Saturday, July 16, 2016

The Spring 2016 Numeris (formerly BBM) Survey of CBC Radio Market Share


This is our eleventh review of CBC Radio's market share since the CBC decided to restructure the programming of CBC Radio Two. Previous surveys can be seen in the sidebar to the right.

This review summarizes the radio audience of CBC Radio Two stations in major cities, as surveyed by Numeris (formerly the Bureau of Broadcast Mesaurement). It compares the audience of CBC Radio Two stations both before and after the CBC restructured the programming of Radio Two.

The premise is simple. If the restructuring was successful, the audience would have increased. If unsuccessful, the audience would have decreased.

We note that the audience for radio is declining. Even so, if the audience for CBC Radio Two decreased more than the general radio audience, then the restructuring was unsuccessful.

The results of these reviews have consistently shown that the audience for CBC Radio Two stations in the cities surveyed by Numeris declined following the Radio Two programming changes. An impartial observer would therefore have to conclude that the programming restructuring was, and continues to be, a resounding failure. Yet the CBC apparently refuses to recognize this.

A summary of the findings: the overall radio audience declined by 22.3% while the audience for CBC Radio Two declined by 35.4% since the initial survey in 2007.














A graph of the CBC Radio One and Radio Two audience in Vancouver.














Calgary:














Edmonton:














Winnipeg:














Toronto:














Ottawa:














Montreal:














The results are clear. The CBC Radio Two programming changes have been a spectacular failure, in spite of repeated protestations from CBC management that the new programming would "find it's audience". The audience was never found, and listeners have abandoned CBC Radio in droves.

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