Fall radio storm tossed
Katrina, CBC strife skew ratings Three stations clustered at top
The CBC lockout and Hurricane Katrina skewed radio listening patterns uncharacteristically this past fall, according to the latest BBM Bureau of Broadcast Measurement ratings report, creating a very tight cluster among the top three stations in the Toronto market, CHUM FM, CHFI-FM and EZ ROCK. Only 1 per cent of the total number of hours tuned separated CHUM FM, with a 9.1 share, from EZ ROCK in third place, with a 7.9 share of hours tuned by all- age listeners. CHFI, in the second spot with a 9 per cent share, showed significant improvement, up from 5.6 a year ago and 6.5 in the spring, thanks largely to the acquisition of older listeners during the CBC lockout. The fall ratings period is regarded by the broadcast industry as the most important of three seasonal market reviews conducted each year, because it’s the “ book” on which advertising rates for the coming year are based. Both CHUM FM and EZ ROCK lost a small fraction of the audiences they held last fall. With Katrina creating currentevents urgency while the CBC was becalmed by the lockout, listeners looking for news boosted the ratings of 680 NEWS and AM640, which showed respective increases of 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent of hours tuned by all- age audiences in the past 12 months. CBC Radio One’s audience was virtually half of last fall’s, down to a 3.9 share from 7.2.
Classical music- oriented CBC Radio Two, which aired classical music without interruption through the labour dispute, managed to maintain its 1.7 share of hours tuned by all- age listeners. JAZZ-FM91 made significant overall gains as well in the BBM fall survey, with a 2.1 share compared to 1.7 last fall, as did MIX99 ( up 0.2 per cent share) and sports station The Fan ( up 0.6 share).
In the morning, Stu Jeffries and Colleen Rusholme on EZ Rock, and Mike Cooper and Erin Davis on CHFI are battling for dominance. Both hard rock station Q107 and ’ 80s pop rocker JACK posted significant declines over last fall’s book, down 1.2 per cent of hours tuned by all ages, and 1.4, respectively.