Radio audience statistics released in early March show that 14 percent of Vancouver listeners tune-in to news/talk radio . Soft-rock station , its closest competitor, came in at 9.7 percent. Data is gathered by the (BBM), an industry owned organization that collects data on audience listening habits.

First broadcasting in , CKNW has become an institution in Vancouver. I recently spoke with Ian Koenigsfest, News Director at CKNW, and asked him what it takes to stay on top.

Koenigsfest differentiates CKNW, a private station, from public radio. The main difference, he believes, is that public radio has a mandate to tell people what to think about, while CKNW mirrors back to the community what listeners believe is important. “It’s a classic electronic town hall meeting. There’s an issue and you can call up, or you can email, or you can blog, or you can tweet, and you can be interactive with an issue that has a direct impact.”

He says CKNW focuses on what’s happening at the moment, trying to be up-to-the-minute with breaking news. Preparing today for what radio hosts will discuss tomorrow puts listeners 12 hours behind what’s happening now

.

When asked if building on an aging of males, aged 25 to 54, ensures success in the future, Koenigsfest said the age of the cohort is static. As listeners enter that age group, they migrate to what CKNW has to offer. What’s more, CKNW is beginning to show up as number one for a younger cohort of 18 to 34 year old males, which is unusual for talk radio.

CKNW’s sustained popularity may be because of unique programming, such as Sports Talk with . The program airs in the 9 p.m. to midnight slot and draws large listener numbers, typically seen only for music stations. With 25 years of history, Sports Talk

is itself a Vancouver institution.

Challenges for private radio include staying profitable in tough economic times and enduring regulatory restrictions. Each broadcaster is restricted by the CRTC () to two AM and two FM stations in a single market which, in my opinion, curbs innovative new programming. Technical difficulties inherent in AM broadcasting, such as signal interference from tall buildings and trolley wires, could be cured by allowing AM stations to move to FM.

Regardless of how technology evolves for radio, according to Koenigsfest,  the bottom line is providing a clear broadcast that can be received in your car or home with existing receivers.

history. This was the day that KCJJ blew the dust off Quadraphonic sound from the ‘70s, and broadcast rock favorites in Quad for four hours.

February 26^th was the fortieth anniversary of the arrival of Quadraphonic sound. Quad doubled the number of speakers required for stereo from two to four. Each speaker broadcast a discrete channel, and Quad provided surround sound, the precursor of what is common in home theater technology today.

There is a link between the Coralville radio station and local Vancouver radio. KCJJ broadcasts in AM stereo and, according to the (CRTC), AM may be a solution to overcrowding of the FM radio band in large markets like Vancouver. The number of AM stations closing or moving to FM is growing. Between 2004 and 2008, there was an 18 percent drop in the number of AM stations in Canada, a loss of 34.

AM stereo brings the sound dimension and quality of stereo to the AM dial. In 1988, the CRTC adopted C-QUAM technology as the standard for AM stereo. Approximately 50 broadcast in AM stereo including six in the local market:

• CKBD 600
• CKNW 980
• CKST 1040
• CHMB 1320
• CFUN 1410
• CJVB 1470

But receiving

AM stereo is a different issue. While radios are available, and vehicles with AM/FM radios may have , the technology is not universal.

However, the CRTC ignores the AM solution and is pushing the industry to (DAB), a technology introduced to the industry 20 years ago. Seen as a potential solution to overcrowded airwaves, the uptake of the technology has been slow by broadcasters and the public.

Sound quality, limited reception, and higher cost are criticisms from broadcasters, while listeners are faced with a two-second broadcast lag and power demands that can suck batteries dry six to 12 times faster than an AM/FM receiver. The latest form of DAB, , while becoming more popular and accessible in the United States, is also not being adopted by Canadian broadcasters.

The Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) just released its winter listener statistics for Vancouver radio. CKNW AM again leads the pack. My next blog will focus on what it takes to be the perennial favourite in Vancouver talk radio.

If you were lucky enough to have a radio in your car, it was AM and monaural– that is, not

stereo. “Premium” sound was a speaker behind the rear seat in addition to the one in the dashboard. If you were a car geek you had a reverb unit for your car radio that desynchronized the front and rear speakers just enough to give radio a tinny echo.

It was close to the end of the sixties when the two car speakers migrated to the front door panels with the advent of stereo eight-track tape players and, finally, stereo FM came to our local radio station. For the next 30 years, while programming changed, radio technology stayed pretty much the same. It took the Internet to make serious changes to radio.

Today radio is still available through the airwaves, AM or FM; streamed over the Internet, as downloadable podcasts, via satellite, through cellphone AM/FM receivers, and now through wireless devices and even HD radio. HD sound is a bit of a misnomer, as it is not “high definition” but simply broadcast digitally and requiring a special receiver.

Still a popular format for the traditional airwaves, news/talk radio comes second only to country music. In the US it has 48 million listeners. Two reasons for radio’s popularity: it is everywhere and it allows you to be doing something else while listening—unlike television or online news.

The typical audience for news/talk radio is men ages 45 and older with more than half (US statistics) older than 55. The FM audience is a bit younger than those listening to AM. As a group, these listeners are better educated and have higher household incomes.

The average news/talk listener spends more than nine hours listening to news/talk programming weekly. In terms of where they listen to radio, half listen at home, a third listen in their cars, and one in ten listen at work. Radio listening peaks around seven in the morning and slowly drops off until about three in the afternoon.

Ninety percent of all radio revenue comes from traditional airwave broadcasting, but advertising revenues are slowly dropping. Many broadcasters are compensating for this loss through advertisements on their online streaming sites—a low cost option for most broadcasters.

So much for the general, next time I’ll get specific and look at Vancouver talk/radio.

It’s a different world out there when everyone’s asleep—a random mix of solitary yellow taxis, police cruisers and newspaper delivery vans. Different also is what’s on your car radio. Curiosity spurred me to my sponsor’s station as I wondered how graveyard shift workers entertain themselves.

I pressed the AM button on my car radio and let it seek through the frequencies until it got to 980. The flat, mono tones opened up a parallel universe of UFO’s, psychic experiences, financial conspiracies, and the gravelly voices of insomniacs and shift workers. After dropping my stereotypes of loonies and losers, I began to pay attention to the interplay between host, expert and caller. I was hooked!

I had discovered Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, the program that boasts; “Overnight talk radio with daytime ratings.” The experts were knowledgeable and Noory was more respectful and empathetic to his callers than the call-in hosts who have caused me to change stations in the past.

On February 18^th, Glenn Kimball, a researcher of ancient texts, discussed the statistical impossibility of the creation of DNA. Kimball said it led him to consider a mathematical basis for creation–but not necessarily a Godly creation. The analogies he used to simplify the math brought his theories down to the rest of us. On February 22^nd, Joseph Meyer, a regular contributor on investment and security on ABC television’s Smart Money , said not to look for significant improvement in the present bear market until 2015. Each guest provided both solid and interesting analysis to their topic, with George asking pertinent questions and hosting the callers.

All very fascinating to me in the early hours during my 60-minute commute, but then I began to consider the market potential for late-night radio. Coast to Coast AM, with its 500 US affiliate stations plus those in Canada, Mexico and Guam, states it has a nightly audience of three million.

I wondered who could be listening to radio in the 1 AM to 5 AM slot. If you factor in the 34 million North Americans experiencing chronic insomnia, plus the 3.6 million working graveyard shifts, the size of the market begins to emerge. The potential market for late-night radio is close to 38 million listeners.

Yes, but isn’t radio obsolete, a media from a bygone age? Just how popular is radio? I’ll consider this question in my next blog.