Two years later - have the CBC Radio Two changes been a success?

As I mentioned in my March 30 blog entry, it has now been two years since the CBC initiated its program of Radio 2 restructuring.

Phase I of the restructuring began March 17, 2009 with the cancellation of the "World at Six" news broadcast, the replacement of "Music for a while" with "Tonic", the replacement of "In Performance" with "Canada Live", the cancellation of "Two New Hours" and the introduction of "The Signal", the cancellation of "Brave New Waves" and the cancellation of "Northern Lights". Phase III was completed in September 2008 with the cancellation of "Here's to You", "Studio Sparks" and "Sound Advice" and the replacement of "Disc Drive" with "Radio 2 Drive" and "Music and Company" with "Radio 2 Morning". So, you may be wondering, has it all been worth the pain and agony that the CBC has inflicted upon its audience? Has the new programming been successful?

To answer this question I continued the analysis of CBC Radio Two's market share that I first did in my October 30 2008 blog entry using audience share data from the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. Since we now have market share data including the period Sept. 1 2008 - Oct. 26 2008 (S4 2008, in BBM's terminology) and Jan. 5 2009 - March 1 2009 (S1 2009), we can compare CBC Radio Two's market share before the changes were implemented; i.e. before Phase I of the restructuring was implemented and the market share after the changes were implemented; i.e. after Phase III was completed. Since we have data for S4 2008 and S1 2009 we can get a good picture of how CBC Radio Two's market share has changed as this represents seven months of elapsed time since the completion of Phase III.

Much to my surprise, I found from the BBM data that radio listenership has actually increased in the major cities surveyed by the BBM, increasing from 20.7M in S1 2007 to 21.4M in S1 2009, an increase of 3.3%! In an era of MP3 players, internet radio and ubiquitous CD players this should be considered nothing short of astounding. It seems that there is a place for good old broadcast radio in our era of new technology after all!

But what about CBC Radio Two? How has it fared? Well, not as well. In a period of increased radio listenership CBC Radio Two actually lost listeners, losing a total of 49,000 listeners, or 6.9%, during the period from S1 2007 to S1 2009. As anyone with a lick of sense will tell you, to lose listeners in a growing market is very bad indeed, especially if you are trying to become more relevant to your audience, as the CBC apparently is trying to do. The chart below summarizes CBC Radio Two's market share during the period S1 2007 to S1 2009, as well as the total radio listenership in the major markets surveyed by the BBM. You can check this data for yourself using the BBM Top-Line Reports at the BBM web site.

The CBC has responded to reports of declining market share for CBC Radio Two in the past by saying that CBC Radio Two "needs to find its audience". One would think that if the "new 2" hasn't found its audience six months after its launch, it's never going to find it.

Most public corporations have a predictable response to a failed strategy. Either they admit their mistake and revise the strategy, or management is replaced or the corporation fails. The management of CBC Radio - answering to no one, apparently - has the luxury of being able to continue on their merry way to self-destruction, oblivious to declining market share and the ire of their audience. (For radio, that is, television is another story, as recent events have borne witness.)

Are the CBC Radio Two programming changes successful?

So, you may be wondering, have the programming changes that the CBC implemented on Sept. 2, 2008 been successful? What is their definition of success, anyway?

Well, in numerous statements to the press and to concerned citizens, CBC management has stated that the programming changes introduced on March 19, 2007 (the cancellation of 'Music for a while', 'In Performance', the 'Arts Report' and the 'World at Six' news broadcast on CBC Radio Two) and on Sept. 2 2008 (too numerous to list here) were intended to make CBC Radio Two more relevant to Canadians and to attract a wider, 'more sustainable' audience. CBC have thus defined one of the criteria upon which they are to be judged: number of listeners. Ergo, an increased number of listeners means success, a decreased number of listeners means failure. Dismal, abject failure. Has the CBC been successful, according to this criteria?

For an outsider, it's hard to tell. One source of data is the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, which makes 'Top Line Radio Statistics' available on their web site. What are 'Top Line Radio Statistics', you ask?

The BBM 'Top Line Radio Statistics' is a list of the radio stations in a given market (called the 'Central Market Area' by the BBM) and the number of listeners who have tuned into that radio station 'for at least one quarter hour during the week'. The time period that the BBM releases to the public is Monday - Sunday, 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM. So, if you tuned into a given radio station sometime during the day, on any day of the week, you could be counted by the BBM as having listened to the station.

I realize this data is not sufficiently detailed enough to draw many conclusions, but it's all we poor plebes have. Has Tom Allen's new show, from 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM, drawn more listeners, for example? Is Rich Terfry's new show, 'Drive', a roaring success? We listeners don't know. We have to rely on the CBC to tell us.

But we can start to draw some conclusions, even with the limited data that we have. Did CBC increase their audience after the March 19, 2007 programming changes? The BBM stats can give us some indication. The BBM Top Line data is now available for the third survey period in 2008, which includes July 7-20 and August 4-31. The second set of CBC programming changes, of course, took place on Sept. 2 2008, so are not covered by this survey. It will be interesting to take a look at the S4 2008 data once it's available.

Let's take a look at each major CBC market, starting with Ottawa, which I have a particular fondness for. The BBM Top Line data is available here, but I have put this data into the form of a graph to make it easier to digest. What are the results? Well, as it turns out, CBC Radio Two has lost 13,300 listeners in the Ottawa market, comparing pre-change listenership (before March 19, 2007, using S1 2007 as the last data point) to post-change listenership (using S3 2008 as the final data point), or approximately 20.8%. Not surprising, given the crap that is being played on CBC Radio Two these days.



"But", you may be saying to yourself, "if the total number of radio listeners in the Ottawa market is down, then it would make sense that CBC Radio Two listenership is down, wouldn't it?".

Yes, that is very true. However, as no doubt your investment advisor is telling you right now, if your mutual fund's value has declined, but less than the overall market, then that's a Good Thing. If your mutual fund's value has declined more that the overall market, then that's a Bad Thing. And what happened to the radio market in Ottawa during this period? It declined 4.5%, making the 20.8% decline in listenership for the CBC Radio 2 station in Ottawa a Very Bad Thing indeed.

How about Toronto:

Listenership for CBC Radio Two in Toronto decreased 29,100, or 14.0%. The total market in Toronto is down 2.6%. Bad Thing for CBC Radio Two.

Vancouver? Listenership decreased 49,100, or 21.4%. (Vancouver is a noted hotbed for CBC Radio Two listnership. It must be the Jurgen Goethe connection.) The total market was down 1.6%. Bad Thing for CBC Radio Two.

Montreal? Listenership is down 16,400, or 32.6%. The total market is down 9.7%. Bad Thing for CBC Radio Two.



Winnipeg? Listenership is up 3,100, or 8.3%. The total market is also up 4.8%. Good Thing for CBC Radio Two. (What's going on in Winnipeg, you might wonder? A bad mosquito season kept everyone indoors this summer, listening to the radio?)

Calgary? Listenership for CBC Radio Two is down 9,100, or 13.9%. The total market is down 5.5%. Bad Thing for CBC Radio Two.

Edmonton? Listenership for CBC Radio Two is down 19,200, or 34.2%. The total market is down 1.3%. Very Bad Thing for CBC Radio Two.

So, success, or dismal, abject failure? If you are from Winnipeg, as Mr. Chris Boyce is, you might call this a success. However, if you live in any of the other urban centres surveyed by the BBM, you might consider the CBC programming changes a dismal, abject failure.

As I mention above, the stats are available on the BBM web site. You don't have to take my word for it - look at the data yourself. As Mr. John Gordon used to say, "let the numbers speak".