As you can see, not much has changed in the local anglo radio landscape. CJFM Virgin Radio still dominates, with CFQR second and CHOM third. This graph shows weekly reach, which means the number of people who listen to the station at least once a week.

This one shows average minute audience for the stations, which weighs how long people listen to each station. Here, Virgin's dominance is clear and it continues to grow.

Probably of greatest interest over the past year is the morning ratings, particularly since changes have happened to all three music stations' morning teams. As you can see, not much difference in the 6-9am spot, except for a drop in Andrew Carter's morning show on CJAD, and slight rises in the Q's Aaron Rand and Team 990's morning show.

In the afternoons, little change there as well, except for a drop in Ric Peterson's show on CJAD and a spike for Mitch Melnick on The Team 990, CKGM.

There are other places to analyze the franco ratings, and in most cases there's as little change as on the anglo side, but this chart is telling - NRJ has jumped from second to first, beating out overall leader Rythme FM. This is primarily due to the new guys NRJ brought in in the middle of January (the midpoint of the earlier ratings period): Les Grandes Gueules. (Astral is, of course, very happy about this.) If there was any doubt about the Gueules' power to bring in an audience, this should remove it.

Related Posts

• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
• Les Grandes Gueules return to radio
• Virgin Radio branding hasn’t helped CJFM’s ratings
• Lisa Player stops playing
• Natasha Gargiulo joins Virgin Radio morning show

On Feb. 1, the station rebranded itself, promising more and better music, though without being too specific about it.

Whatever they did, it isn't working. According to the latest ratings numbers, CHOM is losing listeners just about everywhere.

The ratings cover the period from Nov. 30 to Feb. 28, which means only about a third of the latest ratings period covers the "new CHOM", but it gives the first indications of how listeners reacted to the format change, and that reaction isn't good.

Astral Media, which compiles ratings information into boring webcasts, has created charts showing numbers for the Montreal region. They're not complete (and, for those interested, they don't give very useful information about non-commercial stations like CBC), but for the commercial market, it gives a good perspective of what's going on.

CHOM, like CJFM and CJAD, is an Astral Media radio station, though the numbers come from BBM.

The chart above shows adults 18-49, a key demographic for advertisers. You can see that CHOM has dropped from second to third, and now sits behind Corus's CFQR in the ratings (this will be a common theme in the numbers below). In the slightly older 25-54 bracket, it's the same story, although there CFQR, CHOM and CJAD are neck-and-neck-and-neck with 21% market share each. CJFM holds a commanding lead with 33%.

CHOM is still #1 among men 25-54, but CJFM has virtually eliminated its lead over the past six months, and sits at an uncomfortably close second. Among women 25-54, it's fourth, and the only station among the big four to lose listeners in the last ratings period.

In the mornings, we see that CHOM has dropped from being a close third to fourth, behind CFQR. While the other stations are gaining listeners or stable, CHOM is clearly losing listeners in large numbers.

This is significant because Ted Bird left at the beginning of January, and Chantal Desjardins came on at the same time. So two thirds of that blue bar represent the new morning team.

It's not just the mornings. For every time block Astral's report included (all of them for age 25-54), CHOM has lost listeners, and in most cases has dropped below CFQR in the ratings game:

• Late mornings: CHOM has dropped from second to third, behind CJFM and now CFQR.
• Lunch hour: CHOM has dropped from second to third, behind CJFM and now CFQR. CJFM now has almost twice as many listeners as CHOM during this time slot.
• Early afternoons: CHOM has dropped from second to third, behind CJFM and now CFQR.
• Drive home: While still holding on to second place, it has lost a lot of ground to leader CJFM, which is the only anglo commercial station to show marked improvement.
• Weekends: CHOM has dropped from third to fourth, behind CJFM, CJAD and now CFQR, losing 20% of its listeners) in only three months.

CHOM program director Daniel Tremblay didn't respond to a request for comment about what this might mean for the future of programming on the station.

Related Posts

• Terry DiMonte’s first day at CHOM … again
• CHOM’s new schedule adds Terry DiMonte, Heather Backman in mornings
• Pete Marier leaves CHOM over contract dispute
• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
• Claude Rajotte on CHOM? No, but …

"Reach" (listening at least one minute a week), in thousands, for Montreal radio stations.

Astral Media, which owns CJFM (Virgin Radio 95.9), CITE (Rock Détente 107.3), CKMF (Énergie 94.3), CHOM (97.7) and CJAD (800), has put together some graphical representations (PDF) of the latest ratings for Montreal radio stations. (via RadioInMontreal)

In terms of "reach", which counts the same if you listen to a station for five minutes or six hours, Cogeco's CFGL Rythme FM 105.7 still leads all others in the city, thanks mostly to huge numbers of female listeners (CKOI leads among young men) and CJFM has leapfrogged into second thanks, I guess, to non-stop Katy Perry and Lady Gaga that have put the 18-24 bracket in a trance. Otherwise, the rankings are about the same as they were three months ago.

Anglo market share: CJFM, CHOM, CFQR, CJAD, CKGM

On the anglo side, this "commercial market share" graph (which doesn't include CBC - Radio One and Two would be fourth and fifth on this graph), CJFM holds its commanding lead among adults 18-49, with a stronger showing for its morning show (CBC Radio One says it's a strong second in the morning, ahead of CJAD)

Demographic map of radio stations: X axis for age, Y axis for gender

I particularly liked this chart, which shows what demographics the stations are tuned to. There's a huge chunk in the older women category, while the rock stations appeal to younger men. Note CJFM and CFGL sitting pretty much alone targetting younger women listeners. Perhaps there's a lesson there.

Q92 relaunch didn't change much

Looking specifically at CFQR, because this is a pretty good before-and-after with their relaunch in April, there's not much to say. They've improved, but only to keep pace with everyone else:

• The morning show and Terry DiMonte's phoned-in nooner have slightly improved numbers, perhaps showing that not doing anything is the best thing to do (UPDATE: Apparently not good enough, DiMonte's show has been cancelled)
• Late morning and early afternoon are failing to keep pace after shuffles
• Adding Donna Sarker to Ken Connors's afternoon drive-time show has helped it gain considerable ground on CJFM, but CHOM improved as well to stay in second
• It's the most improved of the big four anglo stations on the weekend (Leta Polson hosts on weekend afternoons), but it's still in fourth place

Related Posts

• The Beat is on – but is 92.5FM* any different?
• Aaron Rand moves to CJAD afternoons
• Nat Lauzon jumps to the Q
• Aaron Rand moves on
• No way to treat your listeners

Though everyone at what used to be Mix 96 was really excited about owner Astral Media stripping out their (admittedly lame and generic) branding to replace it with one they bought form the British, ratings figures since CJFM's new brand launch in January have shown little change for the station.

BBM figures for Dec. 1 to March 1 (PDF) using their new fancy-shmancy portable people meters show it has 16% of the anglo Montreal market, putting it behind powerhouse CJAD but ahead of its direct competition. Over the past few years, CJFM's share of the anglo market has drifted between 13% and 20%. There was a slight uptick compared to figures from before the relaunch, resulting in about 8,000 more daily listeners, or an increase of about 1%. But that's still well within the usual margin for error in radio ratings.

If Astral expected an audience jump from the change, it didn't get one. But there wasn't a widespread abandonment of the station either. When it comes down to it, people don't care about the branding, so long as the music is the same.

For the French side of the recent radio ratings, Le Devoir has the numbers.

Related Posts

• Radio ratings: Not much change, but a nice period for Team 990
• Lisa Player stops playing
• Natasha Gargiulo joins Virgin Radio morning show
• Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM
• Astral’s Martin Spalding on Terry DiMonte, CHOM, CJAD and Virgin Radio

Fortunately for them most of their programming is produced out of Toronto and Montreal.

Related Posts

• CBC gets to keep some analog TV running
• Mike Finnerty returns to CBC Daybreak (UPDATED)
• Radio ratings: Not much change, but a nice period for Team 990
• “New CHOM” is hemorrhaging listeners
• CBC Radio’s new news chime

I think we should take a step back here. 25% seems large, but only represents about 6,000 actual viewers. CBC Montreal's news audience is still an order of magnitude smaller than CTV, which has dominated the race since CBC gutted Newswatch.

Though I'm sure Cavallaro has a loyal audience, the numbers probably have more to do with people slowly trickling back to CBC after the network decided to bring back a local one-hour newscast. And the station still has plenty of ground to make up. It needs a new studio (well, actually, it needs its own studio), a graphics department, and other things that only money can buy.

Meanwhile, The Suburban notices that Paul Graif, a victim of Global Quebec's job cuts, is now at CTV. Another example of why we have one local news program here and two pretend local news programs.

Related Posts

• We must do something about the poor reporters
• Even more details about Montreal’s digital TV transition
• Ratings: CFCF dominates, but CBMT’s happy
• The Alouettes parade and the two solitudes
• Alouettes parade to get live coverage on TV

(The figures are for the island, not the metropolis, since Metro is only distributed in the city's core.)

The figures seem to represent a national trend, as free dailies are seeing huge increases in readership, and that increase, along with modest gains from the Globe and Post, are helping to raise the overall average of newspaper readership in Canada.

So call this one a victory for bite-size news with no analysis, and newspapers with no few journalists spewing out wire copy by the cheap.

Related Posts

• Metro screws up, but it’s just the wrong name
• Métro turns 10
• Goodbye Métro, hello 24 Heures
• Radio ratings: Not much change, but a nice period for Team 990
• Life imitates art