Numeris released its meter ratings for the spring season, and while Montreal’s numbers don’t change much in terms of the order of stations, we do see some trends worth noting (or repeating).

On the English side, CJAD remains the #1 station, but for the first time since the meter rating system came into place, it has dropped below 10,000 average minute listeners. This seems to be continuing a downward trend for CJAD over the past five years.

Is this because fewer people are interested in news-talk radio? Maybe not, because CBC’s audience has grown slightly on average over that time, and French station 98.5 FM is once again boasting that it’s not only the most popular station in Montreal but in Canada as well.

Among the other stations, not that much has changed. The Beat remains number 2, followed by CBC Radio One (though it has come down a bit from that spike in fall 2021), CHOM and then Virgin Radio. It’s been almost three years since Virgin blew up its morning show and installed Vinny and Shannon as the new hosts, and despite Bell-owned billboards all over the city with their faces on them, the station’s overall ratings remain below what they were before they were brought on board.

TSN 690, meanwhile, continues to hold its own despite the poor showing of the Canadiens this season and lukewarm interest in the city’s other sports teams. Notably, it still has an overall audience above French-language sports station 91.9 Sports, which makes some recent decisions even more of a head-scratcher.

Among other French stations, not much to note, except at Énergie, which must be happy with its best audience in years. Its 8.7% share among francophones was the highest since 2013.

Self-congratulations

• 98.5fm: #1 radio station in Canada
• Rythme: #1 music station in Montreal
• CKOI: Largest weekly reach in Quebec and highest reach for a French-language music station in Canada
• Énergie 94,3: Highest average audience in Canada among adults 18-54
• Rouge 107,3: Most popular afternoon drive show among women 25-54
• WKND 99,5: Best ratings book since launch
• Radio-Canada: Highest spring market share ever for Première and highest share for ICI Musique since at least 2008
• The Beat 92.5: #1 music station in Montreal (among anglophones)
• CJAD/Virgin/CHOM: (crickets)

Meanwhile in other markets

Last week, Numeris released radio ratings for diary markets, including Quebec City, Ottawa/Gatineau, Sherbrooke, Saguenay and a bunch of other places across the country. You can find the full top-line data report here.

In Quebec City, Radio-Canada takes top spot over the populist talk stations with a 22.9% share at ICI Première. It’s followed by CHOI Radio X (17%), FM93 (15.9%), Rythme 102,9 (7.6%), WKND 91,9 (7.5%) and Rouge 107,5 (6.4%). CBC Radio One trails the pack with a 0.3% share.

In Sherbrooke, Radio-Canada again leads the pack with a 21.4% share, followed by Rouge (15.9%), Énergie (14.2%), 107,7 (13.3%) and Rythme (7.8%).

In Trois-Rivières, again Radio-Canada leads with a 14.4% share, with Bell’s Rouge and Énergie neck and neck for second place and Rythme in third.

In Ottawa-Gatineau, among francophones, Radio-Canada is well ahead with a 21% share, followed by Rouge, Wow, talk station 104,7, Énergie and ICI Musique.

Numeris released its quarterly metered ratings report on Wednesday, and while the order in Montreal hasn’t changed much, there are some trends that should be worrying some people, particularly at Bell Media.

Here’s the top-line data — Average minute audience, Montreal anglo 12+, Nov. 29, 2021 to Feb. 27, 2022:

• CJAD 800: 11,100
• The Beat 92.5: 6,500
• CBC Radio One: 5,700
• CHOM 977: 3,800
• 95.9 Virgin Radio: 2,700
• TSN 690: 2,200
• CBC Music: 1,300

The good news goes mainly to CBC Radio One, which had a sudden spike in the last ratings book and has maintained it through this one. Its 14.9% market share overall is the highest it’s been in a decade at least and 69% higher than it was just a year ago.

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Numeris has released its quarterly radio ratings report for metered markets including Montreal, and the new data show a surprising change in order for the city’s English-language radio stations, with CBC Radio One climbing above both CHOM and Virgin 95.9 in average minute audience for the first time.

Rather than being a reflection on the Bell-owned music stations (though both are down from their summer numbers), this seems to be a rather stunning jump among CBC’s audience, with its 14.8% market share its highest by far in at least the past decade, and more than double what it was just two years ago.

On the music side, once again The Beat 92.5 leads, growing its gap with its competitors though still well below what it was before the pandemic.

CJAD remains the market leader overall, but had its lowest average-minute audience since Numeris began releasing that statistic publicly in 2015. TSN 690 remains relatively stable, unlike the Canadiens’ season so far this year, and CBC Music once again brings up the rear.

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Numeris released its quarterly PPM ratings last week, and I’m not completely sure how to headline this because there hasn’t been much change.

Here’s how it works out for English-language stations:

We see long-term declines continuing for CJAD and The Beat, the latter of which seems to have been hit hardest by the pandemic (probably because it’s long been a 9-to-5 at-work station), and we see that Virgin Radio remains not only behind CHOM among anglophones, but once again behind CBC Radio One as well.

TSN 690 had its best summer book in years, which may have something to do with the Canadiens playing in the Stanley Cup Final in July.

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Numeris released top-line data for its spring ratings period last week. There isn’t much new (CJAD still leads among all listeners, The Beat is still the top-rated music station), but a few things of note:

• CJAD 800 saw a third straight gain, and remains top-rated in the Montreal English-language market, but the overall trend remains downward as fewer people listen to radio.
• The Beat 92.5 tied for its worst performance in average minute audience in the past five years, and lost ground against Virgin, but still has almost twice the audience of Virgin among anglophones.
• CHOM 97.7 has been remarkably consistent over the past few years, retaining its audience as other stations lost theirs. We’ll see in the coming months whether the loss of Terry DiMonte will have an impact overall.
• Virgin 95.9 is still fighting it out with CBC Radio One for market share. You have to wonder how long Bell will let that go on before something dramatic happens. (Replacing its morning team clearly didn’t work.)
• The Canadiens’ good fortunes once again had a positive impact on TSN 690. (Six of the seven playoff games against the Leafs are included here.) In total average minute audience (anglo and franco combined) it had its best book since 2018.

• 98.5fm remains top-rated among francophones, and once again claims to be the most listened-to station in Canada. As the francophone rights holder for Canadiens games, the team’s performance had to help a bit.
• ICI Radio-Canada Première remains mostly stable, though lost some ground against 98.5
• 91.9 Sports continues to slowly build its audience but remains well below what it was in 2019. With the Canadiens playing late into the spring and maybe early summer, this station’s acquisition of rights to Montreal’s MLS team hasn’t captured peoples’ imagination.

• Rythme FM remains top-rated among francophone music stations, and appears to have slowed a long-term decline and held up against Rouge, CKOI and others.
• Rouge and CKOI had their lowest audience in at least five years, but continue to fight for second place with Énergie, which has remained pretty stable.
• Virgin 95.9 continues to do slightly better than The Beat 92.5 among francophones
• WKND 99.5 is still building its audience, but more slowly, and is still below what Radio Classique was in 2017 when it last subscribed to Numeris ratings.

• The overall audience for all measured stations is still low compared to pre-pandemic numbers.

Meanwhile, Numeris also released diary ratings recently, the first in a year after last fall’s report was cancelled due to pandemic complications.

Quebec City

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• ICI Radio-Canada Première 106,3: 22.8%
• CHOI Radio X 98.1: 18.8%
• FM93: 14.2%
• WKND 91.9: 11.7%
• M 102.9: 7.6%
• Rouge 107,5: 5.7%
• ICI Musique 95,3: 5.6%
• blvd 102,1: 2.0%
• Énergie 98,9: 1.7%
• Vibe 100,9: 1.5%
• CBC Radio One 104.7: 0.2%

Both Radio-Canada and CHOI saw a significant jump in share. Other stations went up or down a few points, but the biggest change was at Énergie, which dropped its talk format last summer and went back to rock to join the rest of the network. That decision was devastating to its ratings as it went from a 6.0% share to a 1.7% share in a year, losing that audience to CHOI and FM93.

Saguenay

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• KYK FM 95.7: 26.5%
• Rouge 96.9: 22.2%
• ICI Radio-Canada Première 93.7: 12.6%
• Énergie 94.5: 11.8%
• CKAJ-FM 92.5: 10.1%
• ICI Musique 100.9: 5.2%

In Saguenay, KYK climbed above Rouge to take the #1 spot among all audiences 12+. Community station CKAJ signed up for Numeris ratings, and found itself with a 10% share. ICI Musique saw its share almost double from 2.8% last year.

Sherbrooke

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• ICI Radio-Canada Première: 19.1%
• Énergie 106.1: 16.5%
• Rouge FM 102.7: 16.4%
• 107,7fm: 10.9%
• Rythme: 7.1%
• ICI Musique: 5.9%

In Sherbrooke, ICI Première took top spot over both Bell stations Énergie and Rouge, which are statistically tied. Meanwhile Rythme FM Estrie saw its share drop by almost half.

Trois-Rivières

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• Rythme 100,1: 14.2%
• ICI Première: 13.5%
• Rouge 94,7: 12.6%
• Énergie 102,3: 12.3%
• 106,9fm: 9.1%
• ICI Musique: 8.2%
• CKBN 90,5: 7.2%

In Trois-Rivières, less than two points separate the top four stations a year after Rouge led handily. Both Radio-Canada stations picked up a couple of points.

Ottawa-Gatineau franco

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• ICI Première: 21.7%
• Rouge 94,9: 14.4%
• 104,7fm: 9.7%
• WOW 97,1: 7.1%
• Énergie 104,1: 6.9%
• ICI Musique: 5.5%
• 106.1 CHEZ: 3.3%
• Move 100.3: 3.0%
• Hot 89.9: 2.5%
• Pure Country 94: 2.5%
• Lite 98.5: 2.0%
• Boom 99.7: 1.7%
• CBC Radio One: 1.7%
• CBC Music: 1.6%
• Kiss 105.3: 1.5%
• Pop 96.5: 1.2%
• Jump! 106.9: 1.2%

Among francophones in the national capital, the public broadcaster is back on top by a wide margin, followed by Bell’s Rouge, Cogeco’s talk station 104,7 and RNC Media’s Wow 97.1. RNC’s other station, Pop 96.5, remains in the chaff with the English-language music stations and below even CBC Radio One among francophones. Its 1,750-watt signal limits its upward mobility.

Ottawa-Gatineau anglo

Market share, central market 12+, spring 2021:

• CBC Radio One: 23.1%
• Move 100.3: 7.6%
• Hot 89.9: 7.5%
• CFRA 580: 7.1%
• CBC Music: 5.6%
• Boom 99.7: 5.3%
• 106.1 CHEZ: 5.2%
• Live 88.5: 3.7%
• Pure Country 94: 3.6%
• TSN 1200: 3.5%
• CityNews 1310/101.1: 3.2%*
• Kiss 105.3: 3.1%
• Lite 98.5: 3.1%
• Jump! 106.9: 1.9%
• Rebel 101.7: 1.6%
• Country 92.3: 1.3%
• ICI Musique: 1.0%

No surprise that CBC does best by a lot in Ottawa. CFRA slipped a couple of spots from last year, and Bell’s killing of the Majic 100 brand doesn’t seem to have hurt the station now called Move. Boom had a good book, going from 4.0% to 5.3% share, but otherwise most of the music stations stayed within a point of where they normally land in this very crowded market.

Meanwhile, Rogers’ shuffle is not a ratings winner so far. It went from a 9.1 share overall to a 7.6 share. CityNews gained one share point with its new FM simulcast, but the country station went from 3.5 points at 101.1 to 1.3 points on the much lower power 92.3, whose Smiths Falls signal doesn’t get into the city as well.

*The original version of this post had a typo in CityNews’s AM frequency.

Numeris released its fall metered radio ratings last week, and as usual you can play around with the numbers all you want, but it’s clear there has been am impact on the ratings, particularly for The Beat 92.5 but also for Virgin Radio 95.9, that started around the time we went into lockdown. Both stations lost about a third of their audience since the spring.

Average minute audience, anglophone Montrealers 12+, Aug. 31 to Nov. 29:

• CJAD 800: 12,200
• The Beat 92.5: 7,000
• CHOM 977: 5,500
• Virgin 95.9: 3,500
• CBC Radio One: 3,300
• CBC Music: 1,500
• TSN 690: 1,400
• 98,5fm: 1,000
• Rythme 105,7: 800
• ICI Radio-Canada Première: 600

CHOM and CJAD have slightly negative trendlines but have managed to hold their own during the pandemic. CHOM remains rated better than Virgin, while CJAD is still the highest-rated English-language station among anglophones, with a stronger share but fewer listeners on average than it had in 2016-18.

Also of note is that CBC Music, formerly Radio Two, has been improving its numbers in Montreal, and had edged out TSN 690 in overall audience. That doesn’t mean TSN is doing horribly, though. The Canadiens’ playoff run this summer prevented it from hitting a summer low as deep as it saw in 2018, and even though the team hasn’t played this fall, it remains on par with ratings in fall 2018 and 2017.

Among francophones, 98,5fm remains unsurprisingly the top-rated station. The average minute audience (12+) ranks as such:

1. 98,5fm: 32,600
2. ICI Radio-Canada Première 95,1: 23,000
3. 105,7 Rythme FM: 20,400
4. CKOI 96,9: 13,800
5. 107,3 Rouge: 12,700
6. Énergie 94,3: 11,700
7. CHOM 97.7: 8,100
8. ICI Musique 100,7: 6,700
9. The Beat 92.5: 5,900
10. Virgin Radio 95.9: 4,900
11. WKND 99,5: 2,600
12. 91,9 Sports: 1,200
13. CBC Music: 1,000
14. TSN 690: 600
15. CJAD 800: 400

Of course, that didn’t stop Bell from declaring victory, saying Énergie was the top-rated station in Montreal, based on counting only those ages 25-54 (the money demo for advertisers). Rythme FM countered that it was the highest-rated music station (using the “big number”), listing all the time periods it is #1 and conveniently ignoring that time period before 8:30am.

The newest kid on the block, WKND 99.5, started slow out of the gate, and still hasn’t built up an audience to match what it saw as Radio Classique. That’s to be expected, as a new radio station takes a while, and the pandemic isn’t helping. It almost doubled its audience from the summer, and we can probably expect those numbers to slowly improve over the coming year.

Numeris cancelled its fall ratings for diary markets (Quebec City, Saguenay, Sherbrooke, Ottawa-Gatineau, etc.), so we’ll have to wait for next spring to find out how those stations are doing.

I had an idea for a blog post with a cool analysis showing the changes in radio listening because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would show, through a bunch of number-crunching, that Canadians turned away from music radio stations as they stopped going to work, but kept in touch with news-talk stations.

Unfortunately, the data didn’t have my back here. I compared average minute audience measured by Numeris from this spring (March to May) versus last spring, and looked at the relative change in audience. While some news-talkers did well (98.5 and CJAD in Montreal), others did badly (CBC Radio One here and in some other cities).

There were some undeniable trends, though, and they aren’t terribly surprising:

Sports radio: Without sports, there’s much less interest in hearing it or talking about it. Every sports-talk station in Canada’s five largest markets lost audience, between 50% to 72%. Hardest hit was Montreal’s 91,9 Sports.

All-traffic stations were also hit, but because there are only two of them in Canada and they have very low audience, it’s hard to really quantify that.

Less listening overall: Montreal’s total average-minute audience was 202,600 a year ago, and 167,400 this spring, the lowest level since Numeris began publishing overall AMA numbers in 2015. Across Canada, the same deal, with each of the five major markets losing between 10 and 18% of its average audience.

So with that out of the way, here’s how the ratings break down by city:

Montreal

Total average minute audience, spring 2020 (vs. spring 2019):

1. 98,5fm: 38,900 (up from 32,000)
2. Rythme FM; 20,200 (down from 22,000)
3. ICI Radio-Canada Première: 18,700 (down from 21,800)
4. CJAD: 14,500 (up from 14,100)
5. CKOI: 12,300 (down from 19,000)
6. CHOM 97.7: 12,100 (down from 15,900)
7. The Beat 92.5: 11,600 (down from 17,200)
8. Rouge: 11,100 (down from 19,700)
9. Énergie 94,3: 8,300 (down from 11,700)
10. Virgin Radio 95.9: 6,700 (down from 9,700)
11. ICI Musique: 4,100 (down from 5,100)
12. CBC Radio One: 3,900 (down from 6,100)
13. CBC Music: 1,400 (down from 1,700)
14. CHRF AM 980: 1,400 (up from 500)
15. TSN Radio 690: 1,200 (down from 2,500)
16. 91,9 Sports: 900 (down from 3,300)
17. Radio Circulation 730: 100 (down from 300)

Of the 17 measured stations, only three (which I’ve bolded here) saw ratings increases from a year ago. One is CHRF, which has since shut down. The other two are commercial talk stations.

Anglo average minute audience:

1. CJAD: 13,500
2. The Beat: 6,800
3. CHOM: 5,600
4. CBC Radio One: 3,600
5. Virgin: 3,100
6. CBC Music: 1,200
7. TSN 690: 1,100
8. 98,5fm: 900
9. ICI Première: 700
10. Rythme: 600
11. Énergie: 600

Things got so bad for TSN Radio it dropped below CBC Music in terms of audience share, both among anglos and overall. Meanwhile, Virgin Radio is still behind CBC Radio One and less than half the audience of The Beat. “Montreal’s #1 Hit Music Station” is going to have to do more than replace its morning team to fix this disparity.

Self-congratulations

• 98,5fm: Top-rated station in Quebec
• Radio-Canada: 5 shows in the top 10
• Rythme FM: Top-rated music station in Montreal, #1 at work
• CKOI: Top-rated music station among adults 25-49
• Rouge: Top-rated French-language show in Canada
• Énergie: Top-rated music station among men 25-54
• 91,9 Sports: (Nothing)
• The Beat: #1 among adults 25-54, top rated shows in middays, afternoons and weekend afternoons
• Virgin: (Nothing)
• CHOM: (Nothing)
• CJAD: (Nothing)
• TSN: (Nothing)

Toronto

Biggest gains:

1. Jazz.FM91: 28%*
2. Q107: 22%
3. CHFI: 17%
4. CBC Radio One: 14%

Biggest losses:

1. TSN Radio 1050: 67%
2. Sportsnet 590: 67%
3. G98.7: 53%*
4. Virgin Radio: 48%
5. Jewel 88.5: 48%
6. Energy 95.3: 43%*
7. Zoomer AM740: 41%

*Station-specific issues probably had a bigger role in these changes: Internal turmoil at Jazz FM and G98.7, and a format change at Energy (formerly Fresh 95.3).

Calgary

Biggest gains:

1. CBC Music: 38%
2. 101.5 Today: 32%
3. Funny 1060: 25%

Biggest losses:

1. Sportsnet 960: 50%
2. 90.3 AMP: 50%
3. Virgin Radio: 36%

Edmonton

Biggest gains:

1. 840 CFCW: 39%
2. CBC Radio One: 10%

Biggest losses:

1. TSN 1260: 61%
2. Kiss 91.7: 37%
3. CISN Country: 35%
4. 95.7 Cruz FM: 34%
5. 102.3 Now!: 32%

Vancouver

Biggest gains:

1. CBC Music: 57%
2. Peak 102.7: 48%
3. JRfm: 37%
4. Global News Radio: 37%
5. BNN Bloomberg: 33%*

Biggest losses:

1. Sportsnet 650: 71%
2. AM730 (Traffic): 70%*
3. Rock 101: 34%
4. CBC Radio One: 33%
5. TSN 1040: 23%

*Stations with very low audience will see exaggerated relative changes.

Numeris has released its top-line PPM ratings data for Nov. 25 to Feb. 23.

The numbers for Montreal show little change from the previous quarter, or the past few years, really, with CJAD at the top among anglophones and CHMP-FM 98,5 ahead among francophones.

This lack of change is bad news for Virgin Radio 95.9, which spent a lot of effort promoting its new morning show hosted by Vinny Barrucco and Shannon King. We’re two full quarters into this change and The Beat still has twice the audience of Virgin. The sacking of program director Mark Bergman (who’s now at The Beat) and Freeway and Natasha haven’t moved the overall numbers.

Meanwhile, down the hall at CJAD, the long-term trend continues downward. In 2015, the average minute audience overall (averaged over 24/7) was 15,000. Now it’s around 12,000.

The Beat, CBC, CHOM and TSN 690 have kept about flat over that time, and haven’t shown any major change this winter.

Numeris PPM quarterly radio ratings are out. Montreal anglo market share (12+):
CJAD: 24.6%
The Beat 92.5: 20.8%
CHOM 97.7: 11.3%
Virgin 95.9: 9.3%
CBC Radio One: 8.2%
TSN 690: 3.9%
Rythme FM: 2.3%
Énergie: 2.1%
CBC Radio Two: 1.9%https://t.co/Lbj0ecDno3

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) March 4, 2020

On the francophone side, Rythme FM is continuing to re-establish itself as the dominant music station after facing more competition from Rouge, and 98,5fm is holding off Radio-Canada.

Horn-tooting

• CJAD: Most listened-to station in anglo market
• The Beat: #1 among anglos 25-54, more than twice Virgin’s ratings in major categories
• Virgin: (silence so far)
• CHOM: (silence so far)
• TSN 690: (silence so far)
• 98,5fm: Highest-rated radio station in Quebec
• Rythme: #1 francophone music station in terms of weekly reach, #1 music morning show, #1 noon show
• Rouge: Véronique et les Fantastiques is the most-listened-to afternoon drive show
• CKOI: 2.1 million listeners a week, better than Énergie
• Énergie: #1 among francophone men 25-54

Meanwhile, in Toronto, TSN 1050 finally beat Sportsnet’s 590 The Fan with its morning and afternoon shows (among men 25-54 anyway), which Toronto Sports Media notes has a lot to do with how unstable The Fan’s lineup has been.

Numeris released its quarterly ratings report for metered markets on Wednesday, and for Montreal the only surprising thing is how much The Beat continues to dominate over Virgin Radio. With a 21.5% share, it has more than twice the average listeners than Virgin Radio at 9.4%. And not only it it the fourth straight quarter that The Beat has been more than twice Virgin’s share, it’s the third straight where Virgin has fallen behind CHOM for third place among English music stations.

The 21.5% share is The Beat’s highest since it launched in 2011, and less than four points below perennial leader CJAD 800. Could we see a future where The Beat isn’t just the most popular music station and the most popular among that advertiser-friendly 25-54 audience, but among all ages and formats as well?

The book is more bad news for Virgin Radio, which tried to turn things around by letting go of program director Mark Bergman (he’s now at The Beat) and morning hosts Freeway Frank and Natasha Gargiulo and stealing Vinny Barrucco back from The Beat to lead its new morning show. The Beat’s morning show, headed by Vinny’s former co-host Nikki Balch, is still ahead. It’s still early — this is the first full book with Barrucco hosting the morning show with Shannon King — but they have a lot of ground to cover, and Virgin has lost a lot of ground that it has to make up.

TSN 690 is at the bottom of the anglo commercial radio pack, but it had its best share since 2017. CBC Radio One, meanwhile, which had good numbers from 2017 until this spring, has fallen back below 7% in market share.

On the francophone side, the top line hasn’t changed much, except for a rebound for CHMP-FM 98.5 (which always tends to dip in the summer with replacement hosts and less news), and a drop for CKOI 96.9.

Bragging rights

• The Beat 92.5: “Our best results ever!”
• CJAD 800: “#1 station & 7 of top 10 shows”
• 98,5fm: “L’équipe la plus écoutée à Montréal!”
• Rythme FM 105,7: Highest reach, top music station
• Rouge 107.3: #1 among adults 25-54
• Énergie 94,3: #1 music station among men 25-54
• CKOI 96,9: Top-rated music morning show among 25-54
• Radio-Canada: 3 of top 5 shows, morning show up 9%

Numeris came out with its quarterly metered market radio ratings last week. Here’s the top-line data.

I’ll start by pointing out that this is the winter period, covering the Christmas holidays, when radio listening habits are a bit out of the ordinary. But even if you do a year-over-year comparison, two changes are noteworthy.

On the anglo side, The Beat is continuing to pull away from its main competitor Virgin Radio. Among anglophone audiences, The Beat had a higher average audience this winter than Virgin and CHOM combined.

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