Category Archives: Radio

| Montreal, Radio

Lisa Player stops playing

UPDATE: Lisa Player’s last day at CJFM was Friday. You can listen to her goodbye message, delivered just before 9am, on her final blog post on Virgin Radio’s website. They’ve also posted a video of the same speech.

Lisa Player is leaving Montreal for Northern Ontario

As I sat in the conference room at Astral’s studio on Fort St., interviewing people for my article in The Gazette on the change in the morning show at Virgin Radio, the discussion turned to how unusual it is for radio personalities to stay in the same job for long. For some reason, Montreal seems to be an exception, perhaps because of its two languages or because it has a particular connection to its media.

Still, at CJFM, most of the voices are new. “Freeway” Frank Depalo, Andrea Collins and Nikki Balch have been there less than a year. “Cousin” Vinny Barrucco and Tony Stark not much longer than that. Mark Bergman has been around for a while, but he’s behind the scenes now.

So when Lisa Player leaves her post as the morning show co-host at Virgin Radio (she and Kelly Alexander are the only hosts to predate the name – unless you include MC Mario), her seven-year tenure is remembered as being exceptionally long (she says it’s the longest she’s ever had a job in radio) and relatively short by the standards of people like Aaron Rand, Terry DiMonte, Tootall and Andrew Carter.

A look at this video posted less than two years ago, and you see that of the nine personalities, listed, only two (plus Player) are still on the air here.

Continue reading →

| Montreal, Radio

Natasha Gargiulo joins Virgin Radio morning show

"Freeway" Frank Depalo and Natasha Gargiulo form the new CJFM morning team

After just under a week of anticipation, Virgin Radio (CJFM 95.9FM) announced Thursday morning at 7:10am that Natasha Gargiulo is going to be the new morning co-host in the new year, taking the place of the departing Lisa Player. Starting Jan. 3, she will co-host Freeway and Natasha in the Morning with “Freeway” Frank Depalo.

You can listen to audio of the announcement and a chat with Gargiulo here (MP3).

Virgin Brand Director Mark Bergman graciously allowed me to break the news a few hours early so it could be in Thursday morning’s Gazette. It was, surprisingly enough, the first time I had been inside the Virgin studio with its giant branding star (and a giant CHOM logo in the hallway visible through a window), and I got a chance to talk to Gargiulo, Depalo, Player and Bergman about this big change.

Meet Natasha

First, an introduction to the new girl. She’s definitely not new to the station. She started at what was then Mix 96 way back in 2000, and was so desperate to get into the industry she worked for free.

“I gave up a really good job in university to do telemarketing at night and work for free (in the Mix promotions department). My parents thought I was crazy,” Gargiulo told me during our chat in a conference room in Astral’s Fort St. offices.

She continued working at CJFM until she was hired at Global Quebec in 2003. (“I always wanted to be on television,” she says.) From there she worked as a weather presenter and an entertainment reporter for Global’s local newscast. She also got other gigs, including working for Entertainment Tonight Canada, hosting Ciao Montreal on ethnic station CJNT (back when it and Global were both owned by Canwest), and a few other television gigs.

About a year and a half ago she came back to CJFM as a contributor to the afternoon drive show with “Cousin” Vinny Barrucco. Since then her role has expanded to de facto co-host of that show. She also filled in on the morning show this summer while Lisa was on vacation. Those two facts had led some people to correctly speculate that she’d be a strong candidate for the job.

As for the afternoon show, Bergman says Barrucco will continue it solo for the time being. There are no immediate plans to give him another co-host.

In addition to all her other activities, Gargiulo is also a mother. You can see a video done for ET Canada of her and Leticia, now 15 months, at a photo shoot earlier this year.

Many jobs

Here’s the part where I question this young lady’s sanity. In addition to a radio gig that requires being at work at 5am five days a week, and the hectic, inflexible schedule that comes with being a mother, Gargiulo says she will continue working for ET Canada.

“I figured I can’t put all my eggs in one basket,” Gargiulo said of having so many things going on at once. “If Ryan Seacrest can do it, why can’t I?”

Not that she’s some sort of superhero. She credits her “very supportive husband” for allowing her the flexibility to jet off on weekends to do entertainment reporting.

Besides, she says: “My motto is never say no, because you never know how long this ride is going to last.”

That’s certainly true. Though some radio personalities in Montreal seem to last forever, most don’t last a decade. Case in point is CJFM itself. It’s turned over most of its daytime staff in the past year (losing Cat Spencer, Heather Backman and Nat Lauzon) and just about everyone since the station became Virgin Radio in 2009.

Target demo

Not that Gargiulo’s stint should be considered temporary. Bergman, at least, is happy with her appointment.

“I think Natasha is a young Montreal working mom who lives everything that the Virgin Radio brand represents: fun, entertainment, she’s into social media, pop culture. I think she’s a great reflection of the typical virgin radio listener.”

If that sounds a bit like a radio program director, it’s because that’s what it is. Bergman is up front about the fact that this is about targetting a key demographic, which is like Gargiulo: Young mothers, people who enjoy hit music and have the spending power to please advertisers.

No big changes

Asked what, other than the personality, would be changing with the new so, everyone involved agreed that there wasn’t going to be any drastic changes. But the team is constantly discussing new ideas and could put some of them into force slowly in the new year. But even then, don’t expect fundamental changes. They’re still the number-one music radio station, and they don’t need to reinvent themselves to improve.

“We wanted four words people would think of about the show,” Bergman said about the more philosophical thoughts. The words they came up with are fun, real, local and entertaining.

“If we can accomplish those four goals, we’ll be happy,” Bergman said.

“The show is always evolving,” said Depalo. “I’ve only been here seven months, so this is not it.”

Natasha Gargiulo starts Jan. 3. You can follow her on Twitter at @NatashaGargiulo.

UPDATE: Lots of congrats for Gargiulo on Twitter and Facebook. If you want to read the announcement in press release form, Astral Media has posted it to their website.

See also: Lisa Player stops playing

| Radio

Radio ratings: A good fall for Cogeco and CKGM

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.
| Radio

Sherbrooke radio station shuts down

On Tuesday morning, Cogeco announced that CJTS-FM 104.5, the station in Sherbrooke it was forced to sell as part of its acquisition of Corus Quebec assets, has been shut down because it hasn’t found a buyer. The station, along with two in Quebec City that have found buyers, were under the management of a trustee.

The closing leaves 12 people out of work, and Cogeco is not offering them jobs elsewhere.

Coverage at the Journal de Sherbrooke, La Tribune and Cogeco Nouvelles.

CJTS-FM used to be CKOY-FM, and a sister station of Montreal’s CKOI. When the Cogeco deal closed on Feb. 1, it moved the CKOI format and branding to CHLT-FM 107.7. That station is now CKOY-FM. CJTS picked up the Souvenirs Garantis format, which it held until noon on Tuesday when it shut down.

Cogeco’s original plan for the station, which they hoped would satisfy CRTC commissioners, was to turn it into a retransmitter of CKAC Sports. That would have made things interesting when CKAC was turned into an all-Montreal-traffic station.

The other two stations Cogeco was forced to sell, CJEC-FM (Rythme FM 91.9) and CFEL-FM (CKOI 102.1) in Quebec City, were sold to businessman Jacques Leclerc.

Cogeco also announced on Tuesday that it purchased Métromédia CMR Plus Inc., a company that does advertising for public transit systems, including Montreal. (It’s not to be confused with Métromédia CMR Montréal Inc. or Métromédia CMR Broadcasting Inc., which were holding companies for Corus Quebec radio stations including CFQR, CKOI and CHMP, and have since been amalgamated as Cogeco Diffusion Acquisitions Inc. Both Métromédias were started in the early 90s by Pierre Beland and Pierre Arcand.)

UPDATE (Dec. 15): Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Péladeau confirms (after Agence QMI somehow managed to “learn” about it) that Groupe TVA submitted a bid to buy the station. Normally the CRTC doesn’t allow the same company to own a major newspaper, a TV station and a radio station in the same market. Quebecor does own a weekly, the Journal de Sherbrooke, but no daily paper there, which I suppose Quebecor would use to argue it should be allowed to own it. Still, it would have been the media giant’s first radio station.

Cogeco wouldn’t confirm it, because such bids are confidential, but it says no bids met the criteria set by the liquidator. It would be interesting to see which one it didn’t meet.

| Montreal, Radio

Rejected AM radio stations preparing Plan B

Two weeks after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission issued a decision that awarded licenses for two new AM radio stations and rejected two others for lack of available frequencies, the two groups who had applications rejected are studying their options.

Cogeco: No final decision

Metromedia (owned by Cogeco Diffusion), which in September launched a French-language all-traffic station on CKAC 730, had its application for an English station on 940 kHz rejected because “the Commission is not satisfied that the proposed service would represent the best use of a high-power AM frequency in Montréal,” and the group said it would not accept the other frequency that was available as part of the hearing, 990 kHz. Still, the commission suggested Cogeco reapply for another frequency.

Now Cogeco is planning what to do next. Mark Dickie, who is the general manager for CKBE The Beat and part of the committee planning the anglophone traffic station, said he’s been in regular meetings since, but no final decision has been made on whether to reapply. Another meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.

There are many factors that suggest Cogeco will reapply for another frequency despite its earlier assertion that only a clear channel would work. For one thing, the station is part of an agreement between Cogeco and the Ministry of Transport, which would pay the broadcaster $1.5 million a year to operate the station. Though the agreement requires the station to have coverage around the Montreal area, how that’s determined is not clearly defined.

A similar agreement governs the French all-traffic station, which is also worth $1.5 million a year for Cogeco. Because the agreements are the same for both languages (meaning their value is based on the cost of providing the service, not the potential audience) and because there are no guaranteed minimums in terms of audience reach, it’s clear the ministry doesn’t actually care how many people listen to the station, just that it’s there.

Guilaume Paradis, spokesperson for Transport Quebec, told me they are awaiting another submission from Cogeco, and that “we will study it,” but that they still want to see an English all-traffic station in Montreal.

When asked about specifics, Paradis said that they are not experts in radio broadcasting, which is why they hired Cogeco to do the job in the first place, and they will leave the details of how such a station would reach the Montreal area to Cogeco.

The agreement between Cogeco and the government originally called for both stations to be operational by Oct. 31. That was amended with a new deadline of Feb. 29 in light of the elongated CRTC process. Clearly that will need to be amended again if the project is to continue.

Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy will reapply

The other group, 7954689 Canada Inc., known as Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media, scored a half-victory at the CRTC, getting clear-channel 940 kHz for a French-language news-talk station, but the English station was rejected for lack of available frequencies (like Cogeco, the TTP group rejected 990 as an option).

One of the group’s partners, Paul Tietolman, originally wouldn’t comment on their plans, but now says the group will make an application for another frequency. He wouldn’t say what frequency that is, but did suggest it would be a unique technical setup (perhaps not limited to one frequency or one transmitter), without going into details.

Tietolman said many people have already approached the group expressing an interest in joining them. They are currently in the process of setting up their management team, who will then hire talent.

He said the goal is still to have the station running by fall of 2012.

Asked whether the group is sticking to its stance that it would not proceed with a radio station in one language without getting approval for the other, Tietolman would say only that he expects everything will work out, and that a solution has been found that will make everyone happy.

Meanwhile, the group has applied for an FM radio station in Calgary, one of 11 applications for FM stations on a few remaining vacant frequencies in that city. The application is for a music station that would be based on current and classic hits (from Katy Perry to the Beach Boys), based on requests, and with commitments to promote emerging Canadian artists as well as comedians. It would also hire 12 journalists and have newscasts 24 hours a day.

Tietolman said other applications are coming for other cities.

| Montreal, Radio

Claude Rajotte on CHOM? No, but …

Claude Rajotte is a familiar name to long-time CHOM listeners. The francophone music expert worked at the rock station for two decades, often speaking in French until the CRTC told him he couldn’t do that anymore. He also worked on the other side of the language divide, spending about as much time at MusiquePlus.

Until recently he had a job at Espace Musique, Radio-Canada’s music radio network. But when RadCan wanted to kill his show and move him online, he left. He took a job back at MusiquePlus, where he hosts two shows, Rajotte (Fridays at 7pm) and Hors Circuit (Sunday mornings at 1am). They’re not exactly big-budget shows (Hors Circuit in particular looks pretty cheap), but the quality is in Rajotte’s biting commentary (like tonight where he trashed Nickelback by saying they seem to be stuck in a 90s time-warp).

Having gone back to MusiquePlus, Rajotte wondered if maybe he could get a job at CHOM as well. But, La Presse reported, CHOM said no.

It’s not because they’re not interested, explained Astral Media VP Martin Spalding, just that they don’t have any openings for him. “There wasn’t an opportunity,” Spalding said. “But that doesn’t mean there won’t be an opportunity in the future.”

Spalding explained that giving Rajotte a show would mean cutting the time of existing staff like Bilal Butt, who hosts evenings. “For the time being, we want to allow Bilal to grow in that timeslot,” Spalding said.

Sadly, the radio market isn’t what it was even a decade ago, and the anglophone music stations aren’t as eager as the francophone ones to grab big names to do an hour a day.

Could fate open up an opportunity for Rajotte at his other former home? As Spalding would say, never say never. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

| Media, Montreal, Radio

We interrupt this programming to ask you for money

Today, Dec. 1, is La grande guignolée des médias, the day during the year when various Quebec media and other groups unite for the cause of raising money and supplies for various charities.

What I like most about this campaign is that it’s entirely independent of the guerre des médias. Its list of participating media includes Quebecor (including the Journal de Montréal, 24H, Canoe, TVA and VOX), Radio-Canada, La Presse, Cogeco (including CKOI, Rythme FM, 98.5, CKAC and The Beat), Astral (including CHOM, Virgin Radio, CJAD, Rouge, NRJ, Canal D, Canal Vie, MusiquePlus, MusiMax, Télétoon, Vrak.tv and Ztélé), V, Télé-Québec, Transcontinental (including Métro), TV5, MétéoMédia, RDS, Groupe Serdy (Zeste and Évasion) and CHOQ.FM (UQAM’s student radio station).

It would probably be easier to list the media not part of this list: Le Devoir, Voir, some community radio stations and a larger number of anglophone media (including The Gazette), many of which have their own holiday fundraising campaigns.

Volunteers will be collecting money at metro stations during the rush hours, and donations can be dropped off at Loblaws/Maxi/Provigo stores or Laurentian Bank locations.

Here’s to hoping they have a day worth reporting on.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): It looks like they raised at least $150,000 in Montreal alone.

La Presse’s Patrick Lagacé, in response to a piece by Le Devoir’s Stéphane Baillargeon asking if it’s the job of journalists to be panhandlers for charity, says there’s plenty of other things journalists waste their time on. He has more on his blog. Baillargeon’s piece is, sadly, subscriber-locked.

La Presse auctions off its journalists

As part of the Grande guignolée, La Presse is once again auctioning off activities with its columnists. These lots aren’t cheap – three or four figures, depending – but they’re for a good cause. Bidding ends at 4pm.

Just please make sure Lagacé doesn’t win.

Tele…Webo…Phoneothon!

Another event happening this week is the big annual fundraiser for the Foundation of Stars, formerly known as the Foundation for Research into Children’s Diseases. Last year, you’ll recall, the foundation decided to do away with the telethon they had done for decades, replacing it with a “webothon” that was streamed online. I panned the idea because going online would rob them of the big thing being on television gave them: visibility.

As it turns out, the foundation seems to have realized that, and they’ve abandoned the webothon idea. Without the financial means to put on another telethon, they’ve switched medium and gone to radio, organizing a “phoneothon” on CJAD, Rouge FM and Boom FM stations. It happens Sunday, Dec. 4, from 10 am to 7pm.

As the organization’s latest annual report shows (PDF), the switch from television to the Web resulted in a drop of about $500,000 in fundraising. And because fundraising costs stayed about the same, that drop came out of the bottom line. The result is that there was $700,000 less given to hospital research centres in the 2010-11 fiscal year than the year before.

Let’s hope that using radio instead of television can provide a happy medium between visibility and cost control that results in maximum benefit for the foundation and, of course, the children it’s trying to help.

| Montreal, Radio, TV

Concordia broadcasters want a bigger audience

CJLO's AM antenna in Ville St. Pierre

Concordia University’s student-run television and radio stations are always looking up, looking for ways to grow. It’s been more than a decade now that both have gotten their funding directly from students instead of through the Concordia Student Union. They’ve since split their funding sources and have asked students for increases in their per-credit student fees.

CJLO, the radio station, has been transmitting at 1690 kHz since 2008, out of an antenna in Ville St. Pierre, just down the hill from its Loyola studio. It produces a full schedule of programming, most of it music-based but with some talk and information programs as well. But the 1 kilowatt transmitter on AM doesn’t reach out very far, and many students don’t have AM radios.

CUTV, the television station, has never had a broadcasting license. It can be seen on televisions on campus and on its website. Though it does produce a significant amount of programming, it’s nowhere near enough to fill a full schedule without repeating every program dozens of times.

Both stations are looking to increase their reach through new ways of broadcasting, and to do that they each need more money, so both are in the process of asking students for yet another increase in their per-credit fees.

In a referendum of Concordia Student Union members Tuesday to Thursday this week, CJLO is asking for an increase from 25 to 34 cents per credit. This works out to $10.20 a year for a full-time student taking five classes a semester. CUTV is asking for an increase from 18 cents to 34 cents per credit, which would almost double its funding.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): Both questions passed, The Link reports. Following a rubber-stamp from the university’s board, the fees will be applied to students’ tuition bills.

Broadcasting equipment at CJLO's offices, sending its signal online and to its AM transmitter

The plans

Here’s what they want to do to make themselves more accessible.

CJLO wants to setup a low-power FM retransmitter downtown, which would cover the downtown campus. “The frequency we are looking at is around 10 city blocks and no commercial station seems to want it,” station manager Stephanie Saretsky tells me. “We have been told by our AM consultant that the response from the CRTC should be favorable because of this fact. Obviously nothing is guarenteed, but CJLO cannot start the application process without the fee levy.”

The CRTC has said there isn’t more space on the FM dial in Montreal (106.7 is an exception, now that it has been vacated by Aboriginal Voices Radio and the pirate station KKIC, but an application is pending to use that frequency). But the city is saturated only in terms of high-powered stations. There are options available for low-power transmitters covering a small area, and this seems to be what CJLO is looking for – something just to cover the downtown campus, so students can tune in between classes.

CUTV, meanwhile, doesn’t want to setup a broadcast transmitter, but it does want to get on cable television, where most viewers are anyway. CUTV’s plan is to apply to the CRTC for a community channel license, which would require cable systems to carry the channel. In the short term, the station is looking to get time on VOX, the community channel run by Videotron.

Both plans are admirable, though the campaigns by both groups are tying the increased funding to the new broadcast licenses. Neither group has actually applied for one yet, and the likelihood of success is far from absolute. Getting a new FM transmitter in Montreal – even a low-power one – isn’t easy, particularly if it’s just retransmitting another station. The CRTC process is hardly a formality or a rubber-stamp. For CUTV, the group would have to convince the CRTC to give it a channel on the cable dial even though there already exists a television station in Montreal devoted to programming from its four universities – Canal Savoir.

And it goes without saying that if these applications fail, neither of these groups is going to voluntarily reduce its student fee.

Still, I wish them luck. CJLO deserves to be heard, and a low-power retransmitter covering just the downtown campus makes a lot of sense. CUTV, meanwhile, has a lot of promise, but without a continuous outlet there isn’t much incentive to produce sufficient quality of quantity of television programming.

| Radio

CRTC limits musical montages on French radio stations

It’s no secret that Canadian radio stations don’t like the content requirements imposed on them by the CRTC. For stations that broadcast popular music, 35% of the songs they play must be Canadian (that term being defined by meeting certain criteria). That’s why we hear a lot of Nickelback or Kim Mitchell.

For French-language radio stations playing popular music, there’s an additional and more serious limit the CRTC imposes: 65% of their songs must be in French (55% during the day, to prevent them from getting around this by playing all their French songs at 3am).

A few years ago, some genius found a way to get around this requirement: montages.

Because the CRTC counts “musical selections” by number, and not by length, a two-minute song and a 20-minute song have the same weight. And because the CRTC specifically counts music montages as one selection, you can have large (but not complete) parts of 20 songs in there and have it counted as one selection for the purpose of French-language minimums.

ADISQ, Quebec’s musical industry group, objected to the abuse of this by radio stations, and complained to the CRTC, which held hearings into the issue, specifically focusing on CKOI-FM Montreal, owned by Cogeco, CKTF-FM (NRJ) Gatineau, owned by Astral, and CFTX-FM (Capitale Rock) Gatineau, owned by RNC Media.

The statistics are pretty telling. The CKOI and NRJ stations were found to be using montages to a significant part of their broadcast week. CKOI was the worst, using 101 montages in the studied week, representing 17.9% of its total broadcasting time (this works out to an average of about 20 minutes per montage, though one case was found that was 55 minutes long). The NRJ Gatineau case was only slightly less, with 75 montages representing 14.5% of their 126 hours of broadcasting.

The study found these montages were almost all English-language American songs.

Astral and Cogeco argued they were not breaking the rules as they were written, which is true. They also presented public opinion polls showing that francophone audiences want to hear more English music, and in many cases francophones are tuning in to English stations.

There’s some irony in all this: 13 years ago, the CRTC set definitions of montages as they are to prevent the reverse from happening: radio stations using short clips from French-language songs in a montage and counting each one individually.

On Thursday, the CRTC addressed this, and imposed limits on the use of music montages. CKOI and CKTF can use montages for only 10% of their broadcast week. (CFTX was already well below this limit, so the CRTC did not impose one.) It also said it would study this matter further, and possibly impose new regulation generally.

The most obvious solution, to me, is to count musical selections based on length, not number. Under such a system, a four-minute song would count for twice as much as a two-minute song, and musical montages would be split up for the purposes of counting French-language or Canadian content requirements.

This is obviously more complicated for the station, but it would eliminate the problem.

The CRTC says it will begin looking into this issue in 2012.

Other coverage:

UPDATE: Cogeco Diffusion has issued a statement saying it will comply with the ruling, and suggesting the whole montage thing was Corus’s idea, that it’s using less of them, and its other radio stations don’t do it. Astral and RNC Media issued a joint statement also saying they would comply with the decision. Both said they would participate in hearings about French-language requirements, undoubtedly in an effort to get the CRTC to lower them.

ADISQ also issued a statement, praising the decision as a victory for francophone artists.

| Montreal, Radio

CRTC gives clear channels to TSN, Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy

The CRTC’s decision on Montreal AM radio stations came out this morning. Here’s the skinny:

The two other applications, TTP’s English-language news-talk station and Cogeco’s English all-traffic station, are denied, not because the CRTC feels they are without merit, but because the other applicants made better cases for the two clear-channel frequencies and neither would accept 990 as a backup. The CRTC hints that the two might be approved if they reapplied for other vacant AM frequencies (like 600 or 850), but that these applications would have to be reconsidered on their own merits.

Also Monday, the CRTC denied four applications for low-powered AM radio stations in Montreal, three of which would target ethnic communities and the fourth a religious station. The CRTC felt they would negatively impact the five existing ethnic stations, notably CKIN-FM 106.3 (Mike FM’s sister station), which has programming targeting the South Asian and Latin American communities, and religious station Radio Ville-Marie (CIRA-FM 91.3).

The second decision has an impact on the first, in that one of the stations had applied to use 600 kHz. The denial of that application means the frequency is available to the big commercial players. Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy has hinted that it might be interested in that frequency, provided it can use a tower or get space for one to build themselves. The only one capable of doing that frequency right now is Cogeco’s towers, which will continue to go unused, but Paul Tietolman says he has no intention of asking Cogeco for them.

You can read a summary of what’s going on in this article I wrote for Tuesday’s Gazette. Below, I go into a bit more analysis.

The hierarchy

Reading the decision, it becomes clear how the CRTC judged the applications based on hierarchy:

  1. CKGM’s frequency change clearly made the strongest case, because it was an already-existing station and because moving it would offer another frequency for another applicant. (The CRTC likes to make as many people happy as possible.) Its content – sports – is also better suited to a signal that carries farther into the regions. So CKGM wins the biggest prize, 690 kHz.
  2. Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy’s application was taken seriously, and the CRTC believes enough in its business plan that it is willing to give them a chance. But it wasn’t going to give the one applicant both clear-channel frequencies. So TTP gets 940. And since they said they would not accept 990, one application has to be denied. The French market is stronger in Montreal and its surrounding regions, and there isn’t as much direct competition for a French news-talk station as their is in English with CJAD, so the French station gets approved.
  3. Cogeco’s application for an English all-traffic station couldn’t convince the CRTC that it required a signal so powerful that it can reach into Gaspé. They made a valiant effort, saying that they need to be heard across the Ontario border for people who commute from that far, and that their application should be approved because otherwise the existence of the French all-traffic station would create an imbalance in services to different languages. But the CRTC remained unconvinced. And since Cogeco wouldn’t accept anything but 690 and 940, that application had to be denied.
  4. Dufferin’s Radio Fierté gets 990 more by process of elimination than anything else. Two applications were approved for clear channels, and the other two wouldn’t accept 990, so Dufferin gets it. That isn’t to say the CRTC wasn’t excited about their application and eager to increase the diversity of the radio industry in Montreal. But it seems pretty clear that if TTP would have accepted 990 for its English station, it probably would have gotten it.

Calling their bluff

One thing I like about the CRTC decision is that it calls a lot of bluffs from the applicants.

Cogeco went all in, saying it’s 690, 940 or nothing. I find it hard to believe they’re just going to walk away from $1.5 million a year, and their deal with the Quebec government was already modified once when they decided to make CKAC an all-traffic station. Because that $1.5 million is based on costs instead of audience (otherwise it would be more for the French station), there’s no reason to believe they couldn’t reach a deal for another frequency like 600 or 850. Cogeco’s Mark Dickie told me before the decision that there is no Plan B. If that’s true, they either have to come up with one or walk away from this project.

The latter option would be particularly embarrassing because both parties have been acting as if this was a done deal. The government has been advertising a coming English traffic station, and Cogeco has even asked for applications for potential traffic hosts, with only a footnote at the bottom pointing out that these jobs might not actually ever exist.

Is Cogeco willing to walk away from $1.5 million a year? Is the Transport Ministry willing to walk away from their promise of all-traffic radio in English? We’ll see.

The CRTC also called the bluff of Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy, which originally said it wanted both clear channels or nothing, then softened that stance suggesting the English station could find another alternative frequency. They continue to insist that they need both stations for the business plan to be viable, but say the English station might not need to be a clear channel if they can get adequate coverage in Montreal and the West Island. So far 600 kHz seems to be the only one able to do this, but that would require either expanding the site they were planning to use or using Cogeco’s CINW/CINF site in Kahnawake. The latter option is very distasteful to Tietolman and his partners.

When I finally reached Tietolman on Monday, he said he wouldn’t comment (other than to point out that TSN said it would be fine with 940, which I guess means TTP felt the CRTC should have given 690 to them and given 940 to TSN). Tietolman said he and his partners are going to study the decision carefully and decide where to go from there.

Though nobody’s pointing this out, the CRTC decision combined with TTP’s position should mean that the group will decline the license. I highly doubt that will happen, but if TTP doesn’t get a decent frequency for its proposed English station, or if the application takes too long, they might face the choice of going with just the French station or going home.

Six months to a year

The big question for the winning applicants is when they’re going to be on the air. Bell Media says it’ll be “within six months” for CKGM, which would mean by the end of May (maybe just before the playoffs start, or just after the Canadiens are eliminated). It’s unclear at this point whether it will operate for any length of time on both frequencies, though that has been the practice in the past.

Evanov/Dufferin hopes to have its station up within a year, but has to wait for CKGM to vacate its frequency first. The decision gives the group a second choice in terms of transmission site. It already had a letter showing it could enter into negotiations for use of the CJAD site, but as part of the hearing Bell Media committed to negotiating use of the CKGM site for another station on 990, and even said it would submit to binding arbitration concerning a transmitter sharing deal. Evanov tells me they will look at both possibilities.

Other coverage

| Montreal, Radio

Terry DiMonte returns to CHOM Jan. 9

Five months after the announcement that Terry DiMonte will be returning to CHOM-FM, not much has happened publicly. DiMonte is still in Calgary, co-hosting the morning show at Corus-owned Q107.

Corus is making DiMonte work all of the six-month obligation he triggered when he gave his notice in June. DiMonte has no trouble fulfilling his obligation as his contract stipulates, but it’s clear from his comments on social media that he’s eager to return to Montreal.

While those comments are pleasing his Montreal-based fans, they’re also disappointing his Calgary-based ones, some Montreal expats who share with him a connection to this city they once lived in before economic factors brought them out west, but many just classic rock fans who have been loyal to the station and woken up with him every weekday morning since 2007.

DiMonte tells me his last day at Q107 will be Dec. 9. After that he returns to Montreal and prepares to go back on the air at CHOM. His first day back in his old chair is almost certainly going to be Jan. 9. Astral VP Martin Spalding, who courted DiMonte back to CHOM, says this was considered a better date than a week earlier, when many people are still on holiday.

Spalding’s hands are tied in terms of marketing DiMonte. Not only is DiMonte still physically in Calgary, except for occasional trips here during his time off, but because DiMonte is still under contract with Corus, his brand still belongs to them. Astral can’t market DiMonte until his contract expires, which will happen on Dec. 22, six months after DiMonte gave his notice.

Terry and …

The biggest question for the past five months remains: Who will be DiMonte’s partner on the CHOM morning show?

Spalding and DiMonte said they’ve met a lot of potential candidates – some in person, some by phone, with more still to talk to – but no decision has been made yet. (The decision will be a joint one between DiMonte and the station.) They don’t even know if it’s going to be one or two people. But they will have to make a call within the next few weeks.

“As you’re probably aware, I am QUITE gunshy and very careful now after a certain time period in my old life…so I will be taking some time,” DiMonte writes. Spalding echoes those thoughts, telling me that “this is a five-year play, so we want to make it right.”

Spalding also said that there have been a lot of candidates, some they sought out, and some who offered to come on board. “It’s amazing how many people have come out of the woodwork and want to work with Terry,” Spalding said.

For those wondering, Ted Bird said he’s not one of them. There have been no discussions between him and CHOM about a possible return, and he remains the big name at the K103 morning show in Kahnawake.

Two obvious candidates for the job are the ones currently holding it now: Rob Kemp and Chantal Desjardins.

Kemp might be headed back to an early afternoon shift if he’s not on the morning show (currently Tootall does 10am to 3pm), though any reshuffling of shifts won’t be decided until after the morning team is in place, Spalding said.

The outlook for Desjardins is less certain. Spalding said she’s a “clear candidate” for the morning show co-host, but there’s no lock on it. She might end up somewhere else at the station, perhaps at another Astral station in Montreal, either CJAD or CJFM.

Desjardins clearly wants to get the job with DiMonte, though.

“I really enjoy working for Astral and I hope to continue in the morning show co-host position when Terry arrives,” she told me. “Seriously…who wouldn’t want to wake up at 4am every morning? ;)” (her emoticon, not mine).

TV viewers might have noticed that Desjardins has been doing sports stories for CTV Montreal. (UPDATE Nov. 23 – She even got a turn behind the anchor desk, as you can see from the video above.)

She said she’s “thoroughly enjoying the experience” and likes the work environment at CTV.

“But I still love the energy and immediacy of morning radio so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how everything plays out!”

I feel bad for Desjardins. I know the saying that in radio it’s not if you get fired but when. Not getting the morning show gig doesn’t mean she’ll be fired, but to have your employment future be so uncertain for so long can’t be a fun thing to experience. I know, because it happens fairly often for me. (The main difference being thousands of people don’t notice what happens to me unless I tell them.)

Desjardins would make a welcome addition to the CTV sports team. That department is tiny (though still bigger than its competitors combined), and right now it’s 100% male. And she seems very comfortable in front of the camera.

But radio is what she wants to do, and it’s where people know her from. And Desjardins’s ability to match (or even surpass) wits with the boys is probably more valuable at the classic rock station than the TV station. Aside from Desjardins, Sharon Hyland is the only woman with a shift at 97.7FM, and she’s on weekends now.

It’s possible DiMonte and Spalding will come up with a name so fantastic it will have fans going “Chantal who?”, but it would have to be pretty fantastic to make me forget that these kinds of decisions have effects on the lives of real people.

| Montreal, My articles, Radio

Behind the scenes with Tasso and Patrick at Mike FM

Patrick Henry Charles (left) and Paul Zakaib (aka Tasso Patsikakis)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Big local radio personality decides he’s had enough of how faceless corporations have micromanaged what happens on air, taking all the fun out of it. So instead, he’s moving to a low-power station few of his fans have ever heard of, becoming a big fish in a smaller pond, sacrificing a big paycheque for more creative freedom. The small station, not licensed in a way that would normally make it a competitor to the big commercial stations, decides it’s going to go after a bigger mainstream crowd to attract more advertising revenue.

It’s easy to see the parallels with Ted Bird here. Give me another example of this happening and I can write a trend story about it.

I went by Mike FM (CKDG) last week to sit in on a broadcast of the Tasso and Patrick show, which debuted on Oct. 24. It stars Paul Zakaib, who has been better known as Tasso since the 80s and has been mostly off the air since he was sacked from the CFQR morning show he shared with long-time partner Aaron Rand in 2009. With him is Patrick Henry Charles, who worked on the Aaron and Tasso show from 2001 until he got a better offer from competitor Astral to be part of CJFM’s morning team, but about a year later was moved into a position that gave him less airtime and far less exposure.

I talk about Mike FM and Tasso and Patrick in an article that appeared in The Gazette on Tuesday. It reveals, among other things, that there were talks about bringing an Aaron and Tasso show to the station, but they fell through the cracks when Rand was hired to do an afternoon show at CJAD.

So Zakaib called up his old pal Charles, who had recently left Astral because he felt his talents were being wasted there. They met with CKDG GM Marie Griffiths, and before long the Tasso and Patrick show was born.

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