Toronto Radio Scenes

[e-dawg]

I'm disapointed of how many radio stations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). It seems the number of radio stations in Toronto is less than number of radio stations in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis/St. Paul.  With over 5.5 million people should they have radio stations equivolant to Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles?  Ottawa has more radio stations than Toronto. Even Buffalo, NY has more than Toronto. Why is that?

[Tincap]

Toronto radio is not a problem. Sure you can have more stations, but what would they offer? Rogers vs Astral vs CHUM/CTV all generally serve up the same stuff.

Just because Ottawa has more stations, it doesn't mean that Ottawa radio is any better. One of Ottawa's latest additions? EZ Rock, and at 99.7 it's just down the dial from its main competitor Majic 100, playing essentially the same stuff. How exciting is that?

True Ottawa's DAWG FM has just signed on, offering a true alternative, but Toronto having 91.1 JAZZ FM, along with a wider variety of ethnic, plus a 24/7 classical station (even if it is commercial...:s) should be more interesting than Ottawa or many other Canadian cities. If you can't get it Toronto, then Canadian radio is worse than I thought. 

~BG

[Dan]

O.K. Gang, this discussion sparked my curiosity so I conducted an unscientific study this evening to see what markets (over 300,000) in Canada are the most and least represented by the total number of available radio stations. I included all stations in the totals (CBC, suburban, regional, ethnic, college, religion, etc.). Halifax has the most stations on a per capita basis in the country, while Toronto (as predicted above) has the least.   

      total population   # of stations      population served per station      
                        
CALGARY      1,079,310      32      33,728      
EDMONTON   1,034,945      34      30,493      
VANCOUVER   2,249,725      33      68,173      
VICTORIA   330,088                   13      25,391      
WINNIPEG   694,668                   31      22,408      
HALIFAX      372,858                   19      19,624      
HAMILTON   692,911                   10      69,291      
KITCHENER   451,235                   14      32,231      
LONDON      457,720                   22      20,805      
OTTAWA      1,130,751      35      32,307      
ST. CATHARINES   390,317                    9      43,368      
TORONTO   5,113,149      48      106,523      
WINDSOR      323,342                   12      26,945      
MONTREAL   3,635,571      38      95,672      
QUEBEC CITY   715,515                   26      27,519      
                                             

[Dan]

Sorry about the columns being out of whack above.....I just couldn't figure out how to get it right.

[Tincap]

O.K. Gang, this discussion sparked my curiosity so I conducted an unscientific study this evening to see what markets (over 300,000) in Canada are the most and least represented by the total number of available radio stations. I included all stations in the totals (CBC, suburban, regional, ethnic, college, religion, etc.). Halifax has the most stations on a per capita basis in the country, while Toronto (as predicted above) has the least.   

Informative numbers, Dan. But keeping in mind that Toronto listeners can also tune into numerous fringe market signals (including a number of Americans), Halifax is a completely isolated market. And having lived in Halifax for a number of years, it certainly can't be as interesting as Toronto radio. Although Halifax does have one of our favourite little stations in the country...Seaside FM. 

~BG

[Yeziknoradio]

Hmmm...98.7 mysteriously disapeared! 
The Toronto market also has trouble getting new stations up and running due to a shortage of "valid" space on the dial...

Is 98.7 officially off the air now? Or what's the deal there? Jr. Caribana is July 17th, and there's a parade at the end of July! It would be sad for them if they can't be up and running as the official station of Caribana!

Every time someone tries to launch something new in Toronto (regardless of format) CBC or someone else complains "there's too much interference with our station!"

(as was the case at one point with 98.7 FM vs the 99.1 CBC radio 1 FM signal in Toronto)

[Bob1370]

Population per station can be a little deceptive. For example, Windsor is inundated by dozens of Detroit market stations from right across the river, while Hamilton and to a lesser extent Toronto are getting strong signals from a batch of Buffalo/Niagara Falls, NY market stations as well. Especially in Toronto and Hamilton's case, between the Buffalo market and Niagara region stations, there's just no more room on either the AM or FM bands to squeeze in another signal, even if those markets could arguably support more stations with different formats. .

[Yeziknoradio]

True Ottawa's DAWG FM has just signed on, offering a true alternative,

  Nice Alternative! 

"I mean, I should have seen the ship starting to sink after the engineers, the builders of the station, abruptly quit..."

Source----> http://aircheckerradioindustry.blogspot.com/2010/12/dawg-ottawa-not-paying-bills.html#links

[cyberdad]

Toronto radio is not a problem. Sure you can have more stations, but what would they offer? Rogers vs Astral vs CHUM/CTV all generally serve up the same stuff.

Yeah....just what T-O and other Canadian markets need.  Multiple signals spewing the exact same stuff. Drones and clones.  Just like we have on this side of the border.  And by all means....let the advertisers (instead of the public) call the shots so you can also have everyone fighting over what's perceived by ad agencies to be the same "sweet spot" demo.

[Tincap]

True Ottawa's DAWG FM has just signed on, offering a true alternative,

  Nice Alternative! 

"I mean, I should have seen the ship starting to sink after the engineers, the builders of the station, abruptly quit..."

Source----> http://aircheckerradioindustry.blogspot.com/2010/12/dawg-ottawa-not-paying-bills.html#links

Oh my. Is DAWG going to the dogs? To be truthful, I'm not sure how commercially viable such a format can be. If they want to stick to the blues format, a listener supported undertaking would be more realistic. It'll only be a matter of time before DAWG becomes MOR, like everyone else, to compete for those advertising dollars.

~BG