Once again it is time for us to review how successful CBC Radio has been with their restructuring of the CBC Radio 2 programming.
Those of you who have been following this blog through its intermittent postings will know that we are examining the audience for CBC Radio 2 in the major cities surveyed by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. We are comparing the current audience for CBC Radio 2 stations in the most recent survey done by the BBM with the audience for CBC Radio 2 stations before the CBC began their program of restructuring. In this case, we are comparing the audience for CBC Radio 2 stations with the audience that the stations had in “S2” 2007, the last survey performed by the BBM before the CBC introduced its new programming. For those of you who have not been following this blog: now you know.
The idea is this: if the CBC Radio 2 programming restructuring has been successful, the audience will have increased. After all, this was the stated intent of the programming restructuring. If the CBC Radio 2 audience has fallen since the restructuring, then the initiative was unsuccessful.
“But wait” you may be saying to yourself “people are listening to radio less and less. The decline in the CBC Radio 2 audience may be due simply to the decline in the overall radio audience itself, not due to the decline in the CBC Radio 2 audience.”
So indeed we have examined this as well. We have compared the total radio audience from S2 2007 with the total radio audience for the most recent survey performed by the BBM to determine if people are listening to the radio less often. As the results show, this is the case. But more importantly, the decline in the CBC Radio 2 audience has been greater than the decline in the audience for radio programming in general. This, as you probably may realize yourself, is not good.
The results are summarized below.
While the total radio audience in Montreal has actually increased by 6.2% since S2 2007, the CBC Radio 2 audience has declined by 46.5% since S2 2007. Not good.
In Vancouver, the total radio market has dropped by 17.2% since S2 2007. The audience for CBC Radio 2 has, however, been decimated, falling by 54.2%. This should be alarming to CBC Radio management, no?
The only bright spot for CBC Radio is Ottawa, where the audience for CBC Radio 2 has actually increased by 5.8% since S2 2007, in a market that has declined by 7.6% since S2 2007. We’ll have to watch this to see if it’s just a one-time blip, or a trend.
A word about the survey data: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary are surveyed using the Portable People Meter, or PPM. Winnipeg and Ottawa are surveyed using Radio Diary Data. For an explanation of the differences between the two methods, see the BBM site.
Radio Diary Data is issued twice a year, in the Spring and Fall. The latest BBM Fall survey covers the period from September 5 2011 to October 30 2011, while the most recent PPM data covers the period from August 29 2011 to November 27 2011, termed for the purposes of this analysis as “S8 2011”, to be consistent with previous BBM naming conventions.
This analysis therefore uses the Fall survey for Winnipeg and Ottawa and calls this data “S8 2011”, as well as the PPM data for the remaining cities.
Data for S4 2010 is included in the Summary above since this was the most recent survey for which we did the analysis and which also included Diary Data for Ottawa and Winnipeg. We missed performing this analysis for the Spring 2001 Diary Data survey. We may add this analysis some time in the future, just to be complete.
Two years have now passed since the CBC completed their restructuring of the CBC Radio 2 programming.
As you may recall, the first phase of the changes to the CBC Radio 2 programming occurred in March 2007. The last survey of the CBC Radio 2 audience listening to the “old” programming conducted by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement was, in the BBM’s terminology, S1 2007. The most recent survey available on the BBMs web site covers the period from July 26 – October 24 2010 and includes data for Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and is based on data compiled using the Portable People Meter, or PPM. Radio audience survey data for Winnipeg and Ottawa is based on data compiled using diary data and so is not available for this period, the last survey period for these markets covering the period March 1 – April 25 2010. I term the period from March 1 – April 25 2010 “S4 2010”, to be consistent with prior survey naming, but it should be noted that the BBM does not use this term.
Anyone interested in the success or failure of the new programming on CBC Radio 2 can therefore compare the current audience for CBC Radio 2 with the audience for the “old” Classical format. Since the goal of the restructuring of the CBC Radio 2 programming was apparently to increase the total audience, we would expect that the CBC Radio 2 audience has increased in the major markets surveyed by the BBM. At the time of the programming changes, the management of the CBC admitted that they were going to alienate many loyal listeners, but contended that they would gain additional listeners and would therefore increase the total audience for CBC Radio 2. So what actually happened?
As readers of previous entries to this blog are no doubt aware, the audience for CBC Radio 2 has plummeted. Changes in the survey methodology from diary data to the PPM data are no doubt one factor, but the decline in the CBC Radio 2 audience was evident even before the changeover to the PPM measurements. The audience has declined 41.4% in Montreal, 39.4% in Toronto, 67.1% in Vancouver, 56.3% in Calgary and 45.2% in Edmonton. This is a decline in market share of almost unheard of proportions. The charts below summarize the results for S9 2010. Note that the last survey for which full market data is available is S4 2010, which included data for Ottawa and Winnipeg.
While it is true that the total radio audience has declined in each of these markets, with the exception of Montreal English broadcasting stations, the decline in Radio 2's audience has been much more dramatic.
Many former listeners of CBC Radio 2 will not be surprised by this. You may recall that listeners protested the changes in most large Canadian cities in April 2008. There was a public outcry when the extent of the CBC’s plans were revealed to the Canadian public. Although the audience was vociferous in their condemnation of the CBC’s plans for the new programming, the CBC management proceeded with the restructuring in the face of overwhelming public opposition.
Consider how other corporations have implemented change and how they have reacted when their customers reacted negatively to such change. The most well-known example of a marketing debacle is, of course, the introduction of “New Coke” in the late eighties. For those few who may not know the story: Coke attempted to increase the market share for Coca-Cola by introducing a new formula for Coke that they dubbed “New Coke.” Their customers were outraged. New Coke sales plummeted. Coca-Cola relented and reintroduced “Coke Classic” to placate their customers, offering both “New Coke” and “Coke Classic”. Sales recovered and “New Coke” was quietly retired by an abashed Coca-Cola corporation.
Consider a more recent example. The Gap recently decided to change their logo. Their logo! Customers were outraged and protested. The Gap, having learned something during the past twenty years from other corporate missteps, quickly retreated, admitted their mistake and reinstated their old logo. Note that nothing apparently had changed with respect to the merchandise, shopping experience or pricing. The only thing that was altered was the logo! Yet the management of The Gap was quick to realize that they had made a mistake and recovered from the mistake in order to keep their customers happy.
Not so the management of the CBC. Not only did they ignore the public outcry that greeted the initial announcement of the restructuring of the CBC, but have apparently been oblivious to the declining audience of CBC Radio 2, judging by the lack of public statements to their shareholders, the taxpayers of Canada.
You can’t get away with stuff like this if you are a company operating in a competitive environment. If you’re a corporation that lives off the public purse, apparently you can.
