SpongeG
Apr 27, 2009, 11:26 PM
Get ready for a shakeup in local radio
New technology and evolving culture are changing the way Vancouver listens
Talkies didn't kill it and neither did TV.
MTV should have done the job, but you can't watch videos while you drive. (Alright, you can, but eventually Darwinian selection comes into play and your genes get tossed on the scrap heap along with your Honda Civic.)
Radio is still going strong and in the last five years or so, it has been stronger than ever as every Internet-connected computer in the world became a de facto radio with an astronomically huge number of stations.
That you can listen to the radio while you are on the Internet helps radio while it hurts TV and newspapers. But people are programming their own playlists on those same computers. Why listen to someone else's favourite music when you can listen to your own?
Talk and news radio is increasingly dominant on the airwaves and the music market increasingly niche oriented: more stations, each with a small share of the market. The business model for music-oriented stations in particular is changing as young people tune in for fewer hours and find their music online.
Teens tune in for a taste of what's popular and then go find what they want on the Internet, radio consultant Ted Farr said. Teen hours are down 30 per cent just in the past few years.
Youth-oriented station The Beat FM drew an astronomical 384,000-plus listeners, the highest in the Vancouver market. But The Beat was fourth in the ratings, behind public affairs stations CBC Radio One, CKNW and adult music station QM FM.
Teens are tuning out, which on the one hand is fine because they don't have much money to spend anyway. On the other hand, they might not come back to radio as adults.
The big question for radio going forward is how to repatriate those young listeners when they have jobs, mortgages and kids, and enter that high-spending adult demographic, Farr said.
Things are going to change and it might come sooner than you think.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
This time next year, Vancouver's radio market and the kinds of programming on offer might look quite different. Some kinds of content might disappear altogether as the radio industry turns to a new technology to measure audience activity minute by minute.
"This will change things in so many ways I don't even know where to start," said radio and marketing analyst David Bray, senior vice president of Hennessy and Bray Communications.
Radio stations will know exactly what song, host, or program a listener is hearing when they turn off the radio or switch stations. It makes you wonder how many annoying morning show sidekicks will be out of work by Christmas.
The Portable People Meter, the PPM, is a pager-sized device, worn like a pager, that "hears" signals coded into the broadcast of every station, records the information and sends what it learns about your listening habits back to the computers of BBM Canada, the research division of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
The PPM replaces the written diaries that BBM Canada has been using for decades to figure out what people listen to and for how long. People don't remember or record every little flip of the dial in their diaries, so the information is full of holes.
Under the diary system the average number of stations that people regularly frequent is three. The PPM revealed in Montreal and U.S. test markets that the number is closer to seven, Bray said.
The top morning drive time shows turn out to be less popular than thought and weekend listenership is substantially higher, he noted. Not good news for stations that have invested in huge contracts with their morning hosts.
Tuning by 18- to 24-year-old males is picked up by the PPM, which was almost impossible to get using the diary system, Bray explained.
A CHANGING LANDSCAPE
It was high fives all around at CBC Radio One this month when BBM Canada declared the station Vancouver's ratings winner with 11 per cent of the total listener hours, replacing long-time number one CKNW. The former Top Dog in the market lost nearly 20 per cent of its listeners in one fell swoop.
"We think that was just a bad bounce," CKNW program director Tom Plasteras said. "We gained over the past five books." But Radio One has been gaining listener hours and reach -- the number of people who tune in at least once a week -- for several years since CKNW lost morning host Brian (Frosty) Forst to retirement in 2005 and the Vancouver Canucks game broadcasts in 2006.
"CKNW has been dominant for many years but for the past 20 years their numbers have been going down," CBC British Columbia managing director Johnny Michel said. "Any time your competition is going through change, then people are going to sample other services."
Radio One has invested much of its energy into public affairs programming in the morning and afternoon in order to absorb listeners from NW.
"I think it's working," Michel said.
Radio One morning man Rick Cluff pulls in a staggering 16.7 per cent of morning listeners, but he is only part of a complex tapestry that Michel is creating.
"We are able to weave a local, regional and national dialogue throughout the whole day," he explained. "What we find is that people who listen to Radio One tend to listen for longer periods of time."
"They feel connected to their city, to the province and to the country," Michel said. "From the local programming through the national shows, it is almost a seamless transition."
That feeling of shared experience is exactly what listeners are seeking -- a conversation with the city, according to Farr.
The busier people's lives become with spouses, children and jobs, the less time they have for seeking information. You can't read the paper, watch television or surf the Web in your car, but you can be informed by radio. That's why morning and afternoon drivetime slots are the biggest and mostly hotly contested periods in radio.
How people consume radio in the car varies dramatically, but News 1130 has built a huge listener base with a continuous rotation of news, traffic and weather and draws in 357,000 listeners at least once a week.
The time people spend with the station tends to be short, but frequent.
"Knowing about traffic problems may not help you avoid the delays, but you feel better knowing about it," Farr said. And if you do get stuck in traffic, QM FM is there to help keep you calm.
QM is the quiet giant in Vancouver radio with nearly twice as many listeners as the raucous rock of CFOX. QM is a strong third place in both hours and listeners with its soft favourites music format.
But even that may change in the year to come. New independent radio station Shore 104 hopes to take a big slice out of QM's pie when it goes to air in June with an adult alternative playlist that its programmers say will be the broadest in Canada. The new station will also put a roster of established radio personalities such as longtime DJ Bill Courage and blues legend Jim Byrnes behind the mic, giving it a high recognition factor with listeners right out of the starting gate.
The PPM data collection system could also put a lid on the wacky contest and giveaways that many stations use during the ratings periods to attract listeners.
PPM is on all the time that you wear it, 365 days a year. It can't be fooled by a short-lived contest promotion.
Stations will be fighting for listeners minute by minute and the PPM will unfailingly record it when people tune out and alert the mother ship at BBM Canada. Program directors will know exactly what was on the air when people shut their station off.
Maybe those morning hosts should be nervous.
rshore@vancouversun.com
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/ready+shakeup+local+radio/1533373/story.html
New technology and evolving culture are changing the way Vancouver listens
Talkies didn't kill it and neither did TV.
MTV should have done the job, but you can't watch videos while you drive. (Alright, you can, but eventually Darwinian selection comes into play and your genes get tossed on the scrap heap along with your Honda Civic.)
Radio is still going strong and in the last five years or so, it has been stronger than ever as every Internet-connected computer in the world became a de facto radio with an astronomically huge number of stations.
That you can listen to the radio while you are on the Internet helps radio while it hurts TV and newspapers. But people are programming their own playlists on those same computers. Why listen to someone else's favourite music when you can listen to your own?
Talk and news radio is increasingly dominant on the airwaves and the music market increasingly niche oriented: more stations, each with a small share of the market. The business model for music-oriented stations in particular is changing as young people tune in for fewer hours and find their music online.
Teens tune in for a taste of what's popular and then go find what they want on the Internet, radio consultant Ted Farr said. Teen hours are down 30 per cent just in the past few years.
Youth-oriented station The Beat FM drew an astronomical 384,000-plus listeners, the highest in the Vancouver market. But The Beat was fourth in the ratings, behind public affairs stations CBC Radio One, CKNW and adult music station QM FM.
Teens are tuning out, which on the one hand is fine because they don't have much money to spend anyway. On the other hand, they might not come back to radio as adults.
The big question for radio going forward is how to repatriate those young listeners when they have jobs, mortgages and kids, and enter that high-spending adult demographic, Farr said.
Things are going to change and it might come sooner than you think.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
This time next year, Vancouver's radio market and the kinds of programming on offer might look quite different. Some kinds of content might disappear altogether as the radio industry turns to a new technology to measure audience activity minute by minute.
"This will change things in so many ways I don't even know where to start," said radio and marketing analyst David Bray, senior vice president of Hennessy and Bray Communications.
Radio stations will know exactly what song, host, or program a listener is hearing when they turn off the radio or switch stations. It makes you wonder how many annoying morning show sidekicks will be out of work by Christmas.
The Portable People Meter, the PPM, is a pager-sized device, worn like a pager, that "hears" signals coded into the broadcast of every station, records the information and sends what it learns about your listening habits back to the computers of BBM Canada, the research division of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
The PPM replaces the written diaries that BBM Canada has been using for decades to figure out what people listen to and for how long. People don't remember or record every little flip of the dial in their diaries, so the information is full of holes.
Under the diary system the average number of stations that people regularly frequent is three. The PPM revealed in Montreal and U.S. test markets that the number is closer to seven, Bray said.
The top morning drive time shows turn out to be less popular than thought and weekend listenership is substantially higher, he noted. Not good news for stations that have invested in huge contracts with their morning hosts.
Tuning by 18- to 24-year-old males is picked up by the PPM, which was almost impossible to get using the diary system, Bray explained.
A CHANGING LANDSCAPE
It was high fives all around at CBC Radio One this month when BBM Canada declared the station Vancouver's ratings winner with 11 per cent of the total listener hours, replacing long-time number one CKNW. The former Top Dog in the market lost nearly 20 per cent of its listeners in one fell swoop.
"We think that was just a bad bounce," CKNW program director Tom Plasteras said. "We gained over the past five books." But Radio One has been gaining listener hours and reach -- the number of people who tune in at least once a week -- for several years since CKNW lost morning host Brian (Frosty) Forst to retirement in 2005 and the Vancouver Canucks game broadcasts in 2006.
"CKNW has been dominant for many years but for the past 20 years their numbers have been going down," CBC British Columbia managing director Johnny Michel said. "Any time your competition is going through change, then people are going to sample other services."
Radio One has invested much of its energy into public affairs programming in the morning and afternoon in order to absorb listeners from NW.
"I think it's working," Michel said.
Radio One morning man Rick Cluff pulls in a staggering 16.7 per cent of morning listeners, but he is only part of a complex tapestry that Michel is creating.
"We are able to weave a local, regional and national dialogue throughout the whole day," he explained. "What we find is that people who listen to Radio One tend to listen for longer periods of time."
"They feel connected to their city, to the province and to the country," Michel said. "From the local programming through the national shows, it is almost a seamless transition."
That feeling of shared experience is exactly what listeners are seeking -- a conversation with the city, according to Farr.
The busier people's lives become with spouses, children and jobs, the less time they have for seeking information. You can't read the paper, watch television or surf the Web in your car, but you can be informed by radio. That's why morning and afternoon drivetime slots are the biggest and mostly hotly contested periods in radio.
How people consume radio in the car varies dramatically, but News 1130 has built a huge listener base with a continuous rotation of news, traffic and weather and draws in 357,000 listeners at least once a week.
The time people spend with the station tends to be short, but frequent.
"Knowing about traffic problems may not help you avoid the delays, but you feel better knowing about it," Farr said. And if you do get stuck in traffic, QM FM is there to help keep you calm.
QM is the quiet giant in Vancouver radio with nearly twice as many listeners as the raucous rock of CFOX. QM is a strong third place in both hours and listeners with its soft favourites music format.
But even that may change in the year to come. New independent radio station Shore 104 hopes to take a big slice out of QM's pie when it goes to air in June with an adult alternative playlist that its programmers say will be the broadest in Canada. The new station will also put a roster of established radio personalities such as longtime DJ Bill Courage and blues legend Jim Byrnes behind the mic, giving it a high recognition factor with listeners right out of the starting gate.
The PPM data collection system could also put a lid on the wacky contest and giveaways that many stations use during the ratings periods to attract listeners.
PPM is on all the time that you wear it, 365 days a year. It can't be fooled by a short-lived contest promotion.
Stations will be fighting for listeners minute by minute and the PPM will unfailingly record it when people tune out and alert the mother ship at BBM Canada. Program directors will know exactly what was on the air when people shut their station off.
Maybe those morning hosts should be nervous.
rshore@vancouversun.com
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/ready+shakeup+local+radio/1533373/story.html