This post has been corrected.
Last year, when Quebec City’s Leclerc Communication agreed to buy two radio stations from RNC Media, fans of Montreal’s 91.9 Sports (CKLX-FM) were upset that the new owner planned to turn their sports-talk station into a popular music station with the same format as Quebec City’s WKND (coincidentally also at 91.9).
The transaction failed because the CRTC wouldn’t agree to Leclerc buying CHOI-FM in the provincial capital while holding on to WKND and Blvd 102.1.
Now, Leclerc is trying again, and this one will probably prompt even more upset listeners. It has agreed to purchase Radio Classique 99.5 from Gregory Charles, and will turn it into a WKND station instead.
The transaction does not include CJSQ-FM 92.7, Radio Classique’s sister station in Quebec City, which will remain in Charles’s hands, as will the radioclassique.ca website. Charles says in an interview with La Presse that he hopes to find a different buyer for that station to turn it into something else as well.
Shortly after the announcement, the CRTC published the associated application, which sets the purchase price at $3.88 million. That’s only 57% of the $6.78 million it was priced at when Charles bought it in 2015.
While there’s no Quebec City element that would cause competition concerns, CJPX is required by condition of licence to operate in a specialty format, and Leclerc is applying for a change in its licence to remove that requirement. The commission may or may not be crazy about replacing a specialty music station with a loyal audience with yet another pop station, as much as Leclerc promises its format is different.
In the meantime, it’s status quo at Radio Classique in Montreal, just as it was with 91.9 Sports.
Gregory Charles bought CJPX and CJSQ from founder Jean-Pierre Coallier in 2015. Charles admitted in the La Presse interview that he paid too much for the station at the time. But he also said he wasn’t looking to sell until Leclerc came to him with an offer.
Charles also seems to suggest that he thinks CJSQ can still be a success without its bigger brother, which would be quite a challenge, especially considering how much content is shared between the two stations. He says the Quebec City market is more stable, while most of the Montreal audience listens online.
For tangible benefits, Leclerc is proposing the usual 6% minimum, broken down in the standard way between music development funds, the Community Radio Fund of Canada and discretionary initiatives that haven’t been determined yet. The total comes out to $293,350 over seven years, but Leclerc is also proposing to take over $219,514 of the $340,121 remaining in tangible benefits from that 2015 transaction (the rest will stay with Charles and CJSQ).
The deal also includes $100,000 worth of advertising for Charles on CJPX in the two years after it closes.
Will the CRTC accept the transaction? It’s hard to tell, and will depend on the resistance it meets. Previous attempts to transform 91.9 Sports and TSN 690 failed not because of angry submissions by loyal fans, but because they were part of larger transactions that failed to go through.
The commission is also usually reluctant to replace a specialty station with a pop music station unless it can be demonstrated that the only alternative is the station shutting down.
With CJPX, that argument could be made. The application says the station has not made money since it was purchased (exact numbers are confidential) and “has no hope of recovery without a repositioning of the station.” Its already modest advertising revenues were $2 million in 2012-13 and $1.3 million in 2017-18.
Radio Classique CJPX-FM average minute audience 2015-17 (Source: Numeris)
And despite efforts by Charles, including bringing in celebrity hosts like Bernard Derome and Marc Hervieux, the station’s audience share has tumbled 20-30% in five years, depending how you count it. In 2017 it stopped subscribing to Numeris ratings.
If the commission can be convinced that there aren’t other options for the continued survival of a classical radio station in Montreal, or that a third player in the mainstream commercial music space is more important, then it would likely approve the transaction and licence change.
The application has been posted and the CRTC is accepting interventions until Dec. 19 (note that all information submitted, including contact information, becomes part of the public record). The application is being officially heard (though so far without the presence of the parties) at the same Feb. 12 hearing in Montreal when it is considering the proposed purchase of V by Bell Media.
See also: I summarize the application and provide more context in this story for Cartt.ca, available to its subscribers.
Correction: An earlier version of this post quoted La Presse as saying Gregory Charles wants to keep his Quebec City station. In fact, the story says he wants to sell that station as well.
My beef with Leclerc is their use of a fake American call sign to name the format of their radio station. The CRTC should forbid this as it gets confusing. When you read WKND in the Numeris rating reports you’d thing that an American station recieved in Quebec city became a member of Numeris.
Numeris reports use callsigns, not brand names. So WKND would be listed as CJEC-FM.
Why would anybody think that a U.S. station can broadcast into Quebec City ?
Worst news of the day for me. I don’t own a car, but rent some on occasion, and I found Radio-Classique to be soothing when stuck in the madness called traffic. We don’t need yet another pop station.
This is huge. CJPX 99.5 is a really good classical music station. One of my favourite stations while driving, as well as WBTZ-FM 99.9.
I’m sure there is going to be a push back from fans of CJPX-FM. What is it with Leclerc Communications and the constant head winds they face entering the Montreal market. First attempt was trying to buy CKLX-FM 91.9 and converting it from a sports station. Sports fans got upset. Now this.
I guess the only options for full time classical music fans in Montreal is going to be
CBF-FM 95.1-HD2 and WVPS-FM 107.9-HD2
But not everybody has a HD Radio in their car. Such as myself.
It would be nice if they activated HD Radio, and placed their (OuiKND) music format on HD2, and left the classical music format on Analog / HD1.
The only other choice classical music is CMB-FM 93.5. Though not full time but for a a major part of the day it can satisfy classical music fans. Though for those who want classical music in the evening they would be forced to head online.
A loyal but small (and slowly dying off) audience isn’t something that makes a business roll. From what I could gather from the radio ratings you have published in the past, it appears to be getting less than a couple of hundred listeners per hour. That’s not going to pay the bills very well.
I am sure you are correct, the CRTC will be reluctant to allow a change of format, until they review some of the points raised. As Charles mentions, most of the listeners these days are on the web and not over the air, which makes holding a valuable resource of the public airwaves for what is essentially narrowcasting isn’t to anyone benefit.
There is also the question about the WKND format. Clearly it’s something that isn’t in the Montreal market, but that has proven to be reasonably popular in Quebec City. The format might bring a little more diversity to what is considered pop music or a pop station in Montreal. The mega corporations that control most of the marketplace could really use some competition.
I knew it was too good to be true: I finally found a station that gave me exactly what I wanted, music that I liked to listen to and would have in the background of my office all day and every day. It was pleasant writing charts when everyone was gone. Asan English-speaking person I learned all the advertisements in French and got to like them. Friday mornings I learned about music in Montreal with Chantal Lavoie. Now, I feel abandoned……..and to a pop station to make it worse. For my last two cars I never had to learn to use the radio buttons for pre-selected channels – I only needed the one. I am very disappointed …… I understand the monetary problems but I remain disappointed.
If Charles wanted CJPX off his hands, why didnt he pitch it to the Znaimers? Classical 96.3 has been growing nicely, with repeaters in Cobourg for eastern ON, and Collingwood for cottage country. I’m sure Znaimer would have loved to add Quebec and Montreal to their reach.
Just hire someone to oversee Francophone operations.
As for the CBC, Radio 2 used to have excellent programming for classical fans. They made some changes a few years back and have been, frankly a waste of taxpayers money for the most part. and that goes double for what they used to call Chaine Culturelle. Thedir programming now is atrocious.
Would the Znaimers have been willing to pay $3.88 million for a French-language money-losing classical music station in Montreal?
Very very disappointed. Feel like we have been betrayed
The only radio station both at home and in the car we enjoyed thoroughly.
Why were we not told and kept informed as loyal listeners???
Totally let down by the owner….. he could have taken other approaches to keep us.
DO NOT NEED ANOTHER POP MUSIC STATION—–PLEASE
Sourene
Deeply disappointed to have lost my classical music station.
Early morning is simply not the same anymore.
Where can I find an FM classical music station in Montreal.
I am extremely disappointed. C’était vraiment la plus belle musique sur la bande FM, and now there’s nothing to replace it while driving my stressed wife to work (une infirmière). Sans la musique classique les embouteillages sont maintenant insupportables. I really hope that CBC will extend their weekend classical programming to at least weekday’s rush-hour.
Bought a new car yesterday, I started to search the familiar melodies, and Been shocked to hear it’s now a pop station.
Montreal had just lost a piece of her charm!