Y108 used to be amazing, it is a good station still, but back about 15 years ago, when it was Y95, the announcers were top notch as was the blend of music and the sound...

You're right we don't give stations like Y108, 94.9 The Rock, GIANT FM 91 or HTZ FM, their due, they all carry their own and do radio quite well.

 

I agree, we do seem to neglect Hamilton and area radio and  CHCH TV.  Nobody ever talks about them. Hamilton is an interesting market that has unique challenges with Toronto only about 60km away and the US border close by. Hamilton is a little like Buffalo in that Hamiltonians are mostly loyal to their local media, even though they get tons of out of market signals. Even in newspapers, the Spec was always a strong paper and the Toronto papers not really selling as well as they should, the Buffalo News sells almost nothing in the Hammer.
 

Last edited by paterson1 (February 21, 2020 10:42 pm)

Muffaraw Joe wrote:

The real story is this is it, this is the future of radio, a centralized morning show, with local traffic reports done by a traffic service in Toronto, and maybe BN news...also centralized...

It is cost cutting, tear the soul out of local, creative, compelling radio... sorry, but we're being served pablum and we're taking it... we're getting baby food, when really as adults we want adult food (radio/media)...

Just sayin'

 

BN News?  News of any kind on an FM morning show?  Pfft.
 

paterson1 wrote:

Hamilton is a little like Buffalo in that Hamiltonians are mostly loyal to their local media, even though they get tons of out of market signals
 

Not that loyal.The #1 radio station in Hamilton is Boom 97.3., Corus' own Edge 102.1 out-rates Y108 by a tenth of a share. CHML is #12. 

RadioAaron wrote:

The real Hamilton Top 10, 25-54, if you include out-of-market

Interesting. Curious, where did you get these numbers? Any chance you could post the Toronto ratings including out of market stations? I have only seen what is referred to as a "spill" station.

RadioActive wrote:

Also worth noting that TSN 1150 is nowhere to seen in the list. And neither is CHML.

That's because it is only the top 10, and  CHML which came in at #12 and TSN 1150 are both AM.  Five of the top ten stations listed are not Toronto, but are in the Hamilton Central Market.  The Hammer, considering the size of the city does not have a lot of radio stations, and likely receives more out of town OTA signals than anywhere else in Southern Ontario. So in fact their small number of local stations, with the exception of TSN 1150 aren't  doing bad.  Even AM Funny 820  has over 100,000 listeners full coverage.

Toronto's 4 daily newspapers don't sell particularly well in Hamilton, Buffalo News doesn't sell at all and the Spectator outsells the total of all of these papers by a big margin.

CHCH's revenue issues years ago were not caused by local advertising but by the lack of national ads. They seem to be in a much better financial place now than five years ago, and are moving into new studios in the spring of 2021.  CHCH owners, Channel Zero announced a studio division a few months back, which will produce original scripted content.

mace wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

The real Hamilton Top 10, 25-54, if you include out-of-market

Interesting. Curious, where did you get these numbers? Any chance you could post the Toronto ratings including out of market stations? I have only seen what is referred to as a "spill" station.

It's from Numeris.  They're available to anyone with access, but they're really not of any use to the stations in either market, so they don't tend to be included in what gets posted (leaked) publicly.

Out of market in Toronto is trickier, since none currently encode for PPM. (Edit: Correction, Energy 95.3 encodes, and they were a 1.2 in the fall, tied with 640 and 1050) There is a small diary survey in Toronto that includes everyone, but out-of-market barely makes a dent. 

HTZ-FM 1.7
Funny 820 0.6
KX94.7 0.5
94.9 The Rock 0.4
KX96 0.4

So the Top 5 are all formats not available in Toronto. Makes sense. 
 

Last edited by RadioAaron (February 27, 2020 8:54 pm)

RadioAaron wrote:

And to your point, when a local version of the format is available, the local one wins by a lot. Boom is #1, but there's nothing like it in Hamilton. Meanwhile, CHFI doesn't make the list while K-Lite is #2. So listeners in Hamilton are picking format first, locality second.

All the more reason that 95.3 should consider bringing the Vinyl format back. 


PJ

Paul Jeffries wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

And to your point, when a local version of the format is available, the local one wins by a lot. Boom is #1, but there's nothing like it in Hamilton. Meanwhile, CHFI doesn't make the list while K-Lite is #2. So listeners in Hamilton are picking format first, locality second.

All the more reason that 95.3 should consider bringing the Vinyl format back. 


PJ

Corus have completely sacrificed 95.3's Hamilton focus in an attempt to make it their 3rd FM in Toronto. Vinyl wouldn't get any Toronto numbers, and Boom may be too entrenched in the Hamilton market by now for any return to local to be effective. 
 

kevjo wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

Paul Jeffries wrote:

All the more reason that 95.3 should consider bringing the Vinyl format back. 


PJ

Corus have completely sacrificed 95.3's Hamilton focus in an attempt to make it their 3rd FM in Toronto. Vinyl wouldn't get any Toronto numbers, and Boom may be too entrenched in the Hamilton market by now for any return to local to be effective. 
 

Classic hits and the like don't seem to be the direction for Corus Radio these days. If you look at the trends over the last few years they've been pushing the FRESH and now ENERGY format. They even nudged Q-107 a bit further away from classic rock, incorporating more recent tunes into the mix. 
 

Depends on the market. Rock 101 Vancouver is dong well as a rock-leaning Classic Hits, along with BIG 96.3 Kingston, and they're doing OK with Boom 99.7 Ottawa.