RADIO RATINGS ANALYSIS is a complex task. For radio station promotion departments getting their quarterly analysis in Canada's five largest markets, it's about toying with the numbers — age, gender, time of day, relative growth — until your station becomes number one, or at least number one in categories advertisers like.
But what about longer-term trends? Cartt.ca took Numeris top-line ratings data over the past seven years to capture portraits of stations in those five major markets who made changes to their programming, and what happened to their audience as a result.
For the sake of a fair comparison, and because they're the only numbers published directly by Numeris, we're using their top-line PPM numbers, which count all listeners in a central market, regardless of age or gender. Some stations may be happy with a change that reduces their overall rating in exchange for a boost in a target demo. And some changes in ratings could be due to many factors not considered here. We're not necessarily proposing a cause-and-effect link, just showing what happened.
We’ll start with Vancouver today and move east next week.
VANCOUVER
Sportsnet 650 (CISL)
The good news is that Rogers has successfully taken on rival TSN Radio in this market, and launching Sportsnet 650 with Vancouver Canucks radio rights in 2017 managed to eat almost half of TSN's audience (see chart above or click here for a larger version). In the two years before Sportsnet launched here, TSN 1040 had an average-minute audience of 3,200 (plus another 500 for sister TSN 1410). Since the launch, TSN 1040's audience has dropped to 1,800, just ahead of Sportsnet's 1,400. The bad news is that Sportsnet 650's average audience is less than half the 3,500 it had in the last two years as a music station under previous owner Newcap.
BNN Bloomberg Radio (CFTE)
TSN 1410, meanwhile, was converted into BNN Bloomberg Radio in April of this year. It's only had two ratings periods since the change, but its average 0.2 per cent share is about half what it was as an overflow TSN station.
Roundhouse Radio (CIRH-FM 98.3)
It was a noble cause, but Roundhouse Radio, a mostly talk format aimed at young urbanites, failed to register at all on Numeris's ratings between the spring of 2017 and when it shut down this spring. Its five ratings periods all showed an audience of zero.
Global News Radio (CKNW)
Though the rebranding of Corus's talk radio stations to Global News Radio hasn't had much of an impact in Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto, the venerable CKNW 980 saw its highest ratings in the past seven years this spring and summer, with 11.6 and 11.5 shares a full two points above its average previously.
Virgin Radio (CKZZ-FM 95.3/CFBT-FM 94.5)
Vancouver had two stations rebrand to this format. First, under Astral Media, CKZZ-FM switched to the Virgin brand in 2009. When Astral was sold to Bell in 2013, it became one of the stations which had to be sold to a new owner to meet the common ownership policy. In March 2014, Newcap took over and rebranded the station Z95.3, a brand it 
had used before 2007.
The result seemed to hurt the station, which went from an average 7.3 share to a 5.3 share since. Meanwhile, at 94.5, Bell rebranded The Beat to a new Virgin Radio Vancouver in February 2015. Its share dropped from 7.7 to 6.6. (Check our pop/AC chart here)
LG104 (CHLG-FM)
Shortly after Newcap purchased Shore 104.3 out of the Bell-Astral deal in 2014, it changed the music from adult alternative to classic hits and renamed it LG104. The result was immediate. From an average 1.6 share under Astral as Shore, the station has averaged a 5.1 share since 2016.
Rock 101 (CFMI-FM)
In 2013 and 2014, owner Corus reformatted the station from a classic rock format to classic hits. Its share went from an average of 5.5 per cent before the change to 7.5 since.
102.7 The Peak (CKPK-FM)
In 2015-16, the Pattison-owned station shifted from an adult album alternative format to modern rock. The result was only a slight increase in average ratings, from 3.2 per cent to 3.5. (Check the Rock/Alternative chart by 
clicking here)
Look for our analysis of the changes in Edmonton radio on Tuesday.
