More Edmonton Radio news
The Bounce drops urban tag
Now known as 'Edmonton's only hit music station'
By Yuri Wuensch
In the wake of 96X's demise last week, 91.7 the Bounce sent out an e-mail en masse to Edmonton media. It was a self-indulgent notice that Bounce had crushed its key competition.
"91.7 the Bounce general manager James Stuart is thrilled with the success of his station," the e-mail read. "It's a tremendous day for our team, and we welcome the opportunity to become the station of choice for top-40 music in Edmonton. Our work has just begun. We plan on doing everything we can to be bigger and better."
Bigger and better apparently means adding Nickelback to the Bounce 91.7 playlists. If Nickelback sounds unlike the "urban" format the station originally touted, don't worry; Bounce has dropped "urban" from its tagline, now opting to become "Edmonton's only hit music station."
That much is probably true, although it's a pity the Bounce has deviated from its original, more-specific mandate.
When 96X collapsed and re-launched last week as Big Earl 96.3, an all-country station, Sun music writer Mike Ross quipped that Avril Lavigne would now likely be absent from Edmonton airwaves. It was no joke; even her local label rep was wondering where she might pop up.
Maybe the Bounce will pick up the slack. If you're going to play bad rock, you might as well play girly angst pop.
The Bounce launched in February and rose to No. 10 in the Edmonton market. Conversely, 96X fell from a record high of No. 5 last year to a woeful No. 12 this year.
Beyond the Bounce entering the Edmonton market, there may have been a couple of other factors that alienated 96X listeners.
This past spring, 96X launched a "find the fugitive" promotion that ultimately bombed.
Listeners were fed on-air clues that would lead them to a station plant walking Edmonton city streets. If you managed to track this person down and successfully asked them whether they were the 96X fugitive, you could have won a cool $20,000.
And you might have, had the station not killed the contest.
The deaths of the four Mayerthorpe officers made the station realize that, hey, maybe fugitives ain't so funny. Instead, 96X donated the money to the officers' families.
This fall, 96X played - and ultimately played out - the ADD Hour.
The program would play brief snippets of tunes, followed by announcers making derogatory comments about people suffering from attention deficit disorder. The show had one local blogger calling for a boycott of the station until ADD was taken off the air.
I'm not exactly convinced either of those instances had much impact, frankly.
For one, the correlation between Mayerthorpe killer James Roszko and fugitives seems tenuous to me. Donating the money to the families sounds nice, but it also smacks of opportunistic grandstanding.
I also don't know why people would take exception to a jab at hummingbird syndrome, but could care less about the misogynistic attitudes that pervade stations like K-Rock and the Bear, or the blatant right-wing agenda on CHED? If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
Ironically, it's the listening audience's short attention span - that emphasis on new, new, new - that probably most accounted for flighty youth opting for the Bounce over 96X.
While relaunching 96X as Big Earl - now one of three country stations in Edmonton, the other two being CISN and CFCW - might seem counterintuitive, the numbers speak for themselves.
Edmonton's second-most popular radio station is CISN 103.9 FM, where the country format holds an 11.2 market share. According to the latest ratings, Bounce took a 4.4 share while 96X held a 4.2 share.
Over time, if Big Earl could only steal just under half of CISN's share, the station would still be performing better than 96X's format did. It's smart business even if it does come at the expense of market diversity. Fact is, yee-haw, country sells in Edmonton.
Regardless, the face of Edmonton radio is really more interesting than it has been in years. In spite of startups, shutdowns and changeovers, there are now more quality niche stations to choose from.
And there are certainly listening voids still to be filled. A new one seems to have opened up for a truly "urban" format.
Casualties of air war
Radio stations doing battle
By MIKE ROSS, EDMONTON SUN
It must be tough to fight a battle when you can't even acknowledge your enemy's existence.
Such is the character of Radio Wars. It's a fascinating exercise in clever ploys, careful wording and strategic playlist tinkering as radio stations battle for the hearts and minds and ears of listeners. But beneath their cool exterior, the troops fight tooth and nail. They're not just screwing around here. Each rating point translates to six figures of advertising revenue.
What a year for war it's been. There were new threats, new armies, heavy casualties. The once mighty Bear 100.3 FM came in last among rock stations in the recent ratings, earning only a 5.5 market share. They scored 12s back in the day. The new modern rock station Sonic 102.9 FM stole some of the Bear's thunder with a decent first book of 5.7. Meanwhile, K-Rock's "Edmonton's classic rock" pulled an outside run for a healthy 7.6 - and they're sending their on-air staff to the Dominican Republic. Coincidence, you say?
The Bear has been in the thick of one war or another since the station launched in 1992. Many a night we sit around the warm glow of the radio tubes and tell tales of how the great K-Rock Conflict came to a head in ought-two, or the Power 92 Insurgency of the late '90s. Rarely do such skirmishes reach the public eye. Once, outside a Black Crowes concert, the Bearmobile and the K-Rock van each blasted their music as loud as possible in close proximity. Then there was the time a Power 92 promotions girl crashed the Bear's Halloween Howler dressed as a giant rabbit.
The Bear must feel like Israel these days, beset from all sides by hostile forces. When Sonic launched in May, a Bear staffer said that most of their effort would be put into the "battle with Sonic." His words. The first discernible attack was appending the Bear's "Edmonton's best rock" ID with "no rules," because "modern rock," of course, is a rule. Sonic tagged some of its tunes with "only on Sonic," while the Bear countered, "you heard it here first." All the while, fierce behind-the-scenes fights were taking place for the right to be the presenting station at just about every rock concert that came to town in 2005.
Lately, one can notice a tiny shift in the Bear's playlist. "No rules" apparently includes a bit more classic rock, which is fine. Staking out the middle ground may be the only way to survive, like actual Bears. There's going to be some overlap. Even the Bounce 91.7 - having defeated 96X into becoming a country station called Big Earl (Country War 2006 has already started, with former Big Earl billboards going straight for its CISN Country adversary: "Why settle for a kiss when you can go all the way?") - cheekily added a Nickelback song.
I relish the opportunity to hear the same tune being played on three or even four radio stations at the same time. It's a karmic convergence - even if it usually turns out to be U2.
Morning shows are as crucial as the playlists, since they set the tone for the entire broadcast day. If listeners get some humour, some human element to entice them, they're less likely to flip around. With three new area stations in 2005, there's a lot of flipping to be done. Radio wars are more intense in the early hours. The Bear, Sonic and K-Rock all have outstanding morning shows, so it'll be interesting to see how the battle plays out or what changes, if any, will be made. New blood always makes things more interesting and the participants better and stronger.
Bear program director Ryan Zimmerman said months ago that the December ratings book would determine "if the Metrics of the world are taking over Edmonton." He was right. But the Metrics of Edmonton still weren't able to top the ZZ Tops.
Sadly, all of this might not matter in a few years. Like the Roman Empire about to descend on Celtic tribes feuding over ferret hunting grounds, satellite radio is all the rage. It'll change radio as surely as cable changed television.
Now known as 'Edmonton's only hit music station'
By Yuri Wuensch
In the wake of 96X's demise last week, 91.7 the Bounce sent out an e-mail en masse to Edmonton media. It was a self-indulgent notice that Bounce had crushed its key competition.
"91.7 the Bounce general manager James Stuart is thrilled with the success of his station," the e-mail read. "It's a tremendous day for our team, and we welcome the opportunity to become the station of choice for top-40 music in Edmonton. Our work has just begun. We plan on doing everything we can to be bigger and better."
Bigger and better apparently means adding Nickelback to the Bounce 91.7 playlists. If Nickelback sounds unlike the "urban" format the station originally touted, don't worry; Bounce has dropped "urban" from its tagline, now opting to become "Edmonton's only hit music station."
That much is probably true, although it's a pity the Bounce has deviated from its original, more-specific mandate.
When 96X collapsed and re-launched last week as Big Earl 96.3, an all-country station, Sun music writer Mike Ross quipped that Avril Lavigne would now likely be absent from Edmonton airwaves. It was no joke; even her local label rep was wondering where she might pop up.
Maybe the Bounce will pick up the slack. If you're going to play bad rock, you might as well play girly angst pop.
The Bounce launched in February and rose to No. 10 in the Edmonton market. Conversely, 96X fell from a record high of No. 5 last year to a woeful No. 12 this year.
Beyond the Bounce entering the Edmonton market, there may have been a couple of other factors that alienated 96X listeners.
This past spring, 96X launched a "find the fugitive" promotion that ultimately bombed.
Listeners were fed on-air clues that would lead them to a station plant walking Edmonton city streets. If you managed to track this person down and successfully asked them whether they were the 96X fugitive, you could have won a cool $20,000.
And you might have, had the station not killed the contest.
The deaths of the four Mayerthorpe officers made the station realize that, hey, maybe fugitives ain't so funny. Instead, 96X donated the money to the officers' families.
This fall, 96X played - and ultimately played out - the ADD Hour.
The program would play brief snippets of tunes, followed by announcers making derogatory comments about people suffering from attention deficit disorder. The show had one local blogger calling for a boycott of the station until ADD was taken off the air.
I'm not exactly convinced either of those instances had much impact, frankly.
For one, the correlation between Mayerthorpe killer James Roszko and fugitives seems tenuous to me. Donating the money to the families sounds nice, but it also smacks of opportunistic grandstanding.
I also don't know why people would take exception to a jab at hummingbird syndrome, but could care less about the misogynistic attitudes that pervade stations like K-Rock and the Bear, or the blatant right-wing agenda on CHED? If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
Ironically, it's the listening audience's short attention span - that emphasis on new, new, new - that probably most accounted for flighty youth opting for the Bounce over 96X.
While relaunching 96X as Big Earl - now one of three country stations in Edmonton, the other two being CISN and CFCW - might seem counterintuitive, the numbers speak for themselves.
Edmonton's second-most popular radio station is CISN 103.9 FM, where the country format holds an 11.2 market share. According to the latest ratings, Bounce took a 4.4 share while 96X held a 4.2 share.
Over time, if Big Earl could only steal just under half of CISN's share, the station would still be performing better than 96X's format did. It's smart business even if it does come at the expense of market diversity. Fact is, yee-haw, country sells in Edmonton.
Regardless, the face of Edmonton radio is really more interesting than it has been in years. In spite of startups, shutdowns and changeovers, there are now more quality niche stations to choose from.
And there are certainly listening voids still to be filled. A new one seems to have opened up for a truly "urban" format.
Casualties of air war
Radio stations doing battle
By MIKE ROSS, EDMONTON SUN
It must be tough to fight a battle when you can't even acknowledge your enemy's existence.
Such is the character of Radio Wars. It's a fascinating exercise in clever ploys, careful wording and strategic playlist tinkering as radio stations battle for the hearts and minds and ears of listeners. But beneath their cool exterior, the troops fight tooth and nail. They're not just screwing around here. Each rating point translates to six figures of advertising revenue.
What a year for war it's been. There were new threats, new armies, heavy casualties. The once mighty Bear 100.3 FM came in last among rock stations in the recent ratings, earning only a 5.5 market share. They scored 12s back in the day. The new modern rock station Sonic 102.9 FM stole some of the Bear's thunder with a decent first book of 5.7. Meanwhile, K-Rock's "Edmonton's classic rock" pulled an outside run for a healthy 7.6 - and they're sending their on-air staff to the Dominican Republic. Coincidence, you say?
The Bear has been in the thick of one war or another since the station launched in 1992. Many a night we sit around the warm glow of the radio tubes and tell tales of how the great K-Rock Conflict came to a head in ought-two, or the Power 92 Insurgency of the late '90s. Rarely do such skirmishes reach the public eye. Once, outside a Black Crowes concert, the Bearmobile and the K-Rock van each blasted their music as loud as possible in close proximity. Then there was the time a Power 92 promotions girl crashed the Bear's Halloween Howler dressed as a giant rabbit.
The Bear must feel like Israel these days, beset from all sides by hostile forces. When Sonic launched in May, a Bear staffer said that most of their effort would be put into the "battle with Sonic." His words. The first discernible attack was appending the Bear's "Edmonton's best rock" ID with "no rules," because "modern rock," of course, is a rule. Sonic tagged some of its tunes with "only on Sonic," while the Bear countered, "you heard it here first." All the while, fierce behind-the-scenes fights were taking place for the right to be the presenting station at just about every rock concert that came to town in 2005.
Lately, one can notice a tiny shift in the Bear's playlist. "No rules" apparently includes a bit more classic rock, which is fine. Staking out the middle ground may be the only way to survive, like actual Bears. There's going to be some overlap. Even the Bounce 91.7 - having defeated 96X into becoming a country station called Big Earl (Country War 2006 has already started, with former Big Earl billboards going straight for its CISN Country adversary: "Why settle for a kiss when you can go all the way?") - cheekily added a Nickelback song.
I relish the opportunity to hear the same tune being played on three or even four radio stations at the same time. It's a karmic convergence - even if it usually turns out to be U2.
Morning shows are as crucial as the playlists, since they set the tone for the entire broadcast day. If listeners get some humour, some human element to entice them, they're less likely to flip around. With three new area stations in 2005, there's a lot of flipping to be done. Radio wars are more intense in the early hours. The Bear, Sonic and K-Rock all have outstanding morning shows, so it'll be interesting to see how the battle plays out or what changes, if any, will be made. New blood always makes things more interesting and the participants better and stronger.
Bear program director Ryan Zimmerman said months ago that the December ratings book would determine "if the Metrics of the world are taking over Edmonton." He was right. But the Metrics of Edmonton still weren't able to top the ZZ Tops.
Sadly, all of this might not matter in a few years. Like the Roman Empire about to descend on Celtic tribes feuding over ferret hunting grounds, satellite radio is all the rage. It'll change radio as surely as cable changed television.
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