Scrolling Eye
Moses Znaimer: who's Zooming who?
Toronto radio ratings
BY Marc Weisblott April 07, 2008 17:04
Radio ratings released today by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement give those few remaining folks wishing the medium could be what it once was more to lament than ever. The rest are preoccupied with relishing all the newer platforms.
But a forthcoming tweak at the CBC has resulted in a new wave of old grumbling.
You kids may not remember this — in fact, if you’re under 30, maybe you can’t even imagine that there was a time when the AM/FM radio dial could be like a social network, a well-stocked jukebox, an incessant source of half-witted jokes, an information portal and a graduate-school cultural studies seminar rolled into one.
Radio listening has been on a decline since 1999 rivaled only by music sales — Statistics Canada reported last summer that average weekly listening dropped by nearly two hours a week since then, a slope largely blamed on those under 25.
Yet, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has initiated a conversation about Emerging Canadian Artists on Commercial Radio — wondering if there’s room for more — at the same time a war is being waged over the announced decrease in airtime for classical music shows on CBC Radio 2.
Meanwhile, consider what radio stations were most frequently cited in diaries filled out by hand by BBM survey respondents: CHUM-FM reaches lots of people who listen for a shorter period of time than CHFI, which reaches fewer people who listen a bit longer, and EZ Rock, with a sound somewhere between the two but fewer diary scribblings to show for it — even though it’s now owned by Astral Media, the same company that runs MIX-FM, a perennial up-tempo also-ran.
Not a decade ago, these frequencies were assailed by music enthusiasts for perpetuating mediocrity – despite all the regulations meant to keep the airwaves in check. Now, these stations can’t help but sound like noise pollution, even in places that switch them on as a background din. And subway riders confronted with advertising posters can’t quite figure out what the hell “Mad Dog & Billie” is.
Mercifully, those outside of the target audience aren’t asked to give it a thought.
Whatever goes on at these stations, with their license to print money, it has garnered none of the publicity granted CBC Radio 2 — with an overall share of 1.9 in the Toronto market, its local reach is a tiny fraction of the above adult-contemporary stations. But the CBC is gearing up to move on their turf this fall.
“No classical? Then kill Radio 2 and get over it” wrote Russell Smith to his flock of snobs in The Globe and Mail. “Classical music on CBC Radio 2 will remain the single most played genre (35 hours per week) on the network” countered a Globe advert taken out by the CBC with endorsements from record-company executives and about 50 artists rarely played on commercial radio. (Estimated cost of the campaign: $30,000.)
From the obligatory Facebook protest group: “They think that since nobody but retired old geezers listens to Classical music, that they can reduce the amount of weekday Classics programming from 12 hrs to 5hrs between 10am and 3pm so that nobody who works or goes to school for a living can tune in. Parents who want their kids to enjoy Classical music on the CBC are going to have to keep them inside on weekend afternoons in order to hear Classical music broadcasts.”
Won’t somebody think of the children? So far, 12,600 of them have, prompting the Globe’s John Doyle to call these self-appointed cultural guardians totally clueless.
But here comes Moses Znaimer to fill the void, branding the station he took over last year Classical 96.3, “The Nation’s Classical Station” — a take-off on the old MuchMusic slogan. John Gallagher, the sportscasting loudmouth profiled on Scrolling Eye in January, hasn’t lost his gig as the Friday overnight host. The steering of the station to the “Zoomer” market has helped increase its share.
Znaimer is now taking possession of AM 740, a station launched in 2001 with the alleged 50-plus audience in mind — as if people who went to high school in the 1970s are looking for reminders to pre-plan their funerals between Doris Day and Englebert Humperdinck tunes. But it appeals to a fair share of listeners who are eager enough to squiggle “AM 740” in a BBM diary — in exchange for a toonie.
And therein rests the problem with taking the radio ratings seriously anymore, even if it remains the main method potential advertisers are given to consider.
Portable People Meters (PPM), small pagers worn by survey respondents and then docked at the end of the day for a reading, will be introduced by BBM for radio at the end of the year in Montreal, possibly expanding to other markets next year.
So, it could take until 2010 to get a technologically honest assessment of what listeners like on a terrestrial radio scene that will have been static for a decade.
“I think the diary, on a macro level, year in and year out produces fairly consistent numbers,” says BBM vice-president Ron Bremner. “But, at the end of the day no one is going to dispute that electronic measurement will be more accurate and more reliable. Then again, we have to weigh the measurement against the cost, and there’s also no denying the diary system produces a lot of value for money.”
Based on the stateside precedents, the main beneficiaries of PPM devices are radio stations aimed at males who haven’t reached retirement age. Q107 is the kind of station that will reap rewards for playing the same classic rock ad infinitum. 92.5 Jack FM, a Rogers Broadcasting wasteland that recruited ex-Q107 employees in an effort to steal their listeners, could improve, too. And 102.1 The Edge will dumb down, or smarten up, or stay the same and gain.
Still at stake nationally are revenues of $1.4 billion. And a 20 per cent profit margin last time it was counted. Best the dead-tree industry can offer today is “Canadian Newspapers Holding their Own in an Age of Global Media Disruption.”
Maybe this explains why real-estate magnate Sam Zell has called in some radio dudes to try and rejuvenate the profits of the Tribune company newspapers he just bought.
There are stations aimed at proverbial teenyboppers, too, even if females with those bubblegum tastes tend to age 40, if not beyond: Z103.5, a Eurocentric dance station, is a shoestring operation with almost twice the count of Flow 93.5, which was licensed as a black-music station but has since tried to broaden its appeal. The aforementioned CHUM-FM and MIX-FM play in those fields, too.
And that’s why the CBC can claim that, of 30,000 new songs that are recorded every year in Canada, less than 250 receive regular airplay on commercial radio.
But it’s past the point where audiences expect those broadcasters to teach them things. 680 News, which reads stories all day yet rarely reveals anything — over the looping sound of a teletype — has over a million pairs of weekly ears.
The old standby Newstalk 1010 CFRB scores a notable increase in the latest BBMs, though, nudging up to a share that puts it back within spitting distance of CBC Radio One, a consistent ratings performer since it was flipped over to FM.
Niche stations comprise the cellar of the BBM list — and those include CBC Radio 2, which at least beats the 0.1 share of its French-language counterpart, and the 0.0 share registered by the French-language AM version of CBC Radio One.
The old media’s sustainability will come down to the fact that there will be more old people. Talk-radio shows are being actively spammed by Conservative Party of Canada members reading off official talking points. And while a CBC Radio 2-sized fraction of the local audience is tuned to AM 640, beleaguered city councillor Rob Ford recently gloated that 95 per cent of their listeners said he shouldn’t apologize for saying "Orientals" are taking over.
Previously on the Scroll:
CBC Radio 3 on ice
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