I’ve been meaning to comment on this thread for a while, but I’ve been overwhelmed with a ton of work lately.
I see quite the interesting shift in listening habits in Calgary for this book. Newstalk 770 is up a full point back to their usual 10.x share. A few other interesting turns of events as well:
CHFM is up by almost two full points. Good for them.
Also, it looks like Virgin 98.5’s loss was AMP’s gain. From where I’m sitting, it certainly doesn’t look like the rebranding to Virgin has helped them win any more listeners, which again, begs the question; do listeners really care as much about branding as the corporates seem think they do?
Classic Rock Q-107 takes a bit of a hit, but I wonder if that loss went to The Eagle 100.9? CKUV’s numbers aren’t listed here (being that it’s not technically a Calgary station) so could that flip to Classic Rock be helping CKUV?
CHUP seems to be holding its own, floating at around a 4 share, however, I’m sure that hasn’t been management’s intent. Is it really that hard to program a Classic Hits station? (Genuine question of interest and not a smart-ass remark)
I could be wrong here, but seeing as terrestrial radio mostly attracts older listeners these days, I would think that a Classic Hits/Up-tempo Oldies format would be doing a lot better than that. I also think that while CFXL has held a respectable 7-8 share, they could do better if they got rid of the morning brain damage. It certainly helped CHFM’s cause…no tears of sorrow there I’m sure.
CFAC has crept up from out of the very bottom. Must be Flames season. However, with the abysmal performance the Flames are giving us this season and an almost certainty that they will not be making the playoffs, it appears that this tiny upswing will be temporary.
Then there’s CKMX….ouch. The gradual slide continues for this station. Here’s a great AM with a great signal, and it’s just seemingly going to waste. I really hope someone over at Astral decides at some point soon to do something with 1060. I still believe and hold hope that a well programmed (and that’s the key right there or otherwise forget it) AM music station can still do reasonably well. Classic Country is never going to draw a large audience, even in a market like Calgary. Flipping it to comedy would only be a small Band-Aid that won’t stay on for very long in my honest opinion. At this point, it almost seems that anything would help…even if that means a change in ownership for this station.
Any thoughts?