Hamilton: Toronto West?

January 12, 2004 by Strategy Staff

With a population of just under 500,000 (over 650,000 if you include surrounding metropolitan areas Burlington and Grimsby) and situated only 61 km from Toronto, Hamilton exists somewhat in the shadow of its larger cousin to the east. Much of its media needs are accounted for by spill from Toronto, particularly where TV and radio are concerned.

‘If you had to list your cities, Hamilton tends to be a B- or a C-list city, primarily because if you’re doing stuff in Toronto you tend to get natural coverage in Hamilton,’ says Denny Grandmaison, media planner with Toronto-based Mediaedge:cia. ‘So you want to first cover off other markets that are key to you before you go back and top up Hamilton.’

Nonetheless, Hamilton does have a vibrant media scene of its own. Its seven radio stations are as healthy as the Canadian radio market in general, which continues to enjoy high profit margins. And the Hamilton Spectator remains a solid buy for marketers looking for affordable local exposure.

Television

There are only two local TV stations, religious channel CTS in Burlington and CanWest Global’s CH. Once known as CHCH, this station has a distinctive Hamilton focus and, like all TV in Ontario, has become part of a regional buy.

Global’s been very good at blurring the distinction between CH and Global, says Sarah Ivey, VP strategic planning at Toronto-based Initiative Media. ‘They really absorbed the station into the Ontario network philosophy. They parked all their second-tier prime over there until they got a genuine hit on their hands with 24.’

‘When you talk about television, there is just not the necessity to have a local station,’ adds David Bray, SVP of Toronto-based Hennessy & Bray Communications and vice-chair of the BBM Radio Executive. ‘CH happens to reside in Hamilton because of its heritage, but they don’t even want to call themselves the Hamilton station. They call themselves Hamilton/ Halton/Niagara because they would be stupid [to do otherwise].’

However, Ivey says that there is selective inventory available on CH for those wanting local reach.

Radio

Hamilton is somewhat unique in that, according to BBM numbers, out-of-market stations account for a 61% share of tuning. The total share of all Hamilton stations combined is just 39%, with the largest, K-Lite FM, claiming about a 13% share.

There has been little movement among the local stations over the last year, although middle-of-the-pack rock station Y108 has been trending downward over the last three BBM books. K-Lite has been up and down, though always comfortably number one. Bray says Hamilton radio survives and sometimes prospers because, as an industry rule, 75% of radio buys are for local retail.

Newspaper

Hamilton steps out of Toronto’s shadow by way of the Hamilton Spectator. Ivey describes the city’s daily as ‘by far the dominant player in the market.’ This is despite a downward slide in its readership over the last several years. Quoting NADbank numbers, Ivey points out that daily coverage among an 18+ demo slipped from 50% in 1999 to 43.2% in 2002; weekend numbers took an even more precipitous slide, from 60.8% in 1999 to 48.4% in 2002.

The Spectator has recently launched a new lifestyle section called ‘Go,’ combining health, lifestyle and home and has made an increased effort to focus on local news.

‘They’ve been competitive [on price],’ says Mediaedge:cia’s Grandmaison. ‘They’ve enjoyed a unique position where if you want to have substantial print support in Hamilton, you can’t just rely on the Toronto papers.’

‘Hamilton readership is following the same trend that national, or at least Ontario, readership is following,’ says Ivey. ‘The only paper that’s growing in the entire market right now is Metro. And with 24 Hours that will just confuse things even more.’

Out-of-home

Grandmaison says he’s seeing some suppliers like Pattison sell Hamilton as part of a region, such as Toronto-Oshawa-Hamilton. He says that unless he’s doing something specific for a client, he doesn’t typically buy Hamilton separately.

‘[Avails] are pretty decent,’ he adds. ‘Again, depending on the client, some people will tend to buy Hamilton as a larger region. When you do it that way, it’s tough to say exactly what you’re going to be getting in Hamilton because they’re spread out in all these locations across Toronto straight through to Hamilton.’