Ottawa Fall 2012 radio ratings

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BBM has revised its bi-annual Ottawa-Gatineau radio ratings from earlier this morning. The Fall 2012, September 3 - October 28, numbers are market shares of Anglophone listeners (in percentage):

BBM defines "share" as "Within the central market area, the estimated total hours tuned to that station expressed as a percentage of total hours tuned to all radio."

Other BBM notes: Timeblock: Monday-Sunday 5am-1am. Demographics: A12+.




CBC Radio One lost listeners from a year ago, which is shown by the 4.6 percentage point decrease. The 15.9% figure is the lowest number recorded for CBC Radio 1 Ottawa since early 2009. (My records only go as far back as 2009.)  This is very concerning, especially after they dominated the ratings just six months ago, doubling the listenership of its next competitor.

CFRA and Majic 100, both properties of Bell Media, appear to have regained their audience from the spring to a level similar to a year ago. Listeners of Y101 and Live 88.5 have grown steadily over the last couple of years, while BOB FM and the Bear continue to be on the decline. The Bear could never recover its listeners after Astral re-branded it to Virgin Radio in early 2009 and back to the Bear in early 2010.

With the NHL lockout this year, surprisingly, Team 1200 hasn't lost listenership compared to last year, which is probably a relief to them. The Team 1200 seems to be a strong enough brand in Ottawa to not warrant  re-branding to TSN like Bell did with its stations in Toronto and Montreal.

Boom 99.7 nearly doubled its listeners from a year ago. Since it changed to a classic hits format in the summer of 2011, Boom is now being rewarded with an audience large enough to challenge BOB FM.

For 1310News, a 0.7 rating is the lowest for the All-News format since it first launched in Fall 2010. Even, the Oldies format had higher ratings. Probably safe to assume that this is not what Rogers Media was expecting after two years. This station may be re-formatted to news/talk, like the Rogers news stations in Kitchener and Halifax, or be scrapped entirely for something else. This All-News format isn't succeeding in Ottawa because Ottawans typically work regular business hours. Also, traffic isn't as congested during off-peak hours, so frequent traffic reports in the daytime and overnight are unnecessary. In other cities, like Toronto and Vancouver, with heavy traffic at any given time of day and more people working at various hours, the All-News format seems to be popular.