RADIO RATINGS ANALYSIS is a complex task, as we’ve been saying. 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? We 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.
Earlier this week, we looked at Toronto – and prior to that, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Today, Montreal.
91,9 Sports (CKLX-FM)
RNC Media struggled with this station ever since launching it as a jazz specialty station in 2004, thinking the popularity of the Montreal International Jazz Festival would transfer to a strong radio audience.
In 2012, it gave up on jazz and tried to import its populist Radio X talk format from Quebec City. Then in 2014 it tried a more mainstream talk format called Radio 9. All the while its share was stuck around one per cent. In 2015 it finally went to sports talk, filling a niche left open when Cogeco switched AM station CKAC to a traffic format in 2011.
It finally found some traction, building to a 2.8 share in fall 2017. The poor performance of Montreal sports teams, notably the Canadiens, caused a ratings drop since then, but for the first time the station has a stable future. Ironically, RNC just announced it has agreed to sell the station, to Leclerc Communication.
That deal still requires CRTC approval. Click here for our talk station chart for Montreal.
Rythme FM (CFGL-FM)
Montreal's highest-rated music station is still at the top, but has lost about a quarter of its share since 2016. Coincidentally (or not), that was the last time star Véronique Cloutier hosted a show on that station, which should worry its owner Cogeco because Cloutier just joined direct competitor Rouge FM and Bell Media is putting a lot of marketing power behind her.
Rouge FM (CITE-FM)
Bell's French adult contemporary station was doing well as the number two in the market but started tumbling in 2015, from a high of 14 per cent to a low of 7.1. In the past year, a branding and imaging refresh has caused a minor recovery to 9.4, but it's fighting for second place with Cogeco's CKOI.
Click here for our Montreal francophone music station chart.
The Beat 92.5 (CKBE-FM)
Cogeco's only English-language radio station had struggled behind Bell's Virgin Radio for years with lower ratings and attracting an older demographic, and in 2011 it abandoned its old Q92 brand and light-rock music for a much more upbeat rhythmic pop format.
It took a couple of years, but The Beat slowly climbed past Virgin in the ratings and has been widening the gap. The two stations' trendlines are in opposite directions, and this year The Beat was eight share points up on its competitor. If you combine its substantial francophone audience, it's the second-most popular music station in Montreal, behind the parent company’s Rythme FM.
Click here for our Anglophone station chart.
