Turns out it's one of Bell Media's companies that's bringing it to Canada.

Orbyt, Premiere to Distribute The Breakfast Club in Canada
 

The old morning show moves to afternoon drive...   

I think Stingray just learned a little lesson. Pretty hard to do a local radio show in the middle of a health crisis if your morning program is syndicated out of New York.  Don't imagine "The Breakfast Club" would be directing people what was open or closed in Toronto, or advise or inform their listeners what the city was planning.. When all of this is over with, I am sure "The Breakfast Club" will come to FLOW 93.5.  If they had premiered the new program this morning or this week, FLOW and the new morning crew would be dead in the water.

All radio stations, regardless of format, are still a service to the public during times like this. 

RadioActive wrote:

It was, in fact, the virus that kept them alive in the morning. 

From Broadcast Dialogue: 

“Peter Kash and Blake Carter, the previous morning team on Flow 93.5, have graciously agreed to delay their move to afternoons so that Flow can remain local during the COVID-19 crisis,” said Steve Jones, in an email. “We will launch The Breakfast Club once the crisis has passed, and Blake & Peter will move to afternoons.”

But given the nature of this unprecedented emergency, that move may well be a ways off. 

Stingray delays Flow 93.5’s transition to U.S. morning show amid COVID-19 crisis

Kind of ridiculous.  stingray recognizes the need and importance of local radio, yet they're still prepared to abandon it at the earliest possible moment after this current crisis is over.  That's embarrassing for so many people on so many levels.

Radiowiz wrote:

They're not just keeping the Flow morning show local. I noticed on sister station Boom that there is suddenly a Stingray newsroom this evening. 

It's for the current news event. I've heard the same on Rogers and Corus stations across the country. 24/7 hourly updates on every station.

I don't know if this will work unless it's edited down.  US politics come up pretty often on the local New York version of the show.

RadioAaron wrote:

Radiowiz wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

It's for the current news event. I've heard the same on Rogers and Corus stations across the country. 24/7 hourly updates on every station.

It gives credit to the "Stingray news room" so I wondered where in Canada this was coming from.

Yeah, Rogers' seems to be coming from 680 or 1130 Vancouver, and Corus' are coming from Global Toronto. Haven't heard the Stingray updates, but they don't have obvious news hubs like the other guys do.
 

...and that's why I suspect that the "Stingray newsroom" is actually Canada Press...but I didn't want to assume.

Confirmed on the Facebook of Flow 93.5, The Breakfast Club from New York will officially start on May 19, with the current breakfast host Blake Carter & Peter Kash moving to afternoon hours. Even though the COVID-19 situation still hasn’t been over, Stingray seems to be more than eager to make the unpopular change. Their Facebook likes are decreasing at a fast rate as what I’ve observed...

Even I assume most of the people are not liking hip hop music on this forum, I have noticed some changes on the playlist of Flow 93.5 since April. Some CHR songs that aren’t supposed to be on Flow 93.5 did appear, for example Growing Pains by Alessia Cara and Havana by Camila Cabello, even though mainstream hip hop artists continue to be the staple of Flow.

They aren’t doing a good job in supporting Toronto hip hop artists as well, as a lot of new releases from Drake, Tory Lanez and NAV aren’t being played on the station. (Even though most of you won’t be into their music) As the only Canadian hip hop station, they should support the local hip hop industry, not playing songs that can be listened on Kiss 92.5 and Virgin Radio all the time.

Radiowiz wrote:

Adrian106072 wrote:

 As the only Canadian hip hop station, they should support the local hip hop industry, not playing songs that can be listened on Kiss 92.5 and Virgin Radio all the time.

Element 106.5 has somehow gotten away with positioning themselves as Hip Hop & Pop. 
They play better Hip Hop than Flow, but then a true Hip Hop fan has to sit through all that pop in between. 
(& Maybe that's okay...maybe they like the pop that's thrown in?) 


 

 
Elmnt fm is still predominantly promoting its indigenous identity, their music has to be diversified in order to attract a varied number of listeners. The hip hop music being played on 106.5 are mainly indigenous hip hop and alternative cuts, so ‘real’ hip hop fans might accept it more. (Ratings are dismal for the station though...) CIUT also has a few time slots dedicated to hip hop music, mainly alternative hip hop. Flow 93.5 brands itself as the premier Canadian hip hop station, yet they hired American hosts, adding an unreasonable amount of ‘CHR’ music into their playlist, and lacks providing support for Canadian hip hop artists. The situation before March was way better on Flow, however after they fired hosts such as Mastermind and Ace West everything has fallen part. They need to look for another formula instead of the current one.

RadioAaron wrote:

Adrian106072 wrote:

 They need to look for another formula instead of the current one.

A rhythmic CHR *might*, but even that's a long-shot.
 

Kiss 92 went from being a Country station under Rawlco communications ownership, to being sold to Rogers.
Rogers switched to CHR radio. THAT had ratings. 
Some clown decided to go Rythmic CHR.  It failed miserably, so they went Jack FM.
When they flushed Jack FM out, they went back to being a CHR station.

Rythmic CHR does not work in the Toronto market.
Rythmic Variety might, ("Today and back in the day" Rythmic CHR) 
but that too is a long shot...
 

I will fully admit my ignorance on this, but I have to ask this uninformed question: has a syndicated U.S. morning radio show ever improved ratings for a single station in Canada?
 
I’m not sure it’s happened, with the most famous example being the great Howard Stern/Q107 experiment back in 1997. Despite all the hype, the self-proclaimed King of All Media quickly abdicated his Canadian throne and disappeared back across the border.
 
I’m not talking about overnights, where Coast-to-Coast ruled before COVID came to town, and which most stations just want to program with something a smaller audience might actually listen to that’s cheap to air. Or those who host a truly local effort remotely from another city.
 
I’m talking about what is inarguably the most important spot in all of radio, morning drive. Do you really want to turn it over to someone thousands of miles away in another country, who won’t talk about local news, give you the weather, comment on some pressing issue and especially now, give you the latest on how the pandemic is affecting your city?
 
Plus, won’t a U.S. show, even one that concentrates on hip hop or other forms of music, eventually have to talk about the Orange One in the White House? How will that play on a regular basis with Toronto teens or whoever the target audience might be for the imported show? And what about CanCon rules?
 
I guess Flow is getting a real bargain here – a morning show, hosted by proven talent, that doesn’t cost them all that much in the end, and saves the big salaries they’d have to pay for local talent.
 
But I can’t help but wonder if it’s ever worked here – or if it ever will.

Listened to some of the Breakfast Club this morning on Flow 93.5. What I heard was a bit different than I was expecting. They bill themselves as "The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show.."
  
The good- What I heard on the show was not a "giggle fest" which a lot syndicated morning shows tend to be.   Brooke and Jeffery on JUMP FM in Ottawa, the laughter never stops and everything is funny apparently.   The Breakfast Club which features the trio Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy, gets into fairly heavy topics for a youth oriented morning show like what does it mean to be a man and also heard part of an interview with Democratic Presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

The Bad- Even though the station is called Flow, this show didn't have any. Like Brooke and Jeffery all of the breaks sound pre-recorded and not live. The music seems separate from the hosts and they don't talk about the music, other than what DJ Envy might play. And often he seems to only play about a minute or so of songs.

The commercial breaks are confusing and Flow seems to play filler music into the next segment. Likely the commercial breaks are a lot longer at the home station in NYC and Flow uses music to time out to the next break. Even within the show however the music sounds disjointed and choppy. Also the audio quality of the Breakfast Club segments are not as clear as the music and local breaks. The Breakfast Club inserts sound like satellite feeds, more processed and the audio quality not as sharp.

In terms of music, I don't imagine cancon will be much of a problem since from 6 to 9am The Breakfast Club only played 13 songs. And since the music seems to be a bit of a sideline on the show, Flow can put in their own cuts and the listener wouldn't know the difference. Only the traffic, and weather breaks sounded live which were back in the studio in Toronto.

After 9am they did play a  more music, but still had a fair bit of talk with "Donkey of the Day" which is audio clips and comments of Americans doing outrageous and stupid things.  One lady was kissing everyone she could in a bar even though customers were to keep their distance during COVID-19. Near the end of the show they were promoting the Positive Note which was to come up but I didn't hear anything, just some music and into the next show.  

Anyway the segments I heard of The Breakfast Club were more serious than I expected, and the hosts did show another side to their personalities.  This show isn't geared for someone of my age and there is absolutely nothing about Toronto or local other than weather, commercials and traffic.  So if you want to hear about US politics, New York, and listen to show promos that say "It's the Breakfast Club.. Bitches!!" This show is for you, 

To be honest with you, Flow sounded better after 10am with a live announcer who was talking local and he sounded a lot more upbeat than the hosts of the Breakfast Club. Also Flow is trying to make their website very "Toronto" which I guess is to try and compensate for the lack of anything about the GTA from 6 to 10am.

In a strange interlude, Jim Richards played the Biden clip on his show Friday. When told by fellow host Jay Michaels that the show airs in Toronto now, Richards was taken by surprise. "Oh," he said. "I didn't know that."

It's not exactly going to send CFRB listeners to Flow, but you might have thought the host of a Toronto talk show would have been aware that the program Biden was on was currently airing on the competition.

Either way, an odd moment when one private radio station airs clips from another.

The Breakfast Club isn't only the reason why people decided to give up Flow 93.5 after March,
the factor of music selection also drive away listeners who are dedicated to hip hop music. It makes me wonder why the new music director decided to add 'Coffee For Your Head' on a hip hop playlist just a few days ago. If I want to listen pop songs, I'd rather tune into Kiss 92.5 or Virgin Radio. The main reason urban format radio stations in GTA struggle to attract audience, is that the program directors don't acknowledge what the audience of urban radio want to listen, not because the format is unpopular.

radiokid, right on. Excellent post,