Saw also on the facebook post from Today 93.5 - about 350 comments all negative.  Most of which are former Flow 935 listeners and the signal of 98.7 being bad aswell.

Not off to a good start for eitheir station.   Complaints about 935 Today FM is also of which, repetitive boring format and nothing exciting, not to mention the comments of forgetting Black music etc. 

Storm wrote:

We have a grandfathered Rogers cable plan which does have some radio stations in the "900" section. It would probably not be what would be available in Toronto. A lot of the stations are Rogers including Jack from Vancouver, but many others, including all of our local stations. I have looked at other plans to reduce the cost, because Rogers is very pricey and going up this month, but the radio stations are not available.

The best low cost provider that has the most radio stations is SkyChoice, over 50 from all across Canada included in their $35 or larger TV packages.  Their channel lineup can be viewed at https://www.skychoice.ca/chanlineup.cfm Stations are kept up to date, even the change of 93.5 from Flow to Today radio was already made.
 

First full ratings period for "Today Radio." Brutal. 0.3. 

2nd to dead last.

Still waiting on the money demo numbers.

Kiss going HotAC proved to be a good move, though.

Sunny wrote:

First full ratings period for "Today Radio." Brutal. 0.3. 

I see point 4, but hardly anything to cheer about. Still very low. They should have gone Country.

 

I think this is an example of what happens when an audience gets abandoned and there's no one there to take their place. There is simply no compelling reason to tune into Today, and I'm willing to bet if you ask a hundred people on the street what it is, 99% of them will have never heard of it.

And the others may not much care. 

So the real question is does Today have a tomorrow? 

Radiowiz wrote:

Sunny wrote:

First full ratings period for "Today Radio." Brutal. 0.3. 

I see point 4, but hardly anything to cheer about. Still very low. They should have gone Country.

 

Not sure where he is getting his 12+ numbers. Might be an earlier draft? I got mine from the Numeris site. They used to list 2+ but have now gone to 12+, in line with the diaries.





 

I have to wonder if the decision makers did any market research OR listened to it?     

Musically it sounds way to Caucasian focused from  everything from the on air delivery, to music choices.    Toronto being so multicultural. it feels disconnected from the city.   They play country in the mix, which anyone who does market research would see is not what the city wants, no matter how many people on here say it.   With the Today Radio social format, they can break the walls and run things other stations don't, but it has to be within reason.  When I hear them go from a country track to some track from the Weeknd, I'm left wondering who their audience even is... clearly others are to.   Now Radio, Today Radio etc out west do well, because they are focused on more of a HOT AC mix, with some extra tracks from 90's to Today.    They gain by entertaining hosts, and social interaction that people care about that are focused on the audience and city they serve.    It's what's missing from Toronto's version of it.   I can only assume there is some big meetings happening at HQ on this station...   Personally I question decision makers because I really question if homework was done. 

We should remember that the format only changed two weeks before the rating period, so these numbers don't mean much.  They would have lost half of their audience they had with FLOW. 

I would have given FLOW some more time or if that was not in the cards opted for a New Country format. Canada's largest radio market should have a country outlet.  Country works great in Vancouver, a city that is just as diverse as Toronto. It would work here like it did for CISS in the early 90's.  Change of ownership, too many pop songs and cross overs ruined that station.  CISS was trying too much to cater to a non country audience that would never listen to them anyway.

Today radio with this format sorely needs some promotion, which doesn't seem to be happening.  If Stingray sticks with this plan it will be a while for the audience to find them if there is no promotion.  I am always doubtful when I hear of a station changing format and seemingly overnight they are number one or go magically from the bottom of the ratings into the top 5.  This never happens in Toronto.  

Personally, I don't really mind Today's format or music.  Some of the chats seem staged and the talk should move along  quicker, some topics are on a bit long.  The stations out west with a similar format have been doing this longer.  Some like NOW in Edmonton have live studio cameras so you see the announcer  when they are live.  Also they have a live feed of the texts coming in, so you can read some of the comments before they are on air.   NOW gets a lot of comments on line. 

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

We should remember that the format only changed two weeks before the rating period, so these numbers don't mean much.  They would have lost half of their audience they had with FLOW. 
 

They would have lost close to 100% of the FLOW audience; they're starting from scratch. Still, I've seen lots of format changes and station launches, but rarely such a slow start - and the ones that were never made it. It hasn't ticked up at all since launch.

Today Radio has a lousy website.  It looks cheap with no information or photos on their hosts and no info on the music they are playing.  Announcers should also be talking more about the stations music.  FLOW's site was much better looking with photos of on air staff and visually more interesting and professional.  Stingray has given this station zero promotion.  They aren't doing the basics, and this one reason why the needle isn't moving. 

Today Radio is trying to push engagement with the audience, but yet their static and boring website doesn't reflect this at all.  Stingray inherited a winning popular station with Boom and didn't need to do much if anything when they took over.  Their lack of experience in traditional radio is showing with a new format and station that needs some attention and promotion.   

paterson1 wrote:

I would have given FLOW some more time or if that was not in the cards opted for a New Country format.

There's actually a country music radio station at 95.9 FM in Toronto but is a repeater of CJKX-FM 95.9 "KX96" out of Ajax, Ontario with another at 89.9 FM in Sunderland. Not sure if another country music station or even classic country would work in Toronto.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJKX-FM

============================================

We should remember that the format only changed two weeks before the rating period, so these numbers don't mean much.  They would have lost half of their audience they had with FLOW. I would have given FLOW some more time or if that was not in the cards opted for a New Country format. Canada's largest radio market should have a country outlet.  Country works great in Vancouver, a city that is just as diverse as Toronto. It would work here like it did for CISS in the early 90's.  Change of ownership, too many pop songs and cross overs ruined that station.  CISS was trying too much to cater to a non country audience that would never listen to them anyway.

Today radio with this format sorely needs some promotion, which doesn't seem to be happening.  If Stingray sticks with this plan it will be a while for the audience to find them if there is no promotion.  I am always doubtful when I hear of a station changing format and seemingly overnight they are number one or go magically from the bottom of the ratings into the top 5.  This never happens in Toronto.  

Personally, I don't really mind Today's format or music.  Some of the chats seem staged and the talk should move along  quicker, some topics are on a bit long.  The stations out west with a similar format have been doing this longer.  Some like NOW in Edmonton have live studio cameras so you see the announcer  when they are live.  Also they have a live feed of the texts coming in, so you can read some of the comments before they are on air.   NOW gets a lot of comments on line.
 

RadioAaron wrote:

 The two morning hosts never seem to be on at the same time, so something's afoot there.

While the website still reads "Paul & Nikki" for the morning show, the station no longer airs any credit for Nikki in the morning.
It's just "Paul Harper in the morning". Not sure what's going on there... 
 

Radiowiz wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

 The two morning hosts never seem to be on at the same time, so something's afoot there.

While the website still reads "Paul & Nikki" for the morning show, the station no longer airs any credit for Nikki in the morning.
It's just "Paul Harper in the morning". Not sure what's going on there... 
 

In the first week the afternoon show was the same way. It only had Vanessa while the cohost was on holiday. So the promos only ran for her. Apparently it was to avoid confusion. Even though the website showed the full show.
Personally the station isn’t bad. But it is not like the now radio format of Edmonton or Winnipeg. Or the today radio format in Calgary. Those 3 are operated by Pattison and there have been hosts on the stations for years. Crash and mars in Edmonton have been there about 10 or so years. Maybe a little less. Marika on the Winnipeg station was on edmontons for years. Rob and Joelle in Calgary came from Edmonton. So there is a lot of experience among the brand/format. Everyone at this station were all brand new to the conversation station. What I don’t like about this one as well is after 7pm it’s a repeat of the morning show and Katie and Ed just use some bits from there Calgary (amp radio) morning show. So a lot of it is not new bits and not related to Toronto. Even in Edmonton, Calgary or at Winnipeg there are times that hosts reference conversations from earlier in the day. Mostly because a lot of the hosts are in studio most of the day. Definitely a little less on weekends but it isn’t as bad as here. I think until they have overlap with conversations and have hosts in Toronto locally (Vanessa of the afternoon show is from Z95.3 Vancouver) and live later in the day, the ratings will not climb the way they think they will. There for sure needs to be a better lineup of hosts on air. Although Tyler Barr is great for the station he is basically the only reason I tune it currently. I think that stingray made a big mistake letting go of all the flow staff. At least the morning and afternoon shows would have been good for the station and then the rest of the day could have been filled out with the existing staff. Also having Phylis on weekends is a huge oversight. She is really good but I don’t listen much on weekends so I don’t get to hear enough of her

Scorpio42 wrote:

There's actually a country music radio station at 95.9 FM in Toronto but is a repeater of CJKX-FM 95.9 "KX96" out of Ajax, Ontario with another at 89.9 FM in Sunderland. Not sure if another country music station or even classic country would work in Toronto.
 

Nothing Toronto about it. Their newscast this morning: Top story-Kid found dead in the Kawarathas. Then they went to news about The PM and his second visit with Covid.  
NOTHING TORONTO AT ALL ABOUT THIS STATION!!!!!
Traffic stretches out to yap about some complications on the roads out near SCUGOG! 

Long story short, nobody is going to go all the way out to Oshawa (from Toronto) to do their shopping.
Plenty of room for a Country music station, but I recommend a Variety Country format. 
Some classic Kenny Rogers mixed with some of today's new stuff. That would be great. 
It also suggests a slight difference from the current KX's. 


 

Listening to this Today station this morning as of 930am.   Interesting station but doesnt seem to be anything too different than another pop station.  Playlist is good as they suddenly surprise you with some older track otherwise its top 40.  Commercial set I swear felt like it was 15 mins long.  Isnt this their income?  Nothing to worry about then.