How have you adapted to the demise of CBC Radio 2?

How have you adapted to the demise of CBC Radio 2?

For many long-time listeners CBC Radio 2 was an integral part of their lives. When a part of your life is taken away from you, you have to adapt. Generally, you find a substitute for what has been taken away. If Coke is not available, you drink Pepsi. If Pepsi is not available, you might drink a no-name Cola. There are usually substitutes for most products or services.

Not so for Classical music radio stations. In the case of classical radio, CBC Radio 2 was the only game in town in most Canadian cities. I wrote one of my early blog entries on this subject on May 4 2007. What do you do without a source of classical music? Some readers suggested playing CDs. Others suggested listening to your iPod. I discovered other radio stations in the Ottawa/Gatineau area but I eventually found each of these wanting.

I soon discovered the pleasures of Sirius Satellite radio and wrote about it in a blog entry on Nov. 24 2008. It took some time, but I eventually developed my Sirius Satellite radio installation to be an acceptable substitute for CBC Radio 2, with the help of a roof-top satellite antenna and a radio repeater installed in the attic. I eventually grew my Sirius Satellite radio installation to three radios: one for the bedroom, one for the kitchen and one roving unit for car. It’s true that you could use a single unit for all three purposes, but I prefer leaving the house units where they are. I’m sure Sirius is happy with this arrangement too.

Even though I was very satisfied with Sirius Satellite radio, I found another source of Classical music: WiFi internet radio. While some may think of internet radio as listening to music streamed over the internet on your PC, in this case “WiFi internet radio” refers to a device which is dedicated to receiving internet streamed music over your home WiFi router. It looks just like an AM/FM radio, except that it connects to the internet and can receive any radio station worldwide which streams its programming over the internet. The internet radio also has an FM tuner and can play MP3 files, but I use it for internet radio only.

I soon had some favourite stations, which I described in a post on Jan. 16 2009. Ottava from Japan, Radio Stephensdom from Austria, Bayern 4 Klassik from Germany, Concert FM from New Zealand and ABC Classics from Australia. I must admit, I even broke my self-imposed ban on all things CBC by listening to CBC Radio Classical. I began to narrow my listening to just a few stations. Ottava was interesting at first, but I found there are long periods of spoken introduction to each piece. Unless you are a student of Japanese and are practising your verbal comprehension of Japanese, it starts to become tedious.

The same is true of Radio Stephensdom and Bayern 4 Klassik. At first I enjoyed listening to the news and trying to follow the broadcast using my extremely limited knowledge of German. But I don’t know enough to follow, and the spoken broadcasts became less interesting.

Concert FM from New Zealand and ABC Classics were interesting to listen to too. It was refreshing to hear news from the other side of the world, and to hear the weather forecasts for cities in Australia during the depths of the Canadian winter. (I learned that broadcasters in Australia will use the term “and fine” to refer to, I assume, sunny weather; for example, “The forecast for Brisbane today is 34 degrees and fine.”) I still listen to ABC Classics from time to time.

As I note above, I broke my self-imposed boycott of all things CBC Radio by listening to CBC Radio Classical. I eventually realized, however, that this is the white bread of radio broadcasting. It has no character, no context, nothing but the same top-40 classical hits streamed over the internet. It’s not radio; it’s Muzak for classical listeners. The periodic interjection of “This is so-and so and you are listening to CBC Radio 2 Classical” became annoying in the extreme. Even so, I continued to listen to CBC Radio Classical until, not surprisingly, my internet radio would no longer connect to the site. Can’t the CBC get even this right?

So what am I listening to now? When I’m in Toronto, I listen to 96.3 FM, CFMZ FM, Moses Znaimer’s classical music station. When I’m at the cottage, I listen to CFMZ. And I recently found that I can tune into CFMZ over my internet radio when I’m in Ottawa. So we listen to CFMZ.

It’s true, the announcers on CFMZ can be a bit irritating at times – I won’t name names – and the commercials can be even more annoying. But I find it comforting to hear Robert Upward’s traffic reports for Toronto, even when I’m in Ottawa and they’re of no use to me. Jean Stilwell has the sexiest voice in perhaps all of Canadian broadcasting and I would tune in to her program just to hear her read names from the telephone book. Even some of the commercials become part of the fabric of your life.

Which brings me to the point that I have been leading up to all along, in a somewhat long-winded and round-about manner: radio is all about ambience, context and connections. We listen to radio stations because we have some connection to the announcers and programming that is meaningful to us in a context that is familiar or because we have developed such a connection over time. The programming and announcers become part of our own history and the daily fabric of our lives, whether it is listening to Joe Cummings and the Arts Report and Tom Allen’s ‘Cage Match’ while you are shaving in the morning, Howard Dyck and Choral Concert while preparing breakfast on Sunday morning, Jurgen Gothe talking about the cats while you are driving home in the evening, Robert Upward reading the traffic report and telling us about the congestion on the DVP, Jean Stilwell laughing her husky laugh while you are drinking your second coffee of the morning or Danielle Charbonneau (the previous holder of the 'Sexiest Voice in Canadian Broadcasting' title) while you are drinking your pre-dinner drink. Radio is all about context, ambience and connection with your day-to-day life.

Overseas radio stations can be enjoyable but it’s much more difficult to make a connection to a foreign broadcaster or foreign country that makes the station integral to your life. CBC Radio 2 Classical is just too bland to ever make a meaningful connection. The new CBC Radio 2 is too variable, too unpredictable and too annoying to ever make that connection, at least with me. The old CBC Radio 2 had those connections but broke them forever for many listeners. This is what the management of the CBC has failed to understand and what has led them to make some disastrous decisions, in my opinion.

WiFi Radio: The Death of Broadcasting, Part II

The following article appeared in this morning's National Post. It uses the term "WiFi radio" to refer to the "internet radio" that I used in my blog on the "The death of broadcast radio":

Radio in tune for digital revolution: Deloitte

'It's The Future'

Grant Surridge, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, January 21, 2009

While the vast majority of radio listeners in Canada still tune in to old-fashioned analogue signals, some observers say the medium may finally be on the verge of a digital revolution. And radios that connect to the Internet will push such change forward.

"Radio is really the last medium to go from analogue to digital," John Ruffolo, Deloitte's senior technology leader, said yesterday.
The accounting firm predicted the widespread adoption of so-called WiFi radios as part of an annual list of predictions for media and technology trends.

The devices in question look like normal radios, with digital displays, speakers and tuning knobs. But they pick up thousands upon thousands of Internet radio stations from around the world free of charge.

"It's the future of radio," said Alex Bowden, a salesman at Bay and Bloor Radio in downtown Toronto. He said the store has seen an uptick in sales of the devices, especially over Christmas, as prices have gone down.

The cheapest units retail for about $200. They connect to the Internet on their own or through an existing wireless router.

Analogue radio has stood down the advent of television, satellite radio and various digital incarnations. But Mr. Ruffolo contends WiFi devices will present a solution to consumers who are unwilling to pay for satellite radio, but tired of a limited selection of analogue signals.

Jacques Parisien heads the radio business at Astral Media Inc., the country's largest radio broadcaster.

He said WiFi radios present an opportunity for broadcasters to expand their analogue audience.

However, for the time being, Astral remains focused on analogue radio, where the vast majority of advertising and listeners are still situated.

In the first three quarters of last year, the U. S. Radio Advertising Bureau said online ad revenues accounted for about 9% of total radio income.

Mr. Parisien said that figure is likely even smaller in Canada.
David Bray, a radio industry analyst based in Toronto, called the idea that WiFi radios would herald a widespread shift in the way people listen to radio "wildly improbable."

He said he expects that there will eventually be a digital shift in the radio business, but it is far too early to tell if consumers will spend several hundred dollars to buy new radios.

He said that where there is no WiFi coverage -- such as outside of large cities -- such portable devices would be useless. "You're limiting yourself to urban locations where WiFi coverage is in place," he said.

According to data from the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, about two-thirds of Canadian households subscribe to high-speed Internet connections.

There are still issues to be resolved over tariffs broadcasters must pay to musicians to compensate them for playing their music over the Internet, Mr. Bray said.

The challenge for radio broadcasters who want to compete in a cyber universe filled with thousands of stations will be to organize themselves so that consumers can find them.

"They'll have to be categorized in an easily searchable format. Absolutely," he said.

Of course, I fully agree with Mr. John Ruffalo, the Deloitte analyst who wrote the report and predicts that WiFi radio will replace today's analogue radios. Although the cost of WiFi radio is relatively expensive when compared to analogue radios, the cost will come down as production ramps up. Remember when LCD TVs cost over $4,000? The same TV can now be purchased for less than $1,000.

Mr. David Bray missed the point entirely, however, when he states that WiFi (or Internet) radios will be useless in areas outside the Metropolitan regions where WiFi coverage is not available. WiFi radios will, I expect, be only used in conjunction with WiFi transmission from your own in-house wireless router, not with commercial WiFi services. And, although the penetration of wireless routers may not be that high yet, I expect that soon every household that has broadband internet will soon have a wireless router in the home. When every child in the house, not to mention adult, has their own laptop, it will become impractical to connect to the internet through wires - hence the widespread deployment of wireless, and wireless routers. WiFi radio will just ride this trend.

The other point not mentioned in the article, and the point that I was trying to make in my previous blog entry, was that WiFi radio (or internet radio, as I called it) will mean the death of broadcasting. A broadcast radio station could not, for example, play U2 exclusively since the audience within broadcast range would be too limited, and the resulting advertising revenue too small. However, if you can reach U2 fans world-wide, then you can tailor your advertising to that segment of the population which are also U2 fans, and who are in the target market segment for your product. This is, of course, the dream for every advertiser. So, with the emergence of WiFi radio, I expect that radio stations will move to the internet, expand their reach, narrow their focus and consequently be able to target their advertising more precisely. Thus the advent of narrowcasting, as opposed to broadcasting.

What has this to do with CBC Radio Two? Well, as you can see, CBC Radio Two has moved in precisely the opposite direction - becoming a 'broader' broadcaster, attempting to reach an even wider audience with its mish-mash of every conceivable musical genre available in Canada, in the end satisfying no one. CBC Radio Two is not evolving, rather, it is accelerating its own devolution into a dinosaur.