More Winnipeg radio numbers (Fall 2012)

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As you may be aware, BBM made their radio ratings data public last week and we reported their market share numbers. With the market share data, we constructed a graph that will help understand which broadcasting companies are doing well at keeping their listeners locked to their stations.

Nearly a quarter of all radio listening in Winnipeg has been on a Corus radio station and that is mainly due to the highly popular CJOB. The difference between the second place Bell Media, and fourth place, CBC, is less than 3 percentage points. As seen in this graph and in previous years of data, CBC radio seems to have trouble competing with Corus radio stations in Winnipeg. CBC Radio 1 trails CJOB by a 5 percentage-point gap.

With the same dataset, the number of listeners at the local and national level this year and the previous year can be compared:

 

Local (BBM calls it “Central Reach”): The estimated number of different listeners, within the central market area, who tuned to that station for at least 15 minutes in a week.

Outside WPG: The estimated number of different listeners outside the central market area of Winnipeg, who tuned to that station for at least 15 minutes in a week.

Canada (BBM calls it “Full Coverage Reach”: The estimated number of different listeners in Canada, who tuned to that station for at least 15 minutes in a week.

The average number of local listeners for a Winnipeg radio station is 85,485. So, any radio station above FAB 94.3 is above average.

Looking at the actual number of listeners, the ranking is quite different than the one for the market share of the hours listened. Hit music station 103.1 Virgin has 18,000 more listeners than CJOB 680. However, CJOB does have about 11,000 more listeners throughout Canada than Virgin does.

Virgin Radio was to listened to by 156,200 different people in Winnipeg. BBM states the “estimated population of the central market area [in Winnipeg]” as 663,422 (who are 12 years +). With these two numbers, we can estimate that approximately 2 out of 9 people have listened to Virgin Radio.

Further down the list is CBC Radio One at #5 with 99,000 listeners. CBC Radio One has a 9.9% market share in listener hours, which seems to suggest that CBC Radio listeners tend to change the dial less often than other listeners.

CJGV made a format change that helped increase their audience. The Corus station switched to a Hot Adult contemporary format in early 2012 and named itself “99.1 Fresh FM”. As a result, it saw a 253% increase in total listeners from the previous year.

CITI FM, CBC Radio One and Two, and BOB FM saw at least a 10% rise in their Winnipeg listenership within one year, while Virgin and CJOB lost around 9-12% of their local audience.