Tag Archives: CKBE
Fall radio ratings: CHOM and CJPX gain, The Beat and TSN lose, Radio X struggles (UPDATED)
Fall 2012 ratings from BBM Canada for the anglo Montreal market (Aug. 27 to Nov. 25), with comparisons to the same period a year ago. (Numbers reflect total 2+ audience)
BBM Canada released its fall 2012 ratings for metered markets (including Montreal) on Thursday. While members get detailed information from which they can spin all sorts of good news, the public gets an overall picture (PDF).
On the English side, there’s the usual fluctuations. CHOM gains a point and a half compared to last year (but is down slightly in market share compared to the summer), and also has a larger overall audience than it did a year ago.
CJAD, Virgin and The Beat are also up slightly, and CBC Radio One has lost a bit.
Among francophone listeners, where anglo music stations actually have a larger audience than in English, CHOM has 30,000 more listeners on a daily basis than it did a year ago, and Virgin and The Beat have both lost a bit of ground.
I await their spin, revealing what nuggets of significant gains aren’t being reflected in the overall ratings. (See below)
For TSN Radio (CKGM), there’s no getting around the disappointing ratings period. The station has a 2.3% market share this fall, down from 4.0% a year ago. Its daily audience among anglos has dropped from 60,000 to 43,000. Even simulcasting on two frequencies hasn’t been enough to compensate for the lack of NHL hockey.
The Beat falls among 25-54 demos
But those are for the total audience. What about the key 25-54 demographic, the people with money that advertisers want?
Astral Radio’s BBM analysis (which is much more objective than its press releases) provides the answer:
CKBE (The Beat) has lost the gains it made this spring, falling back into third place overall behind CHOM. It has a 21% commercial market share among adults 25-54, compared to CHOM’s 25% and Virgin’s 32%. Much of that loss is among men, where it had spiked to 22% in the spring but is now back at 16%. Among women, it’s gone down slightly, but Virgin’s lead has increased from four points to 13 points.
Its morning show has dropped back into fourth place after barely reaching second in the spring, with fewer than 7,000 listeners in the average minute (Virgin’s morning show has more than 10,000 listeners) among adults 25-54. Late mornings and lunch hour have dropped from first to third, and early afternoons dropped from first to second behind Virgin. Its drivetime show also dropped from second to third after losing about a quarter of its audience from the spring. On weekends, it was third before and remains so.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is average listening time: 3.1 hours per week, putting it behind CJAD, CHOM and Virgin, which are all between 4 and 4.5 hours a week.
Overall, it’s an awful ratings period for The Beat, bringing them back to what they were at before their notable gains in the spring. That explains why their press release (below) doesn’t mention any numbers.
CJFM (Virgin Radio) is still No. 1 in most key demographics. Among women 25-54, they’re at 41% market share. Its biggest gain is in late mornings and early afternoons, where Nikki Balch and Ryan Seacrest respectively have picked up almost 3,000 average-minute listeners from the spring. Virgin also made significant gains at morning and afternoon drive. It’s now the top station during the morning rush and from 11am to 8pm weekdays among adults 25-54.
Its strength remains in younger audiences – the top nine shows among adults 18-34 are all on Virgin.
CHOM still gets to brag that it’s No. 1 among men, and its market share among men 25-54 has gone up to 35%, though much of that probably has to do with the lack of hockey pushing TSN Radio listeners back to their backup radio option. CHOM has also jumped ahead of The Beat for second place among all adults 25-54.
The morning show with Terry DiMonte and Heather Backman now has about 10,000 listeners 25-54 in the average minute, good for second place after being behind The Beat and CJAD in different ratings periods. It continues a steady climb from 8,000 a year ago and 7,000 the year before that. CHOM’s morning show audience has grown 50% in two years, but still isn’t the high peak of the day. Among men 25-54, there are only about half as many listeners at 7am as there are at 11am.
Tootall had a great ratings report, with the late morning part of his show gaining 20% audience since the spring and now the top-rated show at CHOM. The lunch hour and afternoon parts had more modest gains. The afternoon drive show with Bilal Butt gained slightly to its highest average-minute audience in two years, but it’s still a distant second to Virgin and mired in a tight three-way race with The Beat and CJAD. Even among men 25-54, the show struggles to compete with Virgin and CJAD.
On weekends, CHOM dipped slightly, but it’s still a clear second, and it’s fighting with Virgin for top spot among men 25-54 on weekend afternoons.
CJAD’s numbers didn’t change much. Astral brags about its high-rated morning show, but it’s still third among adults 25-54 (its strength is earlier in the morning, and it dominates the ratings until about 7am). The lunchtime show with Ric Peterson made a significant jump from 2,500 to 3,500 listeners in the demo (but still well behind the three music stations), and the afternoon drive show with Aaron Rand also gained more than a thousand listeners in the 25-54 demo. Rather than fighting TSN for fourth place, it’s fighting CHOM and The Beat for second.
Among all audiences, CJAD is still the top rated station among English listeners, and has the five top-rated shows.
CKGM (TSN 690) is clearly wishing for hockey to come back. Among men 25-54, it has a 7% market share, about half what it did a year ago. Every major time slot is down, and its hopes of competing with CJAD in some of them (notably afternoon drive) are gone for now.
Radio X disappoints
On the French side, not much has changed from a year ago. CHMP 98.5 is still the No. 1 station with a 22.5% market share, followed by CFGL (Rythme FM, 18.6%), CITE (Rouge FM, 12.3%, up more than two points from a year ago) and CBF (Première Chaîne, 11.3%).
NRJ (CKMF) and CKOI continue to be stuck in the single digits, with CKOI hitting a new market share low of 5.7%, even though it’s third-highest in total weekly audience reach. At this point, CKOI barely beats out classical music station CJPX, which has grown a point and a half in French and gained 30,000 daily listeners since last year.
NRJ’s market share is 7.1%, down from 10.3% a year ago.
The most interesting information on the franco side concerns CKLX-FM 91.9, which went from being Planète Jazz to Radio X this fall. Reports that ratings had actually dropped as a result of the change have turned out to be true. Planète Jazz had a 1.3% market share, 64,300 daily listeners and 902,800 weekly listeners a year ago. In the summer, it had a 1.2% share, 62,700 daily listeners and 944,800 weekly listeners. But in its first ratings period as Radio X, it has a 0.8% market share, 54,500 daily listeners and 640,100 weekly listeners.
Radio X, in other words, has only 2/3 the audience that Planète Jazz had, after a programming change designed to bring in more listeners.
Radio X, owned by RNC Media, will counter that this kind of change takes time to build an audience, though that’s not necessarily true.
To be fair, it also made some gains in the key 25-54 demos. Its morning show and afternoon drive gained quite a bit, while early afternoons took a nosedive. Weekends show a significant increase during the hours when it airs rock music (we’re still waiting for a CRTC decision on an application to strip it of its specialty jazz status – until then it has to devote 70% of its music to the jazz/blues format).
Overall, though, the station’s ratings are very poor, behind even Radio Classique (CJPX) and fighting for last place with Radio Circulation (CKAC).
Big gains for Radio Classique
While not much has changed for the other commercial radio stations in French in Montreal, there’s a noticeable increase in the ratings for CJPX Radio Classique, particularly among men.
Consider this: During the lunch hour, it had 630 average-minute listeners this spring, but 4,730 this fall, an astounding increase of 651%. It had similar jumps during all hours of the day, except afternoon drive where it saw a mere doubling of audience.
It makes sense to assume that Radio Classique picked up many former Planète Jazz listeners, but its increases are larger than CKLX’s entire audience was. Is there something else at play here, or is this just a case of sampling error spouting out random variation in small numbers?
Either way, Radio Classique beats out Radio X in all time periods among the 25-54 demo. Radio Classique’s overall commercial market share among 25-54 is 3%, up from 1% in the spring.
More ratings coverage
- Broadcaster Magazine has 12+ numbers for Montreal (with English and French counted together).
- La Presse notes that while CHMP 98.5 is still No. 1 in Montreal, Radio-Canada Première Chaîne has made huge gains here.
- The Journal de Montréal focuses on the disappointing ratings for Radio X. It also says that CKOI is showing signs of growth in ratings despite yet another disappointing quarter.
The Beat’s $1-million gamble
Three days into December and we haven’t had a 45 cm snowfall yet. If we had, there’d be a very happy radio listener, a very happy radio station and a very unhappy insurance company.
But it’s highly unlikely we’re going to be seeing a $1-million payout.
As one of the many crazy ideas that have come out of its promotions department, The Beat is running a contest that asks listeners to guess a date in December in which a 45 cm snowfall hits Montreal. It was originally based on a report that predicted higher-than-average snowfall for December, but the prediction is actually lower-than-average snowfall for December.
The listener who guesses the correct date (or a random draw if multiple listeners guess it) gets $1 million. Or, more accurately, they get $25,000 a year for their lifetime or 40 years, whichever is shorter.
Here’s the catch: Montreal has never seen 45 cm of snow in a single day in December. Now it has. See below.
Caption The Beat’s Cousin Vinny and Jeremy White
Murray Sherriffs being let go from The Beat
Murray Sherriffs
Almost three years after joining what was then 92.5 the Q, Murray Sherriffs is about to be unemployed again.
Sherriffs said he was told on Sept. 1 that the station was looking for a “different sound” and that he was being let go. His last day is Friday, Sept. 14.
It’s unusual that an on-air personality (particularly an opinionative one like Sherriffs) would be kept on for two weeks after being told he’s being canned. I don’t know if it speaks to the professionalism of Sherriffs or of management at Cogeco that he’s being allowed to work these two weeks (and, presumably, will get a chance to say goodbye). Sherriffs says he and Beat program director Leo Da Estrela are friends, the departure is being handled with all professionalism.
Sherriffs joined the station that became The Beat in 2009, after he was similarly let go from CJFM as part of its rebranding from Mix 96 to Virgin Radio.
Give Sherriffs a shot
I can understand the reasoning that Sherriffs’s deep authoritative voice might not fit in with the cheery, up-tempo sound of The Beat. But his voice is unique enough that he really should have a voice in radio somewhere. It’s bad enough Pete Marier is still looking for a job.
Unfortunately, the lack of competition in Montreal English radio limits Sherriffs’s options. Once Bell takes over Astral (and if its plans for CKGM are approved), there will be only two players in town in commercial English radio, and Sherriffs has been let go from both, apparently merely because his sound didn’t fit.
There’s hope on the horizon with an application in front of the CRTC for a talk radio station at 600 AM by the Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy group. That application is being considered at the CRTC hearing that begins Monday (it’s a non-appearing item, so there won’t be discussion of it). It will be weeks, perhaps months before it’s approved (though approval is likely), and not until 2013 that it begins operation. And there are just so many out-of-work veterans from other stations they can pick up.
Beat program director Leo Da Estrela confirmed that Sherriffs is leaving on Sept. 14 and that they’re looking for someone to replace him, but didn’t give any further comment.
Caption the Virgin and Beat promotions SUVs
Radio ratings: Good news for 98.5, The Beat and CHOM
Quarterly radio ratings were released earlier this month. You can see the BBM compilation of top-line data here (PDF), but it doesn’t say too much.
Astral and Cogeco both provide analysis for the benefit of advertisers, Astral in the form of a slideshow (PDF) and Groupe Force Radio (which represents Cogeco stations and independent former Corus stations in Quebec City and Saguenay) also does a slide presentation (PDF). The latter tends to be more detailed, but is also more biased, highlighting their stations’ successes and their competitors’ struggles.
Here, based on those reports, is some analysis of what’s going on in commercial radio in Montreal. We’ll start with the English side.
English radio
Afternoon ratings show a spike for Donna Saker’s show on CKBE, rocketing it to No. 1. There’s a similar spike in late mornings and at noon-hour.
Overall, there hasn’t been much change in the ratings. A few points up, a few points down. But breaking it down a bit you see some significant gains for CKBE-FM 92.5 (The Beat) and a few highlights for CHOM-FM 97.7 as well.
The Beat, which rebranded last fall in an effort to attract a younger female audience but hadn’t seen much movement in ratings until now, is starting to see the change (and accompanying marketing spending) pay off. It’s second behind Virgin Radio among adults 18-49 and 25-54 (in both cases passing CHOM), first among adults 35-64 (passing CJAD) and has seen a gain of more than 50% in a year for men 25-54 (which is interesting because the station is targetting women).
Caption The Beat’s station manager Mark Dickie
Cousin Vinny joins The Beat
"Cousin Vinny" aka Vincent Barrucco
Cat Spencer, Nat Lauzon and now Vinny Barrucco. “Cousin Vinny” has become the latest personality to jump from Virgin Radio to competitor The Beat, even though the latter is less than a year old.
Barrucco left CJFM suddenly at the end of February, and was purposefully vague about why, saying he had “a new opportunity” coming up. This was apparently because of a non-compete obligation that wouldn’t allow him to jump directly to a competing station. So after three months off (during which he said he missed not being on the air), he’s back behind a microphone.
The new hire was introduced to listeners on Monday’s morning show and answered some short-answer questions:
His first shift is Monday at 4pm. His show is weekdays from 4 to 8, leading in to Paul Hayes’s Heartbeats.
Barrucco replaces AJ Reynolds, who was let go from CKBE the same week Barrucco left CJFM. Christin Jerome has been holding the fort in the meantime, and will remain with the station in her unsung-hero capacity.
UPDATE: Mike Cohen interviews Barrucco and program director Leo Da Estrela. Vinny explains it was tough to be off the air for three months and is kind of vague about the reason he decided to move from Virgin to The Beat (which I guess means it’s because of the money). Da Estrela says The Beat’s goal isn’t to steal talent from Virgin, but to get talent that knows Montreal and knows radio. He also acknowledges that the two stations sound a lot alike and have similar playlists these days.
Cogeco applies for big power boost to The Beat, 98.5FM
Existing (purple lines) and proposed (black lines) coverage areas of CKBE-FM 92.5, as prepared by SpectrumExpert. The map for CHMP-FM 98.5 is identical.
Cogeco wants more power.
Its broadcasting arm, Cogeco Diffusion, has applied to the CRTC to more than double the power output of two of its stations, CKBE-FM 92.5 (The Beat) and French-language talk station CHMP-FM 98.5, so they reach their maximum of 100kW effective radiated power, from the current 44.1 kW and 40.8 kW, respectively.
The move comes, the applications say, because of a new antenna installed by CBC/Radio-Canada on the Mount Royal Tower for CBF-FM (Première Chaîne 95.1). Cogeco wants to put both stations on this antenna, and replace their ~20kW transmitters with ~40kW transmitters, leading to a 100kW ERP for both.
At 100kW, the stations would match CBF-FM and CBFX-FM (Espace musique 100.7) as the most powerful FM radio transmitters on the tower. Only CKOI, which transmits 307,000 watts from the CIBC tower downtown, has more power, because it was approved for that power before the 100kW limit was set in the 1960s and the right was grandfathered in.
By comparison, other stations like CHOM, CFGL (Rythme FM), CITE (Rouge FM) and CJFM (Virgin Radio) operate around 40 kW ERP, as does CKMF (NRJ), though it has been authorized to go up to 75 kW. CBC Radio One and Radio Two operate around 25 kW.
As you can see from the map above, though it more than doubles the radiated power of both stations, the impact on the coverage area is minor. Cogeco’s application estimates an increased potential audience of 1.5% or 5%, depending on how you measure it.
That said, those who receive either station with some noise or difficulty will probably find it easier if the CRTC approves this change.
Interference
The CRTC’s decision on this matter won’t just take into account Cogeco’s needs, but will also look at how this increased power will affect other radio stations. Coordination rules set limits in terms of how much stations on the same channel can interfere with each other, as well as how stations protect other stations on adjacent frequencies. Cogeco’s applications see no interference problems in which another station’s needs would take priority over its own.
Here’s what the engineer’s report lists as potential issues:
For CKBE:
- Co-channel interference: The station would risk interfering with four U.S. station allocations on 92.5 FM, none of which have an operational station. The station would also graze the coverage area of CBCD-FM, a retransmitter of CBC Radio One Ottawa in Pembroke, Ont. (An application is also under consideration for a 300W station on that frequency in Clarence-Rockland, Ont., east of Ottawa.)
- First-adjacent channel interference (92.3 FM, 92.7 FM): The biggest concern here would be CBF-FM-12 (92.7), a 130-watt retransmitter of Sherbrooke’s Première Chaîne station in Victoriaville. It could also increase interference with WPAC in Ogdensburg, N.Y., but only if that station were expanded to its maximum allowable parameters.
- Second-adjacent channel interference (92.1 FM, 92.9 FM): There’s a slight overlap near St. Jean sur Richelieu for Burlington’s WEZF (Star 92.9), so there might be trouble for people on the fringe of WEZF’s coverage area near Montreal.
- Third-adjacent channel interference (91.9 FM, 93.1 FM): Only real concern here is CKLX-FM (Planète Jazz 91.9), which might get more interference for people who live near the Mount Royal tower. But being three channels away, and because it also transmits from that tower with a lot of power, it’s unlikely to result in significant interference.
- Harmonic interference: The engineers predict a potential interference problem on TV channel 8, which is used by the analog TV retransmitter of CJOH in Cornwall, Ont. The audio frequency of that channel is at 185 MHz, which is twice 92.5. The station is required to solve any harmonic interference problems that come up.
For CHMP:
- Co-channel interference: The biggest concern here is CJWL-FM (The Jewel) in Ottawa, which would not be fully protected. There’s also a potential for some interference with WCKM-FM in Lake George, N.Y.
- First-adjacent channel interference (98.3 FM, 98.7 FM): Potential interference with CIAX-FM, a community station in Windsor, Quebec.
- Second-adjacent channel interference (98.1 FM, 98.9 FM): No interference issues. The closest station is CFGE-FM 98.1, a Rythme FM transmitter in Magog, which is also owned by Cogeco.
- Third-adjacent channel interference (97.9 FM, 99.1 FM): No issues here either. There’s an American frequency allocation, but CHMP interference would not carry anywhere near the U.S. border.
- Fourth-adjacent channel interference (97.7 FM, 99.3 FM): The engineer mentions CHOM-FM in its report, but notes no likelihood of interference between the two.
- Harmonic interference: Engineers note a potential interference issue with TV channel 10, which is used by the digital transmitter CFTM-DT (TVA), also on the Mount Royal tower. The second harmonic of 98.5 MHz is 197 MHz, which is part of Channel 10. CHMP is required to solve harmonic interference issues if they come up.
For all the listings of interference problems, Cogeco’s application notes that CKBE and CHMP would be operating within their maximum allocated coverage area, which means it would not need to coordinate with these stations. And in any case, these stations are already operating, so most interference issues would already exist. It’s unlikely too many people are going to have problems they didn’t have before picking up stations.
Rubber stamp?
I haven’t seen enough applications like these to judge their chances of getting through the CRTC. But the fact that they are Part 1 applications (no notice of consultation, no hearing date set) suggests the commission sees this as a minor change. Unless one of the stations listed above files an intervention and makes a case that the power increase would negatively affect their station (and that their station’s needs are more important), these changes are likely to pass.
If you wish to file a comment or intervention in these cases, the deadline is May 14. You can view the applications or submit comments via the CRTC website.