1 of 1- RadioActive
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You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
It’s not going to happen, but if I could wave a magic wand and make you the new program director of, say, the stations in St Catharines that are being sold by Bell Media, what would you do with them?
It’s pretty easy to consider CHTZ and CHRE-FM, because you can easily put music on that part of the radio band. But what kind? Do you leave the rock on HTZ97.7 or tweak the format? What about considering country for CHRE? But then you’d be competing with Buffalo’s very successful WYRK, which I assume comes in quite well in the Niagara Region. Maybe bring back Easy Listening. Or do a hybrid Boom like format.
CKTB is a much different animal. A very decent signal that travels pretty well, but it’s on AM. Do you stay with talk, maybe go even more local, since Bell tended to farm out some of its more Toronto-oriented shows? Paid time? Ethnic programming, even though it could be argued there’s already way too many of those in Southern Ontario? I hope they don’t opt for more religion, given there’s already at least three in the market and IMHO, that’s more than enough. Especially with K-Love’s powerful 100,000 watt signal.
But it’s your say. If you had to decide what to do with all three, what would you pick?
- RadioAaron
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
Other than removing the Bell branding from CHRE and CKLH, leave the formats alone.
Format changes in 2024 are very dangerous. It takes a ton of marketing for them to be noticed, and economically that's just not going to happen. Format changes should be reserved for when there's an glaringly obvious pent-up format hole.
Last edited by RadioAaron (February 19, 2024 11:09 am)
- km93
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
Definetly not country as in addition to WYRK, you are also competing with KX from Hamilton and Country 89 from Welland. I would need to look at the current ratings and see if HTZ and CHRE are still doing well.
- RadioAaron
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
We're very close to the point where ratings will be irrelevant for CHRE and HTZ.
- RadioQuiz
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
km93 wrote:
Definetly not country as in addition to WYRK, you are also competing with KX from Hamilton and Country 89 from Welland. I would need to look at the current ratings and see if HTZ and CHRE are still doing well.
I would leave them the same unless you have a HUGE ad budget.
Currently -
HTZ is 1, GIANT is 2 and Country is 3.
A few ballots likely could swing anyone up or down.
- Radiowiz
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
Who is holding onto the rights to the name Warm in Canada? I understand that Breeze is with Stingray?
Therefore, it won't make any sense to pay for the rights to use the Breeze name.
Warm would be a good fit for a lighter CHRE, or (if possible) an easy listening format.
HTZ (for now) is fine the way it is.
CTKB is a new challenge because it will no longer be a CFRB repeater.
Is radio India still around today? THAT on the overnight shift might be smart.
Keep the usual staff for the remaining English language programming and do as much local talk as possible.
Unless there is desire to restore Rick Emmerson or one of the other American Talk Shows from 7pm until Midnight...??
Hopefully desire to hire local and keep local talk alive in Niagara will still be possible...but I don't see it done without some international or National talk shows airing somewhere in the schedule.
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- km93
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
We're very close to the point where ratings will be irrelevant for CHRE and HTZ.
Please explain.
- paterson1
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
I agree with RadioAaron, leave them alone and keep the staff. Both stations are well established and don't need format changes. CKTB would need to replace a few of the shows it runs on the Bell network and would have it's own mid morning show again or pick up something else to replace Jerry Agar and Vashy.
- Hansa
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
I think hyperlocal is the way to get people listening to terrestrial radio these days so I'd try to insert some community content - newscasts at least for morning and afternoon drive and noon as well. Some live remote programming. A few interviews or other local items at least during the drive times. You can do this on a music station, you don't need a full "news/talk" format to do it. If people want wall to wall music these days they will use their iPod or a streaming service - no need to try to duplicate that on local radio. In CKTB's case, even if there's no budget for full day local talk at least have it in the key dayparts and have at least one reporter and newsreader for hourly newscasts - a larger newsroom if possiblle.
Last edited by Hansa (February 19, 2024 1:33 pm)
- RadioActive
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
I like the local idea, but CKTB is in a unique position. It's one of those stations that reaches both Buffalo and Toronto and a lot of places in between. Not sure how they could leverage that, but if they can find a way to use it to their advantage, it couldn't hurt.
(I remember when the late John Michael was doing his talk show on 610, he'd get a lot of calls from Western New York, even though he was usually talking Canadian politics. Still remember two of his best lines: "Mow-de-lawn." That's French for cut the grass. He would also talk about some place being a "rat shit country" only to explain he was saying "wretched" with a deep Southern accent. He was a true original.)
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Thread Starter- RadioAaron
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Re: You Be The P.D.: What Would You Do With These Radio Stations?
We're very close to the point where ratings will be irrelevant for CHRE and HTZ.
Please explain.
The books in markets like that are swinging wildly. Numeris is trying to hide that by moving to rolling averages. Meanwhile, big agency buys aren't going as deep into smaller markets as they used to. The future of these stations is in local ads, which are built on relationships, reputation, and results.