CJWL, 98.5 FM, a Hot-AC station in Canada's capital and fourth largest city, will soon be shut down, and taken off the air. Two other FM Country stations in nearby, smaller cities are also getting their plugs pulled.
[NOTE: Several weeks after writing and posting this article, I learned that the three Ottawa region FM stations mentioned in this article were bought by two separate, Canadian radio companies and they will stay on the air. I decided not to cut up the article with this news, but I added an Addendum (with news link) at the bottom of the blog post with this information. I have left the article otherwise intact because most of the negative factors concerning the radio business, that are covered in this article, still exist and are still affecting radio companies and radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.]
Over the past several years, some AM stations have been shut down, flipped to syndicated programming like Sports Betting, or otherwise just plain removed from the airwaves, and being that this blog is about AM Radio as well as all other things Radio, in recent articles here I have covered the closings of several AM stations -- as quite a few of those closings have occurred after the Pandemic.
The post-Pandemic economy is socking it to Radio, and now it is apparent that it's not just AM Radio that's taking the hit.
It was recently announced that three FM stations in Canada (owned by the Evanov company) are being shut down, due to financial reasons, and one of them is a station that plays Hot AC, a very popular radio format, and that station is in Canada's #4 city (and its capital), Ottawa -- metro population approximately 1.5 million people.
The three FM stations in question went on the air in 2000's, with CJWL Lite 98.5 going on the air in 2006, with the other two stations hitting the airwaves not long afterwards.
It appears that these FM stations -- like many others -- have been getting hit by changes in listenership, with its migrating to Streaming. On top of that, there have been downturns in advertising revenues in the Radio industry, especially since the Pandemic.
The Evanov company's PR release concerning the shutting down of the FM radio stations says it all, really: "All broadcasters are now contending with the challenges of increased competition, a difficult media climate, and the residual effects of the pandemic."
Here is a link to the RadioInsight article on the FM station closings.:
Whether a new buyer is interested in purchasing these stations to make a go of it is a good question. None have been mentioned. No potential sale was mentioned, either. It looks like these three Eastern Ontario stations will go permanently dark.
From everything else that I've read concerning the state of Radio, the Evanov spokesman seems correct. The 'difficult media climate' he mentions is directly related to the state of advertising -- ad revenues are down across the board, especially for legacy media like Radio, TV, Cable, Newspapers, Magazines -- there are infinite 'slots' for advertisers on the internet and it decreases the value of those advertising 'slots' media wide.
On top of that, of course, you've got inflation, something which Canadians also deal with. Their dollar, like the US dollar, is worth less than it was worth in the 2000's. For example, according to the Bank of Canada, the Canadian dollar is worth 69% less than it was in 2000, and 18% less than it was before the Pandemic hit.
The Bank of Canada inflation calculator can be found here. It is similar to the US BLS Inflation Calculator.:
Being that the Canadian dollar -- like the US dollar -- has declined in value since the 2000's, the effect has hit Radio with a double-whammy: you have decreased numbers of listeners since the 2000's, increased online competition for advertising over the same time period, and overall inflation, too.
Radio is a difficult business anymore because of these factors.
WHEN IT WAS JUST AM STATIONS, NO ONE CARED
Over the past couple of years, I've noted -- on this blog -- the shutting down, or potential shutting down, of several radio stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. From KNPT Newport, to KUTI Yakima, to KYVL/KMED Medford, to the shutting down of Las Vegas's 50KW powerhouse station KDWN, to the potential closings of two stations in Edmonton and Vancouver, to the shutting down of 7 AM stations in Canada by Bell Media (4 of them in Alberta and British Columbia), to Bell Media's selling off 45 other radio stations in Canada last year to smaller Radio companies. Many of the stations in Bell Media's 45 station fire sale (this last February) were on the AM band, with all of them affected by the post-Pandemic economy, and migration of listeners to Streaming platforms.
During the February sale of the 45 stations, Bell Media's spokesman said "radio is not a viable business anymore."
Here is my article on Bell Media's selling off the 45 stations -- many in Western Canada.:
My article on Bell Media pulling the plug on CFRN and 6 other AM stations in Canada is here.:
To AM Radio fans, all of these sales and station closings were a bit of a shock.
But to many others in the Radio business, there were a lot of scoffers, who just shrugged it off as 'AM Radio', the 'dying media'.
However, now, the picture is changing. The shutdowns are starting to hit FM.
Both AM, and FM, are being bludgeoned by Streaming platforms -- and those Streaming platforms aren't owned by Radio companies.
In one of my last articles on this subject, I mentioned that I understand why some listeners migrate to Streaming. If I want to hear all 2010's Electronic pop, Radio doesn't provide a lot of it. But Pandora has a channel devoted entirely to 2010's Pop. If I want to hear 2000's Nu-Metal, there are channels online that cater to that genre as well. The local FM Rocker that played a lot of it -- KVRQ 98.9 -- got flipped to country after a year, and the other local FM rocker, KISW, doesn't play a lot of Nu-Metal, and they shut down their HD2, Metal Militia channel that played nothing but Metal.
However, I can get all the Nu-Metal and Metal I want on a couple channels on Pandora, which is on my phone.
CKHK-FM was a Modern Country station in Hawkesbury, a small to medium sized city on the Ottawa River, near the eastern tip of Ontario, about 30 miles upstream from the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. Country is one of the hottest radio formats. Even such a format can not save a station if the ad revenues are down.
THE DECLINE OF HD RADIO -- GIVING THE LISTENERS THE FINGER
Radio is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but it's not helping itself by leaving a lot of listeners in the lurch. Half the HD FM signals in my metro of 4 million people are HD1 only, meaning that their HD signal just broadcasts the main channel. A lot of FM's have no HD.
It wasn't always this way. Just 8 years ago there were quite a few HD2's with different formats -- Blues, Metal, BBC, Alt, Radio Disney, LBGTQ, Viet, Religion.... Yet the radio companies got rid of a lot of them. Thankfully, some companies still have HD2's on their FM stations. But it seems to be a declining trend.
They sometimes say that HD2's are expensive to maintain, which seems a bit laughable: it's just another programmed computer playlist and the signal is already on the air.
Either way, Radio in general appears to be drifting in free fall, and many of the experts seem to be resigned to the fact that the future is all online, and they're resigned to keep it that way.
Some of them, but not all of them, understand that the transformation to All Streaming means that by 2035 or 2040 most of them won't have a job, because most listening won't be to individual stations, but to channels on Pandora and other platforms, as well as individual, user-programmed streams.
For those who are or were in the Radio business, it's just the reality. Radio could advertise more, but apparently the Radio companies are strapped for promotion revenue, and the ROI that would come from advertising your station/stream's existence on other platforms like YT, FB, or other online media -- to try to attract and gain new listeners -- just isn't there.
In conclusion, it's sad to see FM radio take the hit. For the past few years, a lot of folks -- even Radio people -- make fun of AM as the old-person's media, and even MW DX'ers talk as if they wish a lot of stations would just shut down.
I've always been against that idea, and detest that attitude. I know some stations are going to shut down due to economics, but I in no way applaud it. Any stations shutting down -- AM or FM -- is an indicator that the industry is in great trouble. And this applies not just to AM, but FM also.
If an FM station that plays one of the two most popular music formats in North America can't pay the bills, while being on the air in one of Canada's Top 4 cities, what does that say for the state of Radio today?
THE WRITING FOR FM WAS ON THE WALL WITH WPLJ
I have a feeling that there may be more of these stations going off the air, or otherwise being sold to religious broadcasters -- some of which have enough money to buy an FM in a big city, as was proven by EMF's purchase of WPLJ New York several years ago in 2019 (it was part of a deal where EMF bought 5 Cumulus FM stations, including FM stations in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta). The purchase of WPLJ, once a major station in NYC, got the biggest discussion in Radio circles, however.
That purchase, of what once was a hit radio station in the #1 market and #1 city in the United States was a harbinger of the future of FM radio. The station also sold for a fraction of what it was worth in the 1980's.
Here's the Wiki on WPLJ:
So now Canada's capital city, and Canada's fourth largest metro area, will see a station go dark on 98.5 FM. The other two FM stations being shut down, both Country (the #1 music format in the US), serve smaller cities SE and East of Ottawa. According to the RadioInsight article above, three employees of these stations will still have jobs at other stations in the company, but whether there were other employees let go or not isn't mentioned.
If there were, I feel for them, as their Radio days are probably over. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: chances are extremely high they will never work in the Radio industry again. The industry is in decline. Even a cursory look at BLS labor stats indicates that employment in Radio, and broadcast media in general, is dropping. Although that's just the US, I'm certain in Canada it isn't much different.
Rockland, Ontario is a moderate sized city maybe 20km / 15 miles East of Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. Modern Country is the #1 or #2 music format on radio in North America (excluding Mexico and Greenland). It couldn't keep this FM station on the air. The spectre of listener migration to online Streaming, as well as the decline in advertising revenues is killing Radio stations. Including FM.
CANADA IS A DIFFICULT RADIO MARKET
I used to work with two Canadians who were format consultants at the Radio Format company where I worked for 16 years. They both told me that it's a tougher market in Canada. It's because it's a smaller national Radio market. The country is vast, but the population is comparatively small, and it's mostly concentrated in just ten or eleven large metros (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Victoria, Halifax, and a few other cities with over 200K in the market).
The Canadian radio experts I knew each said that the Canadian Radio infrastructure isn't financially robust, especially compared to the US Radio marketplace. They each consulted hundreds of radio stations in the US. That was something they couldn't do in Canada. The economics of Radio in Canada is smaller than it is in the US.
Perhaps with the shutting down of these three Ontario FM stations we're seeing some of that. And we may be seeing the start of a trend, not just in Canada, but in the US as well, of FM's going under. Because the economics of Radio in the US isn't very robust at the moment.
Remember, one of the largest Radio companies in the US, Audacy, just flipped the #10 billing radio station in the country -- WCBS-AM -- from news to sports. Top billing doesn't count like it used to.
My article on WCBS having the news format 'plug' yanked.:
FM going down the tubes is inevitable. I personally think the death of FM is a few decades away, but it's apparent that everything is going online, and that means more concentrated power in the hands of a few key players: Spotify, YT, Pandora, Apple, Amazon Music, IHeart, and Audacy, and a few other large music and audio streaming platforms.
There will come a day when the economics of Radio won't support studios (with all the expensive desks, microphones, processors, computers, etc.), station audio processing equipment, STL's, Transmitters, backup transmitters, and Towers -- and all the electric bills it takes to run that FM infrastructure. Many FM stations in the US are 100KW or more. Even smaller ones can be 30-50KW. That electricity cost adds up.
One expert on a Radio forum I go to said that most of the stations in a small metro of around 45K people in the Eastern part of my state are financially in trouble, because of the decline in advertising revenues. Most of those stations are FM's. Another small metro on the western side of the state is seeing its small cluster of stations (including an FM) getting rid of staff because of a decline in revenues.
As can be seen, FM Radio is not immune to the decline. Remember, KNPT Newport had two FM stations in its cluster, and KNPT itself had an FM translator. They also had a station stream.
It didn't save them. The economics just wasn't there for the operation anymore.
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To those of you in Canada, my other mother country: I realise that the economy is hitting Radio in your country, and it's sad that so many of these stories are about shut down radio stations across your great land.
CKMX, CFRN, CKST, CFTE, and other stations in major Canadian cities -- some of which still had ratings (like Edmonton's CFRN, a TSN/ESPN affiliate), and some of which I listened to (CKMX, CFRN) are now all gone. Just recently, 900 CHML Hamilton, an AM news and talk station, was shut down. Its owners, media company Corus, is facing economic difficulties.
97 years on the airwaves, and a Global / City News format in Canada's #9 city couldn't keep CHML 900 from having the plug pulled. The mayor of Hamilton called CHML the 'DNA' and the 'fabric of the city.' Not any more. The company abruptly laid off the staff one morning in mid-August, switched to automated music for a couple hours, and then -- after a statement by a radio company exec -- went to one hour of dead carrier before finally switching it off. True class.
Here's a CBC news story on that destruction of a nearly 100 year old, community-related news station.:
And now these 3 FM's in Ottawa and nearby cities are being shut down.
What my former Canadian workmates said about media in Canada turns out to be pretty accurate. It's a tough radio marketplace. And it's getting that way all over.
He's a tough, gentle cat. He still misses one of his cat pals that ran off 6 years ago. But his other pal, Racofrats, keeps him good company.
IN OTHER LIFE? SHITTY, BASICALLY
There really isn't all that much to say about what's going on, really. The weather is still relatively warm, and I buried my cat Squeakers, but it didn't take away the pain. She was getting stronger and doing better over a couple days, and then I went in to check on her and she was dead. Now she rests near my hawthorn tree.
Now I just have to ensure that my other cats stay healthy.
I'm keeping physically active. I eat OK. A lot of noodle soups, with beans, peas, celery, bok choy, onions, potatoes, carrots, and some cut oats mixed in -- with lots of paprika, curry, cayenne and other spices. I still DX the SW and MW bands, although it's been a bit boring to do so, as I'm not really enthused about it. I'm starting to plan ahead for Halloween. I have some electric jack o' lanterns to fix, and I suppose I'll have to carve a pumpkin for this Halloween also. But that's a month away.
Although I really have nothing to celebrate, I'll at least put up the effort.
There are millions of people worse off than me. Believe me, I am aware of that.
Today, of course, is September 11th. On this day, 23 years ago, we all know what happened in New York City. It was an event that changed the United States in many ways.
I have a post on September 11th here.:
Until next time,
Peace.
C.C. September 11th, 2024.
ADDENDUM, October 23rd, 2024:
I have since learned that a couple small radio companies have decided to buy all three of the FM stations in the Ottawa and nearby areas. They were purchased at the last minute, and they will stay on the air.
Here is a link to an article about the sale, and the continuance of CJWL and the other FM's being on the airwaves in Eastern Ontario.:
I added a short paragraph inside the article about this.
During a discussion online about this situation with the three stations -- the failure of the Evanov company to see a good ROI in Canada's 4th largest metro, one radio expert reminded me that Ottawa (and probably other radio markets on the Ontario / Quebec border -- Pembroke would probably be another similar city) have split Anglophone / Francophone markets, because the audiences get divided between the two dominant language groups, and advertisers generally prefer one language group over another. Makes sense, as it would decrease the size of the market from 1.4 million to whatever size the Anglos / French speakers are in their effective areas.
C.C. 10-23-2024
