Tag Archives: CKBE

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The Beat drops Nat Lauzon

Nat Lauzon in The Beat’s studio in … I don’t know, a while back whenever I took this photo.

It’s an unfortunate reality in the radio business that while your arrival is announced with great fanfare, your departure is often met with a silent scrubbing of any evidence of your existence.

Such was the fate of Nat Lauzon, who announced on Thursday that her time at the radio station had come to an end. “We’ve parted ways,” she wrote in a Facebook post. (She clarifies in a video that the decision to leave wasn’t hers.)

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Jeremy White leaves The Beat 92.5

Jeremy White

Jeremy White, the kid from Kahnawake who has been the evening host at The Beat 92.5 just about since its launch, is no longer at the station.

White tells me he left of his own accord and decided in November he didn’t want to work a shift that started at 7pm anymore, and the company wasn’t interested in letting him voice-track his show earlier in the day.

The Beat has already scrubbed all reference to him on its website and has the generic “MTL’s Perfect Mix” listed in his time slot.

White is still on Corus-owned Energy 93.5 in Toronto in the same time slot and his Jeremy White Show podcast/YouTube channel. He tells me that while he isn’t looking for other radio work at the moment, he’s open if someone wants to suggest another gig that can be voice-tracked. “But going to a station and doing a shift just ain’t in the cards anymore for me.”

Several people (including one of White’s former program directors at The Beat) have noted that White would seem to be a good fit for CHOM when you consider his more hard-rock musical tastes. But nothing has ever materialized on that front and there’s no indication anything ever will.

But if someone at Bell Media wants a new voice for a weekend rock station countdown show, one just became available.

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Nikki Balch out at The Beat 92.5

Just as Montrealers are enjoying their Labour Day weekend and local media are preparing for the fall season, The Beat rebranded its morning show, erasing host Nikki Balch out of existence.

Nikki, who has been with the station since 2016, and had been at Virgin Radio a few years before that, hasn’t posted anything publicly, nor have her now-former colleagues that I could find.

The station has replaced her with Claudia Marques on the renamed “The Morning Show”. She moves to mornings after co-hosting the afternoon drive show. Mark Bergman and Stuntman Sam remain on the morning team, and Kim Kieran gets officially added to the brand.

The move comes just days after the on-air staff, including Balch, posed for a new set of photos.

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Radio ratings: The Beat still at twice Virgin’s audience

Numeris has released top-line numbers for its summer ratings period, and those figures show The Beat still at twice Virgin’s audience, while CJAD’s audience has continued to slip.

Here’s the market share for Montreal anglophones, ages 12+, for May 27 to Aug. 25, 2019:

  1. CJAD 800: 25.6%
  2. The Beat 92.5: 20.8%
  3. CHOM 97.7: 12.2%
  4. Virgin Radio 95.9: 10.7%
  5. CBC Radio One: 6.8%
  6. TSN Radio 690: 3.4%
  7. CBC Music: 2.4%
  8. Rythme 105,7: 2.4%
  9. 98,5fm: 2.3%

Remaining stations are below 2%.

Virgin has tried turning things around by replacing its morning team of Freeway and Natasha with Cousin Vinny and Shannon King. It’s too early to tell if that had any impact on ratings. But at least Virgin has climbed back above CBC, which it was below during the last ratings book.

Among Montreal francophones (also 12+, May 27 to Aug. 25, 2019):

  1. 98,5fm: 16.3%
  2. Rythme 105,7: 13.8%
  3. ICI Première: 12.0%
  4. 107,3 Rouge: 11.4%
  5. CKOI: 10.2%
  6. CHOM 97.7: 6.1%
  7. Énergie: 5.9%
  8. The Beat 92.5: 5.4%
  9. Virgin Radio 95.9: 4.3%
  10. ICI Musique: 2.6%
  11. 91,9 Sports: 1.7%

Remaining stations are below 1%.

Not much change here, with news-talk station 98,5 ahead and Rythme the top music station. Énergie’s numbers are very low, falling below CHOM. Expect some change there if the numbers don’t rebound soon. Their numbers were so bad they made a video making fun of the very idea of ratings.

The spin zone

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Cousin Vinny leaving The Beat, to be replaced by Andy Wilson

The Beat's Vinny Barrucco

A surprise announcement this morning at The Beat 92.5: Morning man “Cousin” Vinny Barrucco will be leaving his job to pursue another opportunity. His last day is Friday.

At the same time, the station announced that his replacement will be Andy Wilson, former producer of the morning show on Toronto’s Virgin Radio 99.9. Wilson starts on Monday. The new show will be called “Mornings with Nikki, Sam and Andy.”

Barrucco didn’t say what his new opportunity would be, only that he’s “gonna be taking a break from radio for a little while” and “will announce my next move in the coming months.”

A months-long break might suggest a move to a competitor, which requires him to stay off the air for a while first (generally for three months). But there’s no obvious opening at Virgin Radio (which Barrucco left to join The Beat shortly after it launched in 2011) or CHOM.

“I’ve been on the air for almost 15 years so I’m looking forward to taking a step back and enjoying quality time with my wife and newborn daughter,” Barrucco wrote in his Facebook post. Barrucco and wife Tina Oliveri had daughter Sia born in August.

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Cogeco completes radio stations’ transition to new antenna on Mount Royal

A five-stage reorganizing of radio station antennas on the Mount Royal Antenna has been completed, with the most notable change being that the city’s most powerful FM transmitter CKOI is now broadcasting from Mount Royal instead of the CIBC building downtown.

Cogeco Media president Michel Lorrain told me the process (approved by the CRTC in September) was completed before the holidays, but the stations were at 80% power until everything could be properly tested, and the ramp up to full power happened last week.

(Warning: Lots of technical nerdy antenna talk ahead.)

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How The Beat beat Virgin (and other trends of Montreal radio ratings)

Numeris released its quarterly metered radio ratings today. There aren’t a lot of surprises, because it’s mostly the same numbers as the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.

So instead of just excitedly reposting the top-line numbers or fetching the various spins by the broadcasters that make everyone look like they had the best quarter, I thought I’d take a look at some historical data and see how the stations are trending over time.

I did this exercise for Canada’s five metered markets for Cartt.ca after the last ratings book. If you’re a subscriber you can read them there: Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.

In this post, I’ll go into some more detail about the Montreal numbers, with charts!

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Bell Media radio rehires The Beat’s program director

Since 92.5 FM in Montreal became The Beat in 2011, the station has made much of its staff lineup by poaching personalities from direct competitor Virgin Radio. Cat Spencer, Vinny Barrucco and Nat Lauzon were hired directly from Virgin, and Nikki Balch and Rob Kemp also previously worked at 1717 René-Lévesque Blvd. (for Virgin and CHOM, respectively).

With The Beat’s ratings being solidly ahead of Virgin for what seems to be a sustainable period, it seemed it was only a matter of time before Bell Media hit back.

Martin Tremblay (via Facebook)

This week we learned that it has poached from the top, hiring Martin Tremblay to lead the Énergie, Rouge FM and Virgin Radio Montreal stations. Tremblay was hired as interim program director at The Beat a year ago. Before that, he spent six years in what is basically the same job he’s now going back to, leading the Montreal French music stations and Virgin at Astral and then Bell Media.

His CV also includes plenty of work for radio stations as part of his consulting company Oumf! Communications. They include:

  • Helping RNC Media create a Rythme FM affiliate in Gatineau, which lasted two and a half years until RNC decided to rebrand it as WOW FM.
  • Helping Attraction Radio turn CKRS-FM in Saguenay into another Rythme FM affiliate.
  • Helping RNC Media turn CHOA-FM in Abitibi into yet another Rythme FM affiliate.
  • Helping RNC transforming its struggling CKLX-FM into 91.9 Sports in Montreal, and later turning Capitale Rock 96.5 in Gatineau into a partial affiliate of it. While 91.9 Sports is going strong and RNC finally seems happy with that format, the Gatineau station has dropped sports programming and is now Pop 96.5.
  • Launching Groupe Puissance Média, an ad sales group that works with both RNC Media and Cogeco Media TV and radio outlets in the Outaouais region.
  • Work for Rogers’s Kiss 105.3 in Ottawa.

Tremblay starts his new job Aug. 7. Like the on-air personalities who made the jump, he’s bound by the terms of a non-compete clause in his contract that prevents him from working for Bell Media right away. “So enjoying my free time,” he tells me.

I asked Bell Media how this affects existing management at these stations. Mark Bergman is the current program director at VIrgin Radio. Will his role change?

“We have no comments to make at this time,” was the response from Bell Media communications director Simon Céré. I also asked Bergman and Martin Spalding, who heads local TV and radio in Quebec, for comment, and will update this if I hear back.

Chris Bury takes over PD role at CHOM

Chris Bury, program director of CJAD, TSN 690 and now CHOM 97.7

Meanwhile, the other three radio stations at Bell Media in Montreal will all come under the control of Chris Bury, currently the PD for CJAD and TSN 690.

“As CHOM’s Assistant Program Director and Music Director, Picard will work directly with Chris,” notes a memo to staff.

Bury’s expanded duties means that more will be delegated to CJAD/TSN 690 Assistant Program Director Mathew Wood, who takes on a larger role at TSN.

“Mathew will now handle day-to-day responsibilities at TSN 690 and Picard will continue to do that for CHOM,” Bury explains to me by email. “I’ll be involved in brainstorming, strategy, long-term planning, major decisions etc.”

I asked Bury if we should expect any changes at CHOM with this announcement. “It’s too early to get specific but, for me, the general goal is always the same: produce the most compelling content possible — as consistently as you can,” he responded. “That can mean introducing new segments or features or executing the ones we have a little more effectively.”

“I’ll add that… It’s an honour to be working on CHOM, in any way. The station carries a powerful legacy in Montreal. And the team at CHOM are as passionate about their station as anyone else. I’m excited to get going and to help however I can. And, although I do have some music programming experience, there will certainly be a learning curve. It’ll be a fun challenge.”

These management changes took effect immediately when they were announced to staff earlier this week. CHOM has been without a program director since the death of André Lallier in 2015.

Meanwhile, at The Beat, there are decisions to make. The station is led by general manager Luc Tremblay, who was also hired as head of digital strategy at Cogeco Media last June.

 

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Montreal radio ratings: Another win for The Beat

Numeris, the company that measures radio and TV ratings, came out with their quarterly report this week, and once again it was Cogeco’s 92.5 The Beat that had the most good news to announce on the anglo side.

Among anglophone listeners, CKBE-FM had a 17.2% audience share, second only to CJAD’s 28.2% among all listeners. Virgin Radio was well back at 13.5%.

The shares were mostly stable among the anglophone audience, but the exception was Virgin, which was down for the second straight quarter and by almost three points compared to the same time last year. (I’ll compare year-over-year because two years ago when The Beat had a surge in the winter book Virgin claimed it was because of Christmas music that aired on The Beat during the holidays.)

CHOM recovered a bit after hitting a new low in the last quarter. It’s still fourth among anglophone stations, but it regained its position as first among men 25-54.

Despite this being a good report, The Beat couldn’t resist getting cute with spin, saying it’s the “number one radio station”, which only works if you (a) exclude the francophone market and (b) exclude people outside the 25-54 demographic. It also called its morning show the “fastest growing” one in the market with new hosts Vinny and Nikki. Which is kind of like saying your kid is “most improved.” The Beat’s morning show has been historically weak while its daytime has been strong.

Bell’s press release stressed its combined market share (which is, of course, because it owns most of the stations). CJAD still has the highest share by far, and 8 of the 10 most listened-to shows among anglophones. TSN 690 is stable at a 4% share, and CBC Radio One climbed more than one and a half points, its total audience up about 25% among anglophones.

Here are the top-line numbers (average minute audience and listening share) among anglophone listeners:

Station Average minute audience Share Daily reach
CJAD 800 16,600 28.2% 191,400
The Beat 92.5 10,100 17.2% 216,100
Virgin Radio 96 7,900 13.5% 196,200
CHOM 97.7 6,400 11.0% 135,000
CBC Radio One 88.5 4,700 8.1% 51,200
TSN Radio 690 2,400 4.0% 65,100
Rythme FM 105,7 1,200 2.1% 50,700
Radio Classique 1,100 1.9% 26,000
CBC Radio Two 93.5 900 1.6% 21,800
98.5fm 800 1.4% 26,600
Rouge FM 107,3 700 1.1% 29,100
Énergie 94,3 700 1.2% 22,400
CKOI 96,9 500 0.9% 33,600
ICI Radio-Canada Première 95,1 400 0.6% 10,400
ICI Musique 100,7 200 0.3% 5,500
AM 980 100 0.2% 2,500
Radio circulation 730 100 0.1% 5,600
91.9 Sports 100 0.1% 4,900
CIBL 101,5 0 0.0% 900

Among Montreal francophone listeners:

Station Average minute audience Share Daily reach
98.5fm 36,500 21.0% 584,000
Rythme FM 105,7 28,400 16.3% 620,200
ICI Radio-Canada Première 95,1 23,400 13.4% 309,900
Rouge FM 107,3 14,600 8.4% 389,900
CKOI 96,9 14,200 8.2% 436,200
Énergie 94,3 10,300 5.9% 348,100
Virgin Radio 96 9,400 5.4% 350,400
The Beat 92.5 8,000 4.6% 336,100
CHOM 97.7 7,400 4.2% 255,800
ICI Musique 100,7 4,300 2.5% 107,100
91.9 Sports 3,700 2.1% 68,100
Radio Classique 3,600 2.1% 91,800
CJAD 800 2,100 1.2% 40,800
AM 980 1,300 0.7% 18,200
CBC Radio One 88.5 1,000 0.6% 23,800
CBC Radio Two 93.5 700 0.4% 32,700
Radio circulation 730 400 0.2% 36,200
CIBL 101,5 200 0.1% 14,600
TSN Radio 690 100 0.1% 5,300

Combined:

Station Average minute audience Daily reach
98.5fm 37,300 610,600
Rythme FM 105,7 29,600 670,900
ICI Radio-Canada Première 95,1 23,800 320,300
CJAD 800 18,700 232,200
The Beat 92.5 18,100 552,200
Virgin Radio 96 17,300 546,600
Rouge FM 107,3 15,300 419,000
CKOI 96,9 14,700 469,800
CHOM 97.7 13,800 390,800
Énergie 94,3 11,000 370,500
CBC Radio One 88.5 5,700 75,000
Radio Classique 4,700 117,800
ICI Musique 100,7 4,500 112,600
91.9 Sports 3,800 73,000
TSN Radio 690 2,500 70,400
CBC Radio Two 93.5 1,600 54,500
AM 980 1,400 20,700
Radio circulation 730 500 41,800
CIBL 101,5 200 15,500

Victory for 98,5fm, Radio-Canada and 91,9 Sports, loss for Rythme and Rouge

On the franco side, unsurprisingly it was another win for 98,5fm, which once again declared itself the most listened-to radio station in all of Canada. Though its average minute audience of 37,300 (in its central market) is beat by Toronto’s CHFI-FM with 42,400.

Bell Media’s press release couldn’t dig up much to say about Rouge FM, so it led with Énergie instead, noting its improvement. Rouge FM dropped 2.5 percentage points in market share from a year ago.

Not that Rythme FM was much better. Though it’s still ahead of Rouge FM in the ratings, its share dropped to 16.3% from a high of 20.5% in the summer.

Great news for Radio-Canada’s Première station, which after hitting a low of 6.6% this summer has hit a high of 13.4%, putting it third in the market. Radio-Canada’s press release notes that morning show Gravel le matin is second in the market, behind 98,5fm’s Paul Arcand.

There were some winners on the low end of the ratings board as well.

RNC Media’s 91.9 Sports, which went through a series of format changes — from jazz to right-wing talk to news talk and finally to sports — in an attempt to find an audience, seems to be happy with the sports talk format. It had a 2.1% share, which is 50% higher than the last ratings book, and an average-minute audience of 3,700 which just slightly edges Radio Classique. The boost was enough to warrant an article in the Journal de Montréal.

Good news as well for CHRF AM 980, which more than doubled its share to 0.7%. Still dead last among music stations, but it’s an improvement.

Community station CIBL, which started reporting for the first time last quarter, is still the lowest-rated station overall, with an average of 200 listeners in French and an English number within the margin of error of zero. The station looks like it’s going to stay here for the time being. Its new manager explained during a recent general assembly that they discovered Numeris offers lower prices for community stations.

Other reporting

  • InfoPresse (25-54 numbers)
  • La Presse (highlights of francophone stations, plus top 10 shows)
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Radio ratings: Virgin running out of ways to claim it’s beating The Beat

Numeris released its quarterly ratings report this week for Montreal and other metered markets. The Montreal top-line results show once again a significant margin between 92.5 The Beat (CKBE-FM) and Virgin Radio 95.9 (CJFM-FM).

Here they are translated into English. Audience shares among Montreal anglophones (all ages) from Aug. 29 to Nov. 27, 2016 (with their average-minute audience for a 24-hour day):

  • CJAD 800: 29.6% (17,100)
  • The Beat 92.5: 17.4% (10,000)
  • Virgin Radio 96: 14.9% (8,600)
  • CHOM 97.7: 10.2% (5,900)
  • CBC Radio One: 6.4% (3,700)
  • TSN Radio 690: 3.7% (2,100)
  • Rythme FM 105.7: 2.2% (1,300)
  • Radio Classique 99.5: 2.0% (1,100)
  • CBC Radio Two: 1.8% (1,000)

Other measured stations had shares under 1%.

Once again, among overall anglophone audiences, CJAD is the clear winner with a 29.6% share, tied with last winter as its highest share in the past five years. The Beat clearly beats Virgin, up by two and a half points. It’s also ahead in the adults 25-54 demographic, which Virgin had a bit of an edge in historically. And even when counting in francophone audiences, The Beat is still ahead.

CHOM, meanwhile, had its worst book in the past half-decade, dropping more than two points.

Radio ratings share (Montreal anglophones). Data by Numeris

Radio ratings share (Montreal anglophones, ages 2+). Data by Numeris. Click for larger version.

But it would be irresponsible to make sweeping conclusions based on one ratings report. Instead, it makes more sense to look at long-term trends. And here’s what we see from that:

  • CJAD is doing well, despite everyone’s opinions (usually negative here) about its programming. Since 2014, it has climbed into the 25-30% range, with noticeable dips in the summer, suggesting Montrealers are tuning in when there’s news. No individual programming change would explain this, though 2013 is when there was the last major reshuffling, getting rid of Ric Peterson.
  • The Beat is winning the battle with Virgin. It took about two years after Q92 relaunched itself as The Beat for there to be real traction in the ratings, and a noticeable drop in Virgin’s share around 2013 led to The Beat taking the lead. Since the beginning of 2014, The Beat has led among anglo listeners, though the adults 25-54 demo has gone back and forth a bit.

CHOM’s bad book could easily be an outlier, so we’ll have to see.

As for TSN 690, a lot of people seem to be very concerned about their ratings (and, like with CJAD, very eager to blame problems on a particular on-air personality), but it’s about the same place it always is. The latest rating is slightly below where it was a year ago, and slightly above where it was two years ago at the same time of the season.

Naturally, every station tried to spin the results to make themselves look good:

  • CJAD sent out a press release noting their #1 status and adding that it is the best-rated news-talk radio station in Canada in terms of audience share in its central market. (The fact that Montreal has a limited number of English stations is a big factor in that, of course.) And it singled out hosts Andrew Carter (most listened-to radio show in the market), Aaron Rand (most popular afternoon show) and Ken Connors (a 52% share on weekend mornings).
  • The Beat also sent out a press release, staking claim to the title of highest-rated music station in the market, as well as the adults 25-54 and women 25-54 demographics that advertisers love, and highlighting its high ratings during the 9-to-5 workday, which continues to be its strength.
  • Virgin Radio didn’t send out a press release, though it did post messages on social media noting some ratings wins. It calls Freeway and Natasha “Montreal’s #1 most listened to morning show”, but only in the fine print do you realize they restricted the audience to adults 18-49. Another image pointed to the station having “more than 2 million listeners a week”, which is true, but that counts everyone who tuned in for even one minute during that week. It doesn’t measure how long or often people listen to the station, and The Beat has the same reach.

Francophone market

Among Montreal francophones (all ages):

  • 98.5 FM: 19.8% (36,600)
  • Rythme FM 105.7: 18.5% (34,300)
  • ICI Première: 11.8% (21,900)
  • Rouge FM 107.3: 9.3% (17,300)
  • CKOI 96.9: 9.1% (16,900)
  • Virgin Radio 96: 5.8% (10,700)
  • The Beat 92.5: 5.6% (10,300)
  • Énergie 94.3: 5.4% (10,000)
  • CHOM 97.7: 4.7% (8,700)
  • ICI Musique: 2.5% (4,600)
  • Radio Classique 99.5: 2.3% (4,300)
  • 91.9 Sports: 1.4% (2,600)

Once again, news-talker 98.5 FM is the leader among all audiences, though Rythme FM declared victory in the adults 25-54 group.

Radio-Canada bounced back big time from a bad book in the summer, taking third spot overall. CKOI’s rating is also noteworthy. After being stuck with shares around 6%, it’s now several points up on that. Meanwhile, Énergie, whose lineup includes Dominic Arpin, Mélanie Maynard and Éric Salvail, gets smaller audiences overall than Virgin and The Beat.

Self-congratulatory statements from:

  • 98.5FM, which says it’s the most listened-to station in all of Canada (by total average-minute audience, apparently)
  • Radio-Canada, which notes a 30% year-over-year increase (good news after a pretty bad report in the summer ratings).
  • Bell Media, which highlights the success of Énergie’s afternoon network show Éric est les fantastiques. Because it’s carried on multiple stations, it gets a large audience.

Also roundups from La Presse, InfoPresse and ActusMédias.

CHRF 980 AM, which seems to have an actual programming strategy now, had its best ratings ever. Except it only started reporting ratings in the past year, and its share is 0.3% among francophones and 0.4% among anglophones, for about 800 average-minute listeners total.

New on the ratings chart is CIBL-FM 101.5, the community station whose studios are at the corner of St-Laurent Blvd. and Ste-Catherine St. The station unsurprisingly scored zeros for anglophones, and starts on the francophone chart as a 0.1% share, 300 average listeners and an average daily reach of 16,800. The only station with a worse rating among francophones is TSN 690. It’s certainly not a win for them, but the ratings book should give them a lot of information about their audience that they didn’t have before.