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Is the Toronto radio dial very interesting?

F

fordranger797

Its a shame that CHUM 1050 isn't doing oldies anymore. I always like to see heritage radio stations such as CHUM continue to play their old format as long as possible.

What are some of the more interesting things you find on the radio in Toronto?
 
It amazes me that Standards is a better bet in Toronto than oldies is when it comes to music on AM.
Both formats were originally intended for AM, knowing the music was originally recorded in mono anyway.
Oldies would have a slightly younger audience.
Interesting? How about CKOC Hamilton!
I think they're confused. They now play some 80's music!
It sure feels strange going from 60's music to Men without hats and back to the 60's again right after.
 
CKOC is a good sounding oldies station. Many oldies stations play 80's. Hearing 60's is a novelty. The AM dial is more interesting than FM in Toronto. Two talk stations that are mostly live and local, CFRB and CFMJ, an all news station CFTR that is truly 24/7 news..no talk shows, no sports play by play and CFZM 740 that plays oldies, standards, old time radio shows and they have a talk block in the middle of the day. There is an all comedy station from Hamilton that comes in, as does WBEN in Buffalo.
 
CKOC seems pretty decent. I still like CKWW better, though. I am glad to see that CFZM is doing well, even though its not exactly "my cup of tea". If they are mixing in 50's and 60's oldies, I would definitely take a listen. I'm sure CHUM 1050 is doing well with the new format, however, I imagine the oldies format had a very loyal following.

Is there any country music permeating the airwaves in the GTA?
 
Toronto radio is slightly less interesting than it could be. Q is playing more CFNY music. CFNY is playing the mainstream of Indie's music. Indie is skewing towards the older end of CFNY and playing it pretty safe. I think they should have been bolder and more eclectic straight away. You can't launch a station with those principles and then play such a predictable set of tracks - it doesn't please the people you're hoping to make loyalists, and it just siphons off the old CFNY audience with comfort tracks - which CFNY then reacts to by being rid of Blundell and Indie-fying the hit currents - not much reason to choose one or the other. Indie does have some good specialty features though. Musically the most interesting thing is G 98.7 - funk, soul, urban stuff, and independently owned. Diverse, but some good tracks on there if you catch them at the right time.
 
fordranger797 said:
Is there any country music permeating the airwaves in the GTA?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting question. Let's look at Hamilton first before GTA.
820 CHAM was country for many many years, but they gave in.
They decided that they can not compete with FM.
On FM it's Hamilton's KX 94.7 that wiped out 820 CHAM forcing it to go all American (American network) Comedy.

Long story short, the GTA has KX 96. ( http://www.kx96.fm/ broadcasting out of Oshawa Ontario)
 
Yeziknoradio said:
That's an interesting question. Let's look at Hamilton first before GTA.
820 CHAM was country for many many years, but they gave in.
They decided that they can not compete with FM.
On FM it's Hamilton's KX 94.7 that wiped out 820 CHAM forcing it to go all American (American network) Comedy.

Long story short, the GTA has KX 96. ( http://www.kx96.fm/ broadcasting out of Oshawa Ontario)
Click to expand...

Comedy radio took over one of my favourite stations, CKMX 1060, in Calgary last year. It's a lot easier for a station to just syndicate comedy programming rather than produce their own. I have a feeling that the parent company of CKMX really didn't want to put a lot of work into making a music format work on the AM dial (even though CKMX had many listeners). I also heard that a domain name was registered for CISL 650 in Vancouver for "funny650". I hope they decided to scrap that plan, CISL is a good AM music station.

I wonder how many listeners KX96 has in the Toronto area. With the popularity of country music on an incline, I would imagine they have a decent following. Are there any numbers?
 
Yeziknoradio said:
It amazes me that Standards is a better bet in Toronto than oldies is when it comes to music on AM.
How about CKOC Hamilton!
I think they're confused. They now play some 80's music!
It sure feels strange going from 60's music to Men without hats and back to the 60's again right after.
Click to expand...

I'm just back home in the Chicago area after spending the beginning of the week in the GTA. I was a little surprised and dismayed to find exactly what you just described with CKOC. My guess is that they're trying to "age out" what had been the core of their playlist and transition to more of a 70s-80s based format. But in the meantime what's going on right now sounds awful. I have to hand it to their afternoon guy, and obviously a real pro, "Rockin' Ray Michaels" for trying to make the resultant mess sound good.

Interestingly....at least to me....CFZM seems to be going through something similar. More 60s rockers than before but still a few "standards" from earlier. The segue from the Beatles to Eddie Fisher that I heard yesterday afternoon sounded just plain weird. And don't look now....but they've got 80s and 90s music blocks last night.
 
cyberdad said:
I'm just back home in the Chicago area after spending the beginning of the week in the GTA. I was a little surprised and dismayed to find exactly what you just described with CKOC. My guess is that they're trying to "age out" what had been the core of their playlist and transition to more of a 70s-80s based format. But in the meantime what's going on right now sounds awful. I have to hand it to their afternoon guy, and obviously a real pro, "Rockin' Ray Michaels" for trying to make the resultant mess sound good.

Interestingly....at least to me....CFZM seems to be going through something similar. More 60s rockers than before but still a few "standards" from earlier. The segue from the Beatles to Eddie Fisher that I heard yesterday afternoon sounded just plain weird. And don't look now....but they've got 80s and 90s music blocks last night.
Click to expand...

I just took a look at their playlist online. Oh man, what a mess. A few years ago, CISL 650, one of my favourite stations, made a switch like this. They started as a 50's and 60's oldies station, and added a few older standards (as well as new renditions), and now they have something similar to CKOC. I see a lot of stuff that I like on CKOC, but they have too many "burnt to a crisp" classic hits that they could easily leave out.

Does Toronto have a formal "burnt to a crisp 70's and 80's" radio station?
 
fordranger797 said:
Does Toronto have a formal "burnt to a crisp 70's and 80's" radio station?
Click to expand...

I don't think of it as "Burnt to a crisp", but Boom 97.3 does do all eighties long week ends, and they do focus heavily on 70's and 80's as a large portion of their format, with some 90's thrown in.
 
Yeziknoradio said:
I don't think of it as "Burnt to a crisp", but Boom 97.3 does do all eighties long week ends, and they do focus heavily on 70's and 80's as a large portion of their format, with some 90's thrown in.
Click to expand...

I checked out the playlist. It certainly does not do anything for me; I'd rather listen to Q107. The playlist looks pretty tight and typical. I pail in understanding how a station such as "Boom FM" is so successful when it doesn't looks like it would be fun to listen to day in and day out. Of course, I usually have the radio on all day, so its easy for me to tell when the same songs are running over and over again. If you only listen sporadically, its probably a perfect playlist.
 
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fordranger797 said:
I checked out the playlist. It certainly does not do anything for me; I'd rather listen to Q107. The playlist looks pretty tight and typical. I pail in understanding how a station such as "Boom FM" is so successful when it doesn't looks like it would be fun to listen to day in and day out. Of course, I usually have the radio on all day, so its easy for me to tell when the same songs are running over and over again. If you only listen sporadically, its probably a perfect playlist.
Click to expand...

Keep on mind that Boom 97.3 was recently sold to Newcap. There may be changes or, as they say in the biz "some tweaking" to the format.
The numbers still look good, so I doubt there will be any major change.
If anything, Newcap just might do some changes to Flow 93.5, since they recently purchased that station as well, and their numbers are slipping.
 
Yeziknoradio said:
Keep on mind that Boom 97.3 was recently sold to Newcap. There may be changes or, as they say in the biz "some tweaking" to the format.
The numbers still look good, so I doubt there will be any major change.
If anything, Newcap just might do some changes to Flow 93.5, since they recently purchased that station as well, and their numbers are slipping.
Click to expand...

I guess we'll see. I like the radio selection out in Vancouver better, I must say. It was great out this way when we had CFMI 101.1 doing classic rock, CFUN 104.9 doing classic hits, and CISL 650 doing real oldies. Those days are gone.
 
fordranger797 said:
I guess we'll see. I like the radio selection out in Vancouver better, I must say. It was great out this way when we had CFMI 101.1 doing classic rock, CFUN 104.9 doing classic hits, and CISL 650 doing real oldies. Those days are gone.
Click to expand...

Keep an eye on shore FM...something is going on in Vancouver. Newcap about to do a format flip maybe???
 
If Toronto radio is anything like Toronto/Hamilton television, people in Southern
Ontario prefer to watch television and listen to those radio stations they can receive
from Buffalo, N.Y. and/or other areas in New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Michigan.
 
Prescott Joe said:
If Toronto radio is anything like Toronto/Hamilton television, people in Southern
Ontario prefer to watch television and listen to those radio stations they can receive
from Buffalo, N.Y. and/or other areas in New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Michigan.
Click to expand...

Well one good example would be the crowd that wants WBLK, not Flow 93.5. Living in an area where the Flow signal is too weak always helps.
 
For the most part, even bad Toronto Radio runs circles around what is supposed to pass for good Buffalo Radio. Who else has a station called "Geezer Rock" in their listening area? 97 Rock plays the same old Led Zep, The Who, Kiss, Def Leppard,blah blah blah....200 song playlist. At least there are choices in Toronto....
 
justmebuk said:
For the most part, even bad Toronto Radio runs circles around what is supposed to pass for good Buffalo Radio. Who else has a station called "Geezer Rock" in their listening area? 97 Rock plays the same old Led Zep, The Who, Kiss, Def Leppard,blah blah blah....200 song playlist. At least there are choices in Toronto....
Click to expand...

...as we scratch our head trying to figure out whatever the heck Q107 is doing.
If you want rock radio, 97.7 Htz fm (St.Catharines) is good, and there's also Q's sister station out of Hamilton, with a better variety of rock.
Y108.
 
What can one do to get American stations to adhere to the Canadian content rules? They've been openly flaunting these laws for some time now.
 
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