Sports. Though there has been a "moderate increase", Bell Media's McIsaac says, the overall numbers among francophones have remained unchanged since the spring. Overall, CKGM has a market share of 0.0 among francophone listeners.

If anything, the more likely scenario is that anglophone listeners who tuned into CKAC are coming back to CKGM. The French all-sports station had a 0.5% share among anglophone listeners. Stands to reason many of them would prefer hearing sports-related news and commentary during the day.

CKBE 92.5FM (ex-CFQR, The Beat, Cogeco)

Programming changes: Complete station rebranding. Cat Spencer replaces Aaron Rand on morning show, Ken Connors moves to weekend mornings, Nat Lauzon does weekend afternoons (starting Oct. 15).

They called it a brand new radio station. They wanted to shed all remaining remnants of the old Q92. But despite all the changes, it has still inherited the old Q ratings. The station has a 16% market share overall, which is actually down slightly from last year.

But program director general manager Mark Dickie still has a happy face. (Well, I assume he does. He seemed content when I chatted with him over the phone.) That's mostly because CKBE has made the strategic decision as part of the Beat rebranding to target the 35-44 female demographic that competitor CJFM seems to have abandoned, and it's seeing corresponding gains there, and Dickie says they've managed to do that while continuing to grow its 45-54 female demo. Overall, from 9am to 4pm, it has a 30% market share for women 35-54.

"It's pretty well what we were hoping for in the first book," he said. Among his cherry-picked highlights, the breakfast show with Cat Spencer and Sarah Bartok has surpassed CJFM among the key demo and has gone from fourth to second (behind CJAD) among adults 35-54. (Expanding to adults 25-54, it's still third, but gaining on second-place CJAD.)

Besides the new morning show, the Beat has also focused on weekends, moving Ken Connors to a beefed-up weekend morning show and bringing star Nat Lauzon in for weekend afternoons.

Lauzon's numbers are good, even though she's been on for only half the ratings period. Her numbers are up 6% on Saturdays and 7% Sundays compared to the spring. Among adults 35-54, afternoons are up 12% on Saturdays and 15% on Sundays.

But it's Connors who is making the biggest impact, with double-digit growth on weekend mornings. Among women 35-54, the station's audience has grown 37% on Saturdays and 53% on Sundays on weekend mornings.

"It's definitely paying off," Dickie says of the decision to focus on weekends, and of the Beat rebranding in general.

Of course, a lot of that is the promotional blitz that comes with a station rebranding. We'll have to give it another ratings period to see if this audience is sticking around.

CJFM 95.9FM (Virgin Radio, Astral)

Programming changes: Freeway Frank replaces Cat Spencer on morning show, Nat Lauzon leaves midday show for CKBE.

Virgin is still the market leader among adults 18-54. The only big demo it's lost control over is men 25-54, where CHOM has snuck into first place. The morning show, which took on Freeway Frank Depalo this year and is about to lose Lisa Player, has kept its audience. Its audience during midday, which has lost veteran Nat Lauzon, hasn't seen a significant change among adults 25-54.

Virgin's on-air lineup is young, and midday hosts Andrea Collins and Nikki Balch are new to the station over the past year. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I suppose. "As the leader our plan was not to react," Brand Director Mark Bergman tells Cohen.

CHOM 97.7FM (Astral)

Programming changes: Pete Marier moved to afternoon drive, Rob Kemp to morning show, Tootall to middays and Sharon Hyland to weekends.

Even though CHOM is in a period of transition as it awaits the return of Terry DiMonte on Jan. 9, this has actually been a pretty good ratings period for the station. It's up just about everywhere, except among women and during the drive-time show, where it's stagnant. It's now first overall among men 25-54, overtaking sister station CJFM. Even the morning show has picked up listeners, though it still sits fourth among English-language stations overall.

CBC Radio

Overall, Radio One's market share is still 8% among anglos, which hasn't changed over the past year. For Radio Two, there's been a slight drop in overall audience, going from a 3.1% to 2.6% market share.

CHMP 98.5FM (Cogeco)

Programming changes: Incorporation of sports programming in evenings after closing of CKAC Sports.

Cogeco Nouvelles, in a totally unbiased press release masquerading as news, declared 98.5 the most listened-to station in Canada. I'm too lazy to confirm that, but they're not making up their significant market gains.

Overall, the station has jumped from a market share of 12% last fall to 20% this fall. That's incredible. It's gained throughout the day weekdays (it's stagnant on weekends, when it plays music). The morning show, hosted by Paul Arcand, has gone from 33,000 to 45,000 average listeners a minute since last spring, a 37% increase. It's a 47% increase if you count from last fall.

In the noon and early afternoon periods, CHMP has rocketed past three other stations, CITE, CKMF and CKOI, to jump from fifth place to second among adults 25-54.

Demographically, the spike is most pronounced among men 25-54, where it was once in a three-way tie for first place with NRJ and Rythme FM, but is now way ahead (28% to 20%). But it's also ahead among women and young adults.

Unsurprisingly, the station has seen an increase in ratings during the evening, where it has replaced repeats of the day's talk shows with sports talk and Canadiens broadcasts. "Its new sports programming has proven a contributing factor to the station's growing success," says Cogeco. But that's not the whole story. Simple math shows that adding all of CKAC's former audience to CHMP only accounts for about half its increase in market share. Something else is causing more people to listen to the station and/or for longer.

CKAC 730AM (Radio Circulation, Cogeco)

Programming changes: Complete station rebranding, replacing sports and sports talk with 24/7 traffic information.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that since its switch Sept. 6 from sports talk to traffic, CKAC has plummeted in the ratings. But that was expected. Last fall, it had a 4.1% market share. This fall, it's 0.5%.

Where CKAC's morning show had an average minute audience of about 9,000, Radio Circulation is only 1,290. Similar drops happen across the schedule and across demographics.

Still, CKAC reaches more than 1 million listeners a week (counted as those who listen at least a minute in a week).

In its application to the CRTC this spring to put a French-language traffic station on 690AM, Cogeco estimated a French-language traffic information service as having a market share of 0.8%, with a total 265,200 weekly listening hours. That number, they said, would double as of the third year. As it turns out, they're behind that estimate a bit (even though there's one fewer station to compete with).

Fortunately for Cogeco, its agreement with Transport Quebec doesn't set any minimums concerning market share or total audience.

Other French-language stations

There haven't been much changes to the music stations on the French side, certainly not much of interest to anglos.

Among young adults (18-34), Astral's CKMF (NRJ) has overtaken Cogeco's CKOI for first place, going up six points with a corresponding drop of six points for CKOI.

CKOI's overall market share has dropped from 9.8 last year to 6.6 this fall, a significant drop. Why Cogeco would say it's proud of the station's performance is beyond me.

Quebec City

In brief:

• CFEL (CKOI), recently sold by Cogeco to the Leclerc family on orders from the CRTC, has slid significantly in market share among adults 18-34. It's now 16%, compared to 24% last fall, dropping it from first to third in the market.
• There's a corresponding spike for Astral's CITF (Rouge FM) in that same demographic. It has gone from 5% to 11% market share over the same period.
• CHOI (Radio X) is losing a lot of audience during weekday midday, and Rouge FM has a corresponding spike in audience for that period.

Related Posts

• Astral’s Martin Spalding on Terry DiMonte, CHOM, CJAD and Virgin Radio
• You’re listening to an Astral Media radio station
• Behind-the-scenes changes at Astral Media radio
• Aaron Rand moves to CJAD afternoons
• CJAD loses Habs broadcasts to Team 990

Aaron Rand's ID card from 30 years ago, unearthed by Rob Braide in May. (I've blurred out his social insurance number so you don't identity-theft him)

When your goal is to get a job as a radio host at a commercial English-language radio station in Montreal, your choices are rather limited.

Aaron Rand left CFQR (the Q) in May after more than 20 years when it became clear management wasn't eager to renew their contract with him. At the time he wasn't sure where he would go, but he knew he wanted to stay in Montreal, he wanted to stay in radio, he didn't want to work at a station like K103 and he wanted to have some editorial freedom wherever he ended up. With the Cogeco door slammed pretty tight behind him, the only game left in town was Astral, and he was hoping for something at either CHOM or CJAD (the latter being the better choice because it would mean more talk time and less of being a DJ).

Now it seems Rand has gotten his wish. He won't be reunited with his former partner Paul (Tasso) Zakaib, but he will have a show on a popular radio station. Rand announced on Facebook and The Gazette published an article about the same time, both saying he is taking the weekday afternoon slot at CJAD, 3 to 7 p.m., starting Sept. 6 (the day after Labour Day). Note that this puts him directly opposite Mitch Melnick on Team 990.

The CJAD timeslot Rand is taking over is currently held by Ric Peterson, and there's a bit of musical chairs as people are shuffled into new slots. The details, according to The Gazette and other sources:

• Ric Peterson moves to 12-3pm, the latter two hours of which will be with Rand's former cohost Suzanne Desautels. This replaces Kim Fraser's show and the first hour of Dan Laxer.
• Kim Fraser moves to weekends, 1-4pm, which replaces Anne Lagacé Dowson on Saturdays and a few shows on Sundays.
• Dan Laxer loses his weekday afternoons gig but keeps his Sunday trivia show from 9am-12pm. He writes on Facebook that "I won't lie, I am disappointed, and I will miss weekday afternoons. Having my own radio show on CJAD has changed my life in so many ways, and opened so many doors. I'm hoping to nudge them open just a little bit wider and see where they lead." But he says he isn't leaving CJAD.
• Barry Morgan gets a new show 7-10pm weekdays, bumping Dan Delmar. He'll also contribute sports news to Rand's show.
• Dan Delmar writes on his blog that he'll stay at CJAD as a daytime programming producer, and says the change is bittersweet, because he loses a show he's worked very hard on, but at the same time he's not "a radio guy" and will enjoy having more free time. He also writes that he'll be hosting two weekly shows, details to come later.
• Anne Lagacé Dowson, the former CBC radio host and one-time NDP candidate, loses her weekly gig. She still has a column in the new Hour magazine, and will be on the Tommy Schnurmacher show's Gang of Four, plus other stuff, she tells The Gazette's Bill Brownstein.
• Legal Lounge with Christopher Dimakos, Ann Shatilla's Hollywood Trend Report and the Dr. Schwarcz Show, which are on Sunday afternoons and being displaced by Kim Fraser, will find new homes on the schedule. "All those shows will remain part of our line-up", says Brand Director Chris Bury. A final schedule is expected within a few days.

Rand's Facebook fans are thrilled, and the positive reaction to his return to the airwaves easily drowns out those who are disappointed by Laxer, Delmar and Dowson losing their shows. (On the Radio in Montreal discussion group, moderator Sheldon Harvey is a bit skeptical, suggesting that people might not be sufficiently prepared for a switch from music to news/talk programming)

It's disappointing that young talent has to suffer to bring back a star, but as many people in the industry have told me: That's the business of radio.

UPDATE: Video of Rand's interview with CJAD's Andrew Carter is online.

Meanwhile, at Rand's old home at 92.5, changes are afoot for the same day. Cat Spencer takes his job as Rand's morning-show replacement, and the station is rebranding itself "The Beat", less than two and a half years after rebranding itself from "Q92" to "92.5 the Q". It's unclear what kind of format change will come along with the rebranding, but there's speculation that the station will try to be more like CJFM (Virgin Radio 96) in order to steal some of the No. 1 station's audience and give Montrealers even less choice in music selection on the radio.

John Bartlett to be voice of Habs for Team 990

It's probably a coincidence, but competing AM station Team 990 also has a Thursday announcement that was leaked to The Gazette. John Bartlett, formerly the announcer for the Toronto Marlies (the Leafs' farm team) will join CKGM as play-by-play man for the Canadiens. The station won the rights to Canadiens games away from CJAD this summer.

Bell Media says colour analysts (they used the plural) will be announced in the coming weeks. The Gazette's Hockeyinsideout.com has an interview with Bartlett, which appears in Thursday's paper.

Related Posts

• Cat Spencer to replace Aaron Rand at CFQR
• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
• The Beat is on – but is 92.5FM* any different?
• CJAD loses Habs broadcasts to Team 990
• Aaron Rand moves on

Astral VP Martin Spalding outside his offices at Fort and Ste. Catherine Sts.

"You only have one chance to make a first impression."

It's a cliché, but I thought it was funny when I heard it come out of the mouth of Martin Spalding, the vice-president at Astral Media who is in charge of its three English-language stations in Montreal: CHOM, Virgin Radio (CJFM) and CJAD. The fact that we were talking to each other was kind of proving that assertion wrong. Or at least it was strong evidence against it.

Eleven days earlier, I called Spalding at his office to talk to him about the return of Terry DiMonte to CHOM, a move he arranged. But our conversation was brief.

"I know who you are," he said after I introduced myself. Just as I was starting to feel relieved that I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of convincing him to speak to some guy on the Internet as if he was a journalist, Spalding put the brakes on the interview. "I'm not in the mood to have this conversation," he said.

I asked why. "Let's just say you should be careful what you post on Twitter," he said, without elaborating. He followed that with "this conversation is over."

There was a slight hesitation in his voice, as if even he couldn't believe he was saying this.

I didn't know how to react. I don't expect that everyone I contact will be interested in talking to me - mostly because I'm not a traditional journalist and my audience is not that of a metro newspaper or a supper-hour TV newscast. But I'd never had someone answer me like this before. This conversation sounded like it would be in the script from a bad movie.

What got me most is that I had no idea what set him off. Other than quoting some press releases with his name in them, I'd never talked about him on my blog. I'd never mentioned his name on Twitter. I didn't even know what he looked like.

And I've posted thousands of things on Twitter. Plenty of stuff has been negative about CHOM and other Astral stations. I couldn't really narrow it down.

The call was just before the end of business on June 23. My post about DiMonte - with the bit about Spalding at the end - was published the next day.

An email from Spalding was dated 9:05am the next Monday. He said he realizes he may have been a little "curt" in our phone conversation, and offered to take me out to lunch to explain. We scheduled a meeting for the following Monday at noon - July 4.

After seeing Spalding's office - a corner office with wood panelling - and meeting Virgin Radio Brand Director Mark Bergman, we went to a Chinese place nearby and discussed our respective pasts a bit. Everything was cordial.

It was actually quite a while into our conversation at the lunch table until Spalding set the record straight about that minute-long conversation.

He said he had taken exception to something I tweeted the day before, suggesting that CHOM's promotions department was lacking because its website had no mention of DiMonte a day after a press release announcing he was coming back to the station.

Spalding explained that it wasn't because they'd simply forgotten about this or were lazy about it. Because DiMonte was still contracted to Q107 in Calgary, Spalding said that CHOM couldn't use his image or promote him. Even issuing the press release was "playing with fire," he said.

Spalding took my ill-informed tweet as an attack on the employees who work for him, and for me to then call and ask for comment after bashing his radio station didn't exactly put him in the mood to cooperate.

By Monday morning, he had read my post on DiMonte, and his mood changed. He apologized for the curt tone on the phone, and went out of his way to compliment me on posts I had written, including the DiMonte one and an earlier one on Cogeco's CRTC application for all-traffic radio stations, which he considered much more solid journalism than some of the shoot-from-the-hip tweets that are based on incomplete information.

It's amazing how a simple conversation can change your perspective.

I, in turn, asked Spalding to apologize on my behalf to CHOM's promotions department, an apology I repeat here. I jumped to an incorrect assumption (not the first time I've done so with CHOM-related news), and I should have checked. Just because it's on Twitter doesn't mean it's exempt from basic journalistic rigour. I'll try to do better in the future.

So we're good now. Spalding gave me his card (asking me to call him before I tweet next time), paid for my lunch (the next one will be on me - I want to try to have at least some journalistic ethics here) and gave me two hours of his time - even pushing back a conference call so he could give me a few extra minutes.

The image of the super-professional businessman that DiMonte had painted for me during our conversation turned out to be a lot more accurate than I had thought after that brief phone conversation.

So, now on to the good stuff. I had a good bank of questions related to recent events at his radio stations, so I posed as many as I could fit in before I started to feel really guilty about taking him away from his real job.

Terry DiMonte: star power

Spalding has known DiMonte for a long time. In fact, one of his earliest jobs in radio was acting as DiMonte's assistant. He told me a story about ironing DiMonte's jacket before the radio jock was set to make a public appearance. At the time, DiMonte the radio guy bachelor didn't really appreciate the need to look professional.

Spalding worked with DiMonte from 1986 to 1991. "For five years, we were inseparable," Spalding said. He then worked another five years for former Standard Radio manager Rob Braide (Spalding said his first job in radio was moving boxes for Braide). He later worked as promotions director for what was then FM96 (CJFM, now Virgin Radio) and then for the Canadian Grand Prix before returning to radio as an Astral VP in 2009.

"Last fall, I knew the combination of Pete (Marier), Chantal (Desjardins), P.J. (Stock) and Merv (Williams) wasn't jelling," Spalding said. This led to the canning of Stock and Williams in March.

"I know what CHOM represented 26 years ago. It's kind of lost its way over the past four or five years," Spalding said (covering about the amount of time DiMonte was gone). He wanted to get it back on track. That started with the morning show.

"We needed someone who would resonate with the listenership. We needed star power," he said.

In discussions about who that star could be, Spalding said one name kept coming up: DiMonte.

So Spalding flew to Calgary to try to convince the well-known former Montreal morning man (and local-consumer-affairs TV show host) to come back home. "I wanted to demonstrate that we were seriously interested in bringing him back," Spalding said of the decision to meet in person rather than converse on the phone or via email.

DiMonte "is one of the best interviewers I've heard on radio," Spalding said. He explained that DiMonte has fantastic comedic timing, but "he knows his role. He won't try to our-star a star."

But part of being a good interviewer isn't just being funny and friendly. It's also about knowing your stuff. Asking a guy the same questions he gets from hundreds of other media is going to prompt a canned answer. But asking questions that make it clear you're familiar with someone's work can lead to a lot more depth, and the interviewee becoming a lot more comfortable and more likely to open up.

DiMonte, Spalding said, is a generalist, who will read everything he can get his hands on (this is easily confirmed by looking at all the stuff he posts on Facebook). That's what makes him a great interviewer and a great host, Spalding said.

Like DiMonte, Spalding sees this deal lasting longer than its contract specifies. "This is a long-term play," Spalding said.

Other talent at CHOM

Though the online rumour mill is buzzing with speculation about who's going where on CHOM's schedule, no official decisions have been made yet. And they won't be until the morning team is figured out, and that won't happen until DiMonte gets to Montreal, which won't happen until he's released from Q107.

Spalding said that after hearing about DiMonte coming back to CHOM, "people have reached out to us" about becoming DiMonte's cohost. But whether they hire from outside or just reshuffle their existing talent remains to be seen. DiMonte and Chantal Desjardins will at some point be introduced, but "there has to be chemistry" in any morning team, Spalding said. So they'll see how that plays out.

Pete Marier, meanwhile, is expected to go back to an afternoon drive-time show. His gruffy voice is much better suited to destressing after a day at work than waking up in the morning. Spalding said Marier is better as a drive-time host than a morning man, a sentiment I've heard from others who follow the industry.

For the rest of the schedule, it's still up in the air, though two changes have been made already: Tootall, one of CHOM's most ancient veterans (and a man filled with crazy stories from decades past), has been moved to mid-mornings, doing the 10am to 1pm shift. "We want him to be one of our pillars," Spalding said. He replaces Sharon Hyland, who has moved to weekends.

The other change is the show Amped with Jason Rockman (one of the station's young talents) on Friday and Saturday nights. It features more up-tempo music that Spalding described as "a soundtrack to a corporate party with your buddies."

Though Spalding said the station "worked very hard to keep our staff," he does expect some attrition. He doesn't know who that is yet, but he does seem to expect some announcers to leave for other opportunities elsewhere.

One thing is for sure, he wants the station to be local. While Q107 in Calgary can get away with having only four announcers (two in the morning, one in the afternoon and one on weekends), that wouldn't fly in Montreal. Nor does Spalding want it to.

"Given the choice between Alice Cooper - which is syndicated - and local, I'll always choose local," he said. "Our strategic advantage is to stay local."

That means local announcers - who can tell you what happened during the Habs game, who know the difference between Pie IX and "pie nine" - even during the overnight hours.

Mind you, Virgin Radio's schedule still features quite a bit of syndicated content, especially on weekends.

Ted Bird: never say never

Ask the Internet who Terry's cohost should be, and you'll probably get "Ted Bird" as an answer. But is such a thing possible, or likely? Bird has said it isn't - even though he and DiMonte are good friends.

I wondered, from Spalding's perspective, how torched the bridge between CHOM and Bird was. "Ted is an incredibly talented broadcaster. Very passionate, very emotional," he said.

Spalding also pointed out that "people's memories are very short."

In Spalding's world of media management, letting your ego get in the way of a good business decision means you're not doing your job. "You hire the act," he said. In media, being controversial can be as much a benefit as it is a liability. If CHOM wanted to hire this act back, there's nothing legally preventing it.

And, Spalding reminded me, it was Bird who made the decision to leave CHOM.

"Never say never," he said.

But don't get your hopes too far up. Bird has said he's happy at K103 in Kahnawake. And Spalding said that there have been no conversations with Bird about rejoining the station.

"But I'm not closed to the idea," Spalding said. "I'm not closed to anything."

Bird's main beef at CHOM was with the program director, Daniel Tremblay. For Bird, he was this guy who bragged about never being on the air and who started bossing people around at CHOM after working at some French stations in another city. For Spalding, Tremblay was a man with lots of experience in the industry in a management role. "Daniel has done one thing in his life, and that's work in radio," Spalding said.

Now that Tremblay no longer works at CHOM, and DiMonte is coming back, the chances of reconciliation with Bird are much higher. But still not high enough that I actually expect it to happen. Public demand would have to be much higher to force CHOM to put enough resources into luring Bird back.

Poaching at Virgin Radio

The biggest pieces of news to happen to CJFM in the past few months are remarkably similar: Two of the station's big names - Cat Spencer and Nat Lauzon, have left the station and will take jobs at competitor CFQR (92.5 the Q) in the fall. I asked Spalding about this, and whether this is just a coincidence or if he's worried about losing top talent to Cogeco.

It's business, he said, and the two left under different circumstances. Spencer got a better offer at the Q, and apparently felt it was a better opportunity for career advancement, while Lauzon wanted to reduce her work hours to concentrate on other projects.

These things happen. And if you're looking for talent, it makes sense to target the big stars at the No. 1 station in the market. But Spalding isn't worried.

Besides, he said, Freeway Frank Depalo, who was hired to replace Spencer on Virgin's morning show, has been "a blessing in disguise," and ratings have gone up since the former Montrealer joined the team.

Spalding isn't panicked about competition, particularly since Astral has a 76% market share with its three stations, which includes the top-rated station in the market, CJFM.

But the competition is constant, and Spalding said his goal is to make his stations' programming as seamless as possible. What he called "errors" are what lead listeners to switch stations. Long pauses, technical snafus, or just songs and segments that don't hold the listener's interest.

"The one who makes the fewer errors wins," he said.

CJAD Habs-less

For CJAD, the biggest news recently has been the loss of broadcast rights of Canadiens games to Bell's CKGM (Team 990). Though Spalding took issue with how I phrase the question.

"Losing broadcast rights to Team 990 is a misrepresentation of what happened," he said.

The writing was on the wall not for weeks or months but since way back when Bell purchased CTV and Team 990, Spalding said. The business connections between Bell and the Canadiens are almost too numerous to mention. Bell owns a minority stake in the team, it owns the French-language TV broadcaster (RDS), the English-language regional TV broadcaster (TSN), the naming rights to the team's arena, lots of exclusive rights for mobile, and it produced a special TV series profiling Canadiens players that was available exclusively on Bell video on demand before airing on RDS and TSN2. And that's just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head.

To suggest that Team 990 won the rights to Canadiens games strictly on its own merits is ludicrous, according to Spalding.

Spalding's interpretation jives with that of Mike Boone, who wrote shortly before the announcement that the deal was essentially forged when Bell negotiated regional TV broadcast rights for Canadiens games (they air on a special "TSN Habs" channel that's so far available only on Bell and Bell Alliant).

I asked Spalding if he thought this was unfair. A slight grin developed on his face.

"Unfair? Life is unfair," he said, returning to his this-is-just-business philosophy. There's no bitterness, no anger, just acceptance. This is how things work in the media business, and you have to understand that and get used to it.

So CJAD will move on. "We'll keep covering the team as a news item," he said. And regular programming will be more consistent (though CJAD still retains the rights to things like Alouettes games). And Spalding said he doesn't expect ratings to suffer hugely.

"It wasn't a huge ratings benefit to us," he said. But it was "prestigious" to be known as the official Canadiens broadcaster.

Asked whether there will be significant programming changes to expect for the fall now that there are about 10 more hours a week to fill during the season, Spalding answers simply: "Aren't we always?"

Cogeco's all-traffic stations

Spalding mentioned a post I wrote about Cogeco's proposal for all-traffic AM stations in Montreal. I asked him what he thought of it.

"It's opportunistic," he said, a way to make use of transmitters and antennas they bought as part of the purchase of Corus Quebec. Give him $1.5 million a year and he'd be more than happy to setup his own traffic station.

Astral Media Radio has submitted an intervention in the application that largely echoes the points raised by Spalding and myself.

Related Posts

• Pete Marier leaves CHOM over contract dispute
• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
• You’re listening to an Astral Media radio station
• Behind-the-scenes changes at Astral Media radio
• Terry DiMonte’s first day at CHOM … again

It was the worst-kept secret in the radio industry: Bell-owned Team 990 has secured the English-language radio broadcast rights to Canadiens games for the next seven seasons.

No financial details have been announced for the deal, but it's clear that the station is putting some serious dough into this contract, because losing out again to Astral-owned CJAD was simply not an option. You can't have an all-sports radio station that doesn't carry broadcasts of the most popular sports team.

No announcement has been made about the play-by-play team yet, most likely because one hasn't been decided. Still, rumours are spreading wildly, everything from Shaun Starr and Elliott Price to having the CJAD team move over to using the TSN play-by-play to bringing back Dick Irvin and the reanimated corpse of Danny Gallivan.

Okay, I made that last one up.

Convergence!

Though it's great news that this little station that could has scored this contract, it's a bit worrisome for critics of Canada's media oligopolies. When Mike Boone wrote about the deal a couple of weeks ago, he said it was helped significantly by a deal Bell signed for regional English-language TV rights on TSN. Bell's business agreements with the Canadiens are many (though Bell itself does not own the team), from the naming rights to its arena and practice facility to its French-language TV rights to mobile rights to broadcasts.

This deal takes Bell one step further toward doing with the Canadiens what Quebecor wants to do with a Quebec City hockey team and what Rogers wants to do with most of the professional sports coming out of Toronto.

There's also, as one Team 990 personality told me during their recent 10-year anniversary party, the problem that the station might be restricted a bit in what it can say about the team. Doing impressions of Jacques Martin might not fly so well when you're the official broadcaster.

What about CJAD?

Though it certainly can deal with not having the Canadiens easier than Team 990 did, CJAD is still going to have to find a way to fill hundreds of broadcast hours every season. And they're going to have to deal with the loss of advertising that comes with losing such a big audience-getter. There's no word yet on what they're planning to do.

There's a story in The Gazette and some discussion in the Radio in Montreal group.

UPDATE: Some comments from the peanut gallery on Hockey Inside/Out.

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• CRTC hears applications for 690 and 940 AM

Cartwright, most recently of the CJAD newsroom but with experience at CKDG Mike FM and CKRK K103 in Kahnawake, has accepted a job as the new morning man for Valley Heritage Radio, CJHR 98.5FM in Renfrew, Ont.

Cartwright says the Ottawa-area community radio station offered "a much better package" (more money and benefits) and "really made compelling arguments as to why Ottawa was a better fit for me."

Friday was his last day at CJAD.

"I signed up at the news station to expand my knowledge base when it comes to radio. I feel like I’ve done that, and now it’s time for me to get back to my roots as a radio announcer. Yes it’s a smaller station, but honestly that’s never mattered to me. I love hosting and I really wanted to get back to that. I don’t wanna look back on my life and say 'what if'"

Unlike other departures from CJAD in the past, this one was amicable. Cartwright had nothing but kind words for his now former employer.

"Thanks to CJAD I’ll be able to offer the wonderful people of the Ottawa Valley more than just 'time and temp' while teeing up songs."

Dan Delmar in the evenings

Speaking of CJAD, Mike Cohen points out that it is bringing back local programming to evenings, scheduling Dan Delmar to host a show on weeknights when they don't broadcast Habs games.

The website has some clips of interviews, including Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay and, to talk about CFCF's 50th anniversary, veterans Herb Luft, Suzanne Desautels and Bob Benedetti.

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• Laurie and Olga are back … on K103

A (grammatically incorrect) Facebook group has already been started, and the few hundred people who joined the "Bring Back Olga and Laurie" Facebook group will probably be happy.

MacDonald and Gazdovic got their first radio job through a contest at a mall in 1995.

When they were suddenly fired in August 2009, Gazdovic told The Gazette: "It’s the nature of the business. If I had the chance, I’d do it again in a heartbeat."

And so, like Ted Bird and Paul Graif in the mornings, Laurie and Olga become new voices from outside the Kahnawake community being added to Kahnawake's community radio station. And the country music that used to dominate CKRK's schedule is seeing less and less airtime in favour of castoffs and disgruntled former stars of the big Montreal stations.

It's up to the community to decide how to react to this. But some were already suggesting that K103 was suffering an identity crisis, and the 250-Watt station was trying too hard to compete with the 50,000-Watt powerhouses atop Mount Royal, a battle they couldn't possibly win, even with some names familiar to Montreal listeners.

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Patrick Charles

After a year on the CJFM (aka Virgin Radio 96) morning show, Patrick Charles, aka Sir Patrick, is being shuffled into an off-air job at Astral Media.

As seems to be the usual procedure in this town, when a host is removed from a show there's no announcement or long goodbye. The name of the show is simply changed - it's now just "The Breakfast Show with Cat and Lisa" - and the offending host's image scrubbed from the website.

Charles made the announcement himself to his Twitter followers on Saturday night (his new Twitter handle being itself scrubbed of links to Virgin Radio). "The company has new plans for me," he said, indicating that this wasn't his decision.

Sources who support Charles tell me this is the outcome of a personal conflict between Charles and co-host Lisa Player. Because Player is the more senior co-host, it's Charles who gets the boot. (I've asked Player for comment, and will update this post with any response.)

But Charles isn't leaving Astral Media. He says he'll be doing "new stuff for the company" - he'll be working in an off-air capacity, continuing to do his parodies for CJFM and CHOM. He will also have a regular segment on CJAD, joining morning host Andrew Carter at 8:20am weekdays starting April 19. And he appears semi-regularly as a pop culture columnist on CFCF newscasts.

It's expected Charles will return to the air in a more permanent capacity soon, possibly at CJAD.

UPDATE (April 12): On the first show as Cat and Lisa, a pathetic 35-second announcement (MP3) about Charles's departure suggests that this decision was somehow his and that he's welcome to be a guest "sporadically":

Spencer: By the way, as you probably have mentioned, or probably have noticed by now if you've been listening this morning, it's now Cat and Lisa. Sir Patrick is still with us in the building and with all three of our radio stations now. He will be doing other work behind the scenes and he'll be welcome to join us on the air here and there sporadically.

Player: That's right, when he gets a chance. When he has time.

Spencer: But the show now is Cat and Lisa, but it's nothing that he has been asked to leave or let go or anything like that –

Player: No no no.

Spencer: He's still working with us and all three of our stations in a different capacity.

Player: Yeah, we're trying to use him even more.

Spencer: There you go.

The announcement aired only once during the three-and-a-half-hour show, at about 7:37am.

Compare this to the multiple announcements throughout the morning totalling almost 17 minutes given on sister station CHOM-FM when Ted Bird left in January. Is Charles less important to CJFM than Bird was to CHOM, or did they want to sweep this under the rug and hope people wouldn't notice?

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• Patrick Charles says Q92 sucks

Chris Bury, CJAD's program director, said he has been "swamped by e-mails and calls from Montrealers demanding we add this program."

"We added Coast to Coast AM to the lineup so we would have more live programming overnight and consistent programming seven nights a week."

These comments were echoed in an Astral Media press release issued today.

The added program bumps off Last Call with Sol Boxenbaum, a local late-night program. Boxenbaum didn't respond to an email from me, but told Radio in Montreal's Sheldon Harvey that "It was a decision of CJAD and for the record I had a passion for the show and the audience that was genuine and I would never have quit."

Update: Boxenbaum emails me:

My phone and e mail have been bombarded with calls from listeners who are confused as to why i was not on air after Tuesday. Some think I am ill with a sore throat. CJAD has been swamped with calls too. Nothing like what is likely going to follow after reality sets in to my listeners that they would be listening to syndicated radio from Monday on. I hope that Coast to Coast does as much for CJAD that it did for 940 radio under the guidance of PD Chris Bury. TG Gord Sinclair didn't have to see this time in history. Never send a boy to do a man's job.

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• The Team 940? Bell proposes frequency swap

Want to see Tommy Schnurmacher dancing?

Me neither. So don't press play on this video.

More of Tommy and Laura from the CJAD YouTube channel.

UPDATE: There's a sequel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zF-4X_eig

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• Andrew Cartwright leaves CJAD for Ottawa

November 2007 newspaper ad

This is part of an ad that appeared in The Gazette in November 2007, reassuring listeners after Standard Radio was purchased by Astral Media that their radio stations wouldn't suddenly change.

Since then:

• Two of these three stations have changed logos, making this ad all the more ironic
• All three have changed program directors (CJAD changed twice)
• CHOM has replaced its entire morning crew (at the time it was Terry, Ted and Kim)
• CJFM has replaced its entire branding with one that Astral purchased from England
• CJAD has fired a bunch of on-air staff

"Please be assured of our commitment to continue providing the same great listening pleasure you have come to enjoy," the ad said. "Respect for our broadcast audience and the public in general is a core value of Astral Media."

I'll leave it to you to judge, based on their subsequent actions, whether Astral Media stuck to their word.

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• Terry DiMonte’s first day at CHOM … again

• Name: Peter Anthony Holder
• Radio job: Former host of Holder Tonight on CJAD 800AM in Montreal, simulcast on CFRB 1010AM in Toronto
• Podcast: The Stuph File
• Podcast URL: http://www.thestuphfile.com
• Podcast feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/vxew (or by iTunes)
• Length: About 56 minutes
• Format: MP3
• Frequency: Weekly (airs and is released online on Mondays)
• Subject: Interviews, segments with regular guests, and strange news stories ("anything but politics," he explains)

Peter Anthony Holder

You could call Peter Anthony Holder a pioneer. That is, if he's successful.

On Aug. 5, Holder got the news, along with many others, that he was being let go from CJAD Radio. The overnight show Holder Tonight, which he hosted since 1990, had aired its last show the night before, and he didn't even know it at the time. He had to cancel the coming night's guest and go home.

As fans expressed outrage at CJAD's decision to let him go in whatever medium they could find to do so, Holder kept quiet. He had planned to go on vacation anyway, he explained on his blog a month later, so he just went ahead and did that, contemplating what he would do now.

He also defended CJAD's decision to fire people without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their listeners:

People who do live radio do not and should not get a chance to say goodbye. With 50,000 watts of raw power on two radio stations beaming across all of eastern Canada, into three Border States and beyond, no broadcast outlet in their right mind would give a talk show host who is about to be shown the door a chance to vent their spleen. That would be tantamount to being let go from a major corporation in a major metropolitan area and right after they escort you to the curb of their shiny high rise at high noon, they hand you a bull horn.

It seems incredible that someone who has had the same job for two decades - and in radio for most of his adult life (you can see his complete resume on his website) - would be so understanding about his own termination, but Holder points out that, in commercial radio, you're hired to be fired. The station looked at numbers being pumped out by these new electronic devices that people wear, and they were telling managers that Holder's show wasn't attracting enough to make him profitable anymore.

As you can imagine, Holder disagreed with that assessment. He knew there was a business model that could make the show work. But now it was up to him to figure it out.

Besides, he kept reading those strange news stories, and he needed an outlet to talk about them.

"The best part of my job was finding a bunch of weird and wacky people," Holder said. "After leaving CJAD, it was 'Oh, I have no reason to call somebody.'"

Holder said the idea of a podcast had been swimming around the back of his head for a while. "CJAD at any time can take away my airtime. They really can't take away my show. I said that at a time when there wasn't an outlet."

An idea

Then on Sept. 4, the day after Holder's blog post, Mitch Joel, the president of Montreal marketing firm Twist Image, a Gazette columnist and a podcaster himself, made a suggestion to Holder (and others in Holder's situation) on his marketing blog: Keep going, even if you don't have a salary or a radio show. Podcast your content, give it away free online, and keep your personal brand alive while you look at ways to make money again:

You do not need a radio station or any other mass media channel to give you permission to broadcast your talk-radio show to the world. It is called, "Podcasting" and you can do it for free (or close to it), and your loyal audience can now (finally) extend well beyond the borders of your previous employers limitations.

If you love what you do, and you do not know what your next professional move is, there is no reason not to keep your show going in Podcast format.

...

No, people like Holder will not make the same kind of money they made in radio from Podcasting, but they will be keeping their name in the public's eye and be able to build their personal brand while keeping their chops up. On top of that, "you never know" what kind of work and projects will come their way because of the fact that they didn't disappear into the ether (like many of their peers).

A week later, Holder did exactly that, uploading the first episode of his new podcast called The Stuph File. Joel was his first guest. "If they don't like this, you're to blame," Holder joked during the interview.

He promised a new show every week, an hour long, with the same kinds of stories his nightly CJAD show had, and even some of the same regulars. Steve Walsh, Our Man In The Heart Of America Checking The Pulse Of The Nation™, appears weekly, and each show ends with the Idiot of the Day.

The length of his show, though, presents problems for other former regulars. Instead of three hours five times a week, he has one hour once a week. So he has to be selective. Some appear monthly, or on an occasional basis, like Stuart Nulman and Andrew Fazekas.

One problem he doesn't have is finding people to be guests on his show, or finding content to fill it. He's developed so much good will over the years that people who know him don't question what kind of audience they'll get if they go on his program. "No one has said no," Holder said. "One guy in LA said to me 'I would book with you if you were doing this out of your garage for the neighbourhood kids.'"

If anything, Holder has too much to cram into an hour, a length he decided on because he figured it was the longest someone could sit through a podcast. "A lot of Stuph File stories didn't get read on the air," Holder said. "I could easily do three a week without putting any thought into it," but it would have to be worth his (financial) while to do so. He could even see it becoming a daily show, if only it gets enough financing.

Happiness is freedom

Holder has now released 19 episodes of his podcast, including last week's Christmas special. And he's not slowing down.

"I'm still doing what I do because I enjoy doing it," he said. "I couldn't enjoy it more. I have complete creative control, it sounds the way I want it to."

Even though the show is less than four months old, it's already expanded beyond the podcast. Holder has gotten it added to Cyberstation USA, where it's exposed to 200,000 listeners, Holder said. The show airs on the online radio station on Monday evenings, and Holder releases the podcast version shortly after it airs. The show can also be heard Wednesday afternoons on the air on World FM in New Zealand.

Mainly for that reason, he no longer calls it a podcast. It's now the "Stuph File Program".

These deals aren't bringing in enough money to put Holder in retirement (Holder wouldn't discuss any monetary specifics), but he hopes they're a step on the way to making this adventure profitable enough to support him.

The fact that he doesn't have much in the way of expenses certainly helps. His studio is already setup, he has no staff, and he doesn't need to spend money on any direct expenses related to the show. So unless you include home Internet access or electricity, all the money that comes in is pure profit (or, at least, host salary).

"I'm not looking to have another boss," Holder said. "Plain and simple."

Peter Anthony Holder does a report on Global Montreal

Until then, he's doing other stuff that does require having a boss, like working part-time at Global's CKMI Montreal, where he anchored the newscasts on Sunday.

How it works

"Sunshine is not a concern for me," says Holder, who still stays up late into the night despite it no longer being necessary to do so.

Holder records the Stuph File from a studio he setup in his home, originally to do freelance audio work on the side. On a mezzanine overlooking his living room, he has thick theatre curtains setup on runners like you'd find around a hospital bed. They serve to maximize sound insulation and minimize echo. A professional microphone, a sound mixer and a laptop computer are all he needs to produce the show.

Holder starts off by recording interviews with guests. Where on Holder Tonight he'd schedule the guests in advance (a bit difficult to do for locals since the show was on in the middle of the night, but easier for people in Europe or Asia), in the case of the podcast it's the other way around. He can edit the interviews later and then time his remaining segments to fit with them and keep the show to its length (56 minutes leaves about four minutes for additional advertising on the radio).

In all, Holder says he puts about 2-3 hours of work into each episode, not including the interviews or the time he spends on the Internet searching for stories.

Proud Montrealer

"I make it a point to mention where the show is coming from," Holder said. "Very proudly from Montreal, and very proudly from Canada."

He also makes sure not to dumb it down too much for listeners. When he used to work at Radio-Canada International, he said, it would always explain that Montreal is "the largest city in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec" on every mention.

The future

Holder doesn't have any magical ideas of what the future holds. He'll keep expanding his audience as much as he can, and look for ways to make it profitable. Maybe it will eventually become more frequent. That will depend on whether someone can make him an offer to do so.

Either way, he'll keep doing it, and he has no plans to ever retire.

"There are poeple who go to work because they have a job, and there are people who go to work because they are their job," Holder said. "It's impossible to get sick of it. Just the opposite. You work until you drop. That's always been my intent."

He joked that the last sound listeners would hear would be the thud as he expels his final breath and his freshly dead body hits the ground.

Let's hope we don't hear that soon.

UPDATE (July 4, 2010): Steve Hatton interviews Holder, and asks him about a rumoured return to radio which he says is just that: a rumour.

Fagstein's review

The good: Holder does research for his show, collecting stories, finding guests. He keeps it interesting, and he's a good interviewer. The show is also well edited and professionally produced.

The bad: Doing a show about funny news stories isn't terribly original (something Holder himself admits to, saying he's "not reinventing the wheel with this"), and he'll need some unique edge to attract a larger audience. Recycling some of the segments from his old radio show probably won't be the trick.

The ugly: The running gags, such as the routine we're forced to listen to every time Steve Walsh mentions a story from Wisconsin or Ohio, are excruciating to sit through. Holder defends the gags as something people expect and look forward to, but to me they're just annoying.

Also in this series:

• David Tyler Unleashed
• Melnick Underground
• The Kelly Alexander Show

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The skinny:

• Mike Bendixen, former CJAD programming director who took a temporary job doing the same at CFRB 1010 in Toronto, will remain there permanently.
• Steve Kowch, the man Bendixen replaced at CFRB (and who took Bendixen's job at CJAD in a rather ironic move), is out. His last day is Dec. 18. He had expected to be at CJAD until March. Now he can concentrate on writing a book, at least.
• Chris Bury takes over as PD/Interim News Director at CJAD on Jan. 4. Bury started at CJAD in 1998, but for most of this decade worked at 940 News. He became CINW's program director when it became 940 Hits.
• Mark Bergman becomes Interim Program Director of CJFM (Virgin Radio 96), replacing Bob Harris, who is leaving for Hamilton. Bergman is currently the assistant PD. Bergman will remain on his afternoon show with Chantal Desjardins.
• Mathew Wood, who managed promotions for all three stations, now focuses exclusively on CHOM.
• Melissa Mancuso, a promotions assistant, replaces Wood as Promotions Director at CJFM.
• Bianca Bayer becomes Promotions Coordinator for CJFM. (What's the difference between a Promotions Director and Promotions Coordinator? Beats me.)
• Lisa Fuoco becomes Promotions Director at CJAD, stripping "assistant" from her title.
• Peter McEntyre will assist Fuoco part-time. (McEntyre is also one of the hosts of CJAD's Irish Show)

VP/GM Martin Spalding explains the strategy, in case it's not obvious:

The strategy is to have a dedicated Program and Promotions Director for each station. This will enable CJAD, Virgin 96 and CHOM to compete independently, prosper and build strong brand identities within an aggressive and ever-evolving radio market.

Could it be that Astral Media is finally realizing that radio stations work better if they have their own brands and target audiences, and that the tag "an Astral Media radio station" doesn't impress anyone?

UPDATE (Dec. 10): The Suburban's Mike Cohen talks briefly with some of the figures in these changes.

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• Respect? Pleasure? On Montreal radio?
• Big media mergers remind us of past mistakes

A few days after declining to participate in an English-language debate hosted by CTV, Louise Harel willingly subjected herself to a one-hour interview on CJAD on Saturday afternoon.

CJAD hasn't posted audio of it online, but I recorded it and compiled the best of its unquotable moments. You can listen to it here: Louise Harel on CJAD (edited, MP3)

Her English wasn't just bad, it was atrocious. During the 30 minutes of interview, I counted a total of 19 times that host Anne Lagacé-Dowson suggested words that Harel was struggling to find. (In one case, it was the word "expensive".) At one point, Harel gave up entirely and gave an answer in French for the host to translate.

Perhaps Harel and her handlers never listened to the station, but I can think of no worse platform for a unilingual francophone ex-PQ minister and municipal merger advocate than the last great bastion of angryphonism.

It's noteworthy that Harel chose to come on the Saturday afternoon show of Lagacé-Dowson, the former CBC radio host who left the Corp to unsuccessfully bid for a seat in the House of Commons for the NDP. (She's now the permanent host 1-4pm on Saturdays.) Normally, high-profile guests sit with Tommy Schnurmacher on weekday mornings or Ric Peterson during the drive-home hours.

Stories about Harel's genuine but failed attempt to reach out to anglos appear in The Gazette and on CJAD's website. CTV's cameras were also in the studio. French media seems to have ignored the gesture entirely. The Gazette has some fun at Harel's expense, but even that is downright laudatory compared to some of the comments made by CJAD listeners who called in. One said she "exemplified hatred for the English-speaking community" and was "trying to destroy our community," while another used the word "racist" in describing PQ language policy. No wonder Harel said she was "afraid to speak in English" for fear of committing a major political faux pas and being branded something worse than a green-skinned witch.

All three stories about the discussion also mention the fact that she was 25 minutes late to the interview. (Her explanation was that she was giving another interview to a community radio station and couldn't get to the studio on time.) It was 1:21pm by my watch when she got in the studio, and she was at the microphone a minute later. She missed about 11 minutes of actual talk time, during which Lagacé-Dowson filled otherwise dead air with a biography of the Vision Montreal leader and took a couple of calls. Cutting out the ads, traffic and news breaks, Lagacé-Dowson and Harel talked for 30 minutes after she finally arrived.

Why bother?

I'm not quite sure why Harel decided to be interviewed on CJAD. Perhaps it was to prove a point that she doesn't hate anglophones. Perhaps it was just to get it over with. Or perhaps she lost a bet.

But listening to the interview, it becomes clear why Harel chose not to participate in an anglo television debate. She has literally nothing to gain from such an embarrassment. Her approval among anglophones according to the latest La Presse poll is an astonishingly low 6%, way below Gérald Tremblay and Richard Bergeron. I think George W. Bush has better support from anglo Montrealers. Stumbling through severe language difficulties to give un-nuanced explanations of why she supports policies that anglophones are most opposed to is an exercise in futility. "For Harel to try to debate in a language she doesn't really speak would have been an excruciating waste of time for both her and any listener who isn't a masochist," says Gazette columnist Don Macpherson.

CTV offered simultaneous translation, which would have given us something similar to what we had in the 1997 French leaders' debate where Preston Manning spoke in English to a French audience. That might have been easier for everyone involved, but it's easier still to simply write off a segment of the population you have no chance of winning anyway. The BQ and PQ don't campaign for anglo votes, so why should Harel?

Irrelevant? I think not

I don't think that mastery of the English language should be a requirement for being mayor of Montreal. The city has had mayors in the past whose English skills have been sorely lacking, and so far no civil wars have erupted. Richard Bergeron's English isn't all that much better.

But there's this talking point circulating among Harel supporters (and militant sovereignists) that the ability to speak English is completely irrelevant to the job of mayor.

Sorry, but it's not. No matter what the law or the city's constitution says, Montreal is a bilingual city. The national anthem at Canadiens games is sung in two languages, we pay for our shish taouk with bilingual money, and panhandlers start off their begging with "anglais/français?"

Harel herself is the first to admit that this lack of skill is a strike against her. The job of mayor isn't simply about creating legislation and voting in city hall meetings, it's about being a leader, about representing Montreal on the national and international stage, and (for better or for worse) about giving speeches, cutting ribbons and writing those letters you see on Page 2 of municipal newsletters and festival programs. And like it or not, these things require the use of English.

This same irrelevance argument is made about Harel's views on Quebec sovereignty. Even asking the question is considered "totally out of line." Since when is someone's political views irrelevant to politics? Sure, Montreal's mayor doesn't have the power to make a unilateral declaration of independence, but identity politics have defined political discourse here for decades, and there are plenty of related issues (language, for example) that do have an impact at the municipal level. Playing this not-my-jurisdiction game seems ludicrous to me. If Stephen Harper were asked a question about his views on health care or education during a campaign, would those too be considered "totally out of line" because those things are provincial jurisdiction? Of course not.

No platform

I get the point: We know she's a sovereignist, we know she can't speak English very well, and we know she brought in those forced municipal mergers (which, despite the stereotype, didn't just piss off anglophones in Montreal). We should be debating the "issues" instead. Looking forward, you know.

But we can't. Because over a week into the campaign, Vision Montreal hasn't released its platform yet. Neither has Tremblay's Union Montreal, although one can extrapolate their policies from the past eight years of governance.

And because Vision Montreal is a shell of a party that really has nothing to define itself by other than its revolving-door leadership post, we have to wait until a platfom is released to debate the issues. (Though apparently Harel and Trembaly don't - they already had a debate, with Jean-Luc Mongrain on LCN, before releasing any platforms.)

If Harel wants to move on and keep the momentum she's built up, and maybe even attract a few anglo votes on the issues that really matter, that platform needs to be released soon. And it better have some good ideas.

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• Montreal media endorsement tally
• Now it gets interesting
• Dear “Friends of Louise Harel”
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A little more than a month after he was unceremoniously canned as the overnight host on CJAD radio, Peter Anthony Holder has struck out on his own, starting a weekly podcast that can be downloaded from his website.

The inaugural edition, released Tuesday, runs just under an hour and features weird news, emails from listeners, and interviews. Familiar fare for those who listened to him.

The podcast was the idea of Mitch Joel, the new media marketing guy. He published a blog post suggesting that Holder and other former radio hosts start their own podcasts to keep their names (and voices) out there. (I was a bit skeptical about that advice, which sounds a lot like people should just work for free when they're fired from their paid jobs.) Holder took Joel up on the idea and Joel became the first guest on Holder's podcast.

You can listen to the first podcast here (MP3). Unfortunately, there's no podcast feed setup yet (Holder's website long predates content management systems and is flat HTML), but hopefully he'll set one up soon so people can subscribe.

Holder went dark when news of his dismissal broke, giving terse responses to questions and refusing to comment further. Eventually he opened up to The Gazette's Kathryn Greenaway and published a post on his blog about it, saying that he had vacation planned and was going to take it easy for a while before deciding on his next move.

(via Radio in Montreal)

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Steve Kowch: CFRB to CJAD

Mike Bendixen: CJAD to CFRB

Who knows why people in commercial radio make their decisions anymore. But as if to emphasize the point that Montreal's CJAD and Toronto's CFRB talk radio stations are completely interchangeable in the eyes of Astral Media, the two stations have switched program directors.

Last week, after having to make painful cuts in staff to CFRB radio personalities, program director Steve Kowch learned that he too would be one of the casualties. CJAD program director Mike Bendixen, who himself just had to make painful cuts, was immediately sent to Toronto to replace him.

Now we learn that Kowch has accepted a six-month contract to be program director at CJAD after mulling it over for a bit.

The timing suggests that this is a demotion for Kowch and a promotion for Bendixen (no doubt reflecting how Astral feels about the Toronto and Montreal anglophone markets), but I'm sure Astral will find some positive way to spin all this that doesn't make anyone look bad, assuming they even bother to issue a press release at all.

Kowch's Twitter post says he'll meet the staff on Friday and start his new job on Tuesday (after Labour Day).

Feel free to include a comment below about how middle managers always seem to land on their feet.

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• Astral strikes again
• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
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• CJAD loses Habs broadcasts to Team 990

Those who threatened to switch to a Corus station after the CJAD cuts, and then threatened to switch to an Astral station after the CFQR cuts, can now threaten to switch back to a Corus station, I guess.

Or you could switch to the CBC. Until they make cuts again.

UPDATE (Aug. 29): CFRB Program Director Steve Kowch has also been relieved of his duties. He will be replaced by Mike Bendixen, who leaves the program director job at CJAD.

Angie Coss is also leaving CJAD, it was announced. It's unclear why.

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Montreal's news/talk station has canned four of its shows:

• Kevin & Trudie (Kevin Holden and Trudie Mason), weekdays 2-4pm
• Holder Tonight (Peter Anthony Holder), weeknights midnight to 3am
• The Laurie & Olga Show (Laurie MacDonald and Olga Gazdovic), Saturdays 1-4pm
• Solid Gold Saturdays with Al Gravelle, Saturdays 4-10pm

In all, The Gazette reports, eight on-air personalities are leaving the station:

• Peter Anthony Holder, overnight host
• Laurie MacDonald, Laurie & Olga host
• Olga Gazdovic, Laurie & Olga host
• Kevin Holden, Kevin & Trudie host
• Al Gravelle, Solid Gold Saturdays host
• Jake Lawrence, Solid Gold Sunday Nights host
• Kathryn Coulombe, news anchor
• Rod Dewar, editorialist

Trudie Mason will remain with the station, expanding her morning news role.

Holder was the latest to get the news... yesterday. He received so little notice that he had to cancel a booked guest. Holder confirmed he's been fired but wouldn't comment further (UPDATE: See below). Laurie MacDonald told The Gazette they were told to give in their pass keys as soon as they were told they were fired.

As for what's taking their places:

• Dan Laxer will be taking the Kevin and Trudie spot from 2-4 weekdays
• Laxer's weekday evening slot is taken over by a syndicated show, The Ryan Doyle Show, from CFRB
• Ray Scott takes over Solid Gold Sundays from Jake Lawrence
• Former CBC host Anne Lagacé-Dowson takes over (on an interim basis) the spot left by Laurie & Olga at 1-4 Saturdays
• Saturday evenings will have "weekend" versions of weekday shows

Bendixen says other announcements will be forthcoming "in the next couple weeks." Operations Manager Bob Harris told The Gazette that negotiations are ongoing.

Sports reporter Rob Martier has also left CJAD to move back to Chicago, though that move was for personal reasons and is unrelated to the shakeup.

More coverage:

• CBC.ca
• Coolopolis mourns the loss of Holder Tonight
• RadioInMontreal has some info from local radio watcher Sheldon Harvey
• The Suburban business columnist David Lisbona argues it's just business

UPDATE (Aug. 11): Holder talks to The Gazette's Kathryn Greenaway, saying "they can only fire you, they can't kill you." Holder's fans are making themselves heard loud and clear, starting up a Facebook group, Facebook cause and commenting en masse on his Facebook wall. The Gazette piece resulted in lots of feedback from readers.

And The Mirror points us to "Why CJAD sucks", published exactly 10 years ago this week.

Meanwhile, Kim Fraser, who survived the cuts, responds to criticism of her on the Radio in Montreal group.

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• Podcast Plan B: The Stuph File with Peter Anthony Holder
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Two of them are from Montreal:

• Charlie Edwards Award (Spot News) - CJAD 800 for Montreal North Riots
• Sam Ross Award (Editorial/Commentary) - CBC News: Montreal for Daycare Fees

I also note that one winner is the A-Channel station in Windsor, which CTV decided to pull the plug on until Shaw came in to rescue it.

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From the National Film Board's archives, a cute little 1987 film by Michel Choquette about the history of the Victoria Bridge, starring the voices of Terry DiMonte and Patti Lorange on a pretend radio show for a fictional Montreal station.

And as a special related bonus, the 1972 Barrie Howells film Trafficopter, which follows CJAD traffic reporter Len Rowcliffe high above the city.

There, isn't it good to learn something?

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Here's the email announcing the program:

CJAD's program director takes your calls, answers your questions

I strongly feel that CJAD 800 is your radio station and I know that you have questions about how it's run, so for the first time ever I'll be taking your calls. We're calling it the "State of the Station" and it will happen this Thursday October 30th from 10:00am to 11:00am on the Tommy Schnurmacher Show. A full hour for you to call in and get answers to the questions you've always wanted to ask. Oh, and it's also a chance for you to let me know what you like and love about the station!

So, make sure to book this special hour on your calendars and make sure to tell friends and family. And don't forget that you can listen on-line at cjad.com

Expect old anglos grumbling to the radio station filled with grumbling old anglos that they're not grumbling enough about being old and anglo.

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• Andrew Cartwright leaves CJAD for Ottawa