The radio advertising industry pretty well ignores CBC One and Two. Can’t buy commercials. Can’t get PR. Can’t sponsor the traffic report.

When this most recent Fall BBM radio survey was released here in Toronto, the private radio stations went into audience freak-out mode (again) because their commercial revenue prospects go up and down with their quarter-hour averages, but over at CBC headquarters, at the corner of Front and John, all was quiet. If the CBC brass has been poring over the new fall results, they have no compunction about sharing their concerns or celebrations with us – their evil ‘commercial’ brethren.

It is important to realize, however, that CBC One and CBC Two do not operate in a radio vacuum. They significantly impact our commercial lives. The private radio sector loves to hate CBC, but they’re happy to have CBC share in the costs associated with funding national radio audience measurement. And the commercial radio stations in Toronto know their audience levels are impacted by the tuning competition that comes from CBC – especially from Radio One.

Radio One is big-time Toronto radio. For instance, One edged out CFRB for the number-three position, just behind CHFI-FM and CHUM-FM (Spring 2002 BBM, Adults 18+ hours, Toronto CMA). CBC One’s listeners are loyal and highly exclusive, thereby removing themselves from the pool of audience we want to reach in our commercial radio campaigns. No radio station in this market comes close to matching Radio One’s highly educated audience profile. Toronto’s university-educated radio listeners are protected in their commercial free zone, around 99.1 on the FM dial, safe from our commercial messages.

Radio One also carries an inordinate amount of community power because it is a political communications conduit. Politicians talk to other politicians over CBC Radio One’s airwaves, witnessed by an intelligent, literate, well-educated audience. Newspaper reporters listen closely to other newspaper reporters being interviewed by CBC radio about TV stories about newspapers. It’s all very incestuous and very appealing for media watchers.

This explains why so much has been written by so many about changes to CBC Radio One. Print luminaries such as John Gray (Globe and Mail, May 2002), Murray Whyte (Toronto Star, October 2002) and Robert Fulford (Toronto Life, December 2002) have all expressed concern. Gray questioned the efficacy of CBC’s ‘visioning séance’ in the first place. Whyte had trouble understanding why senior management wanted to make changes given the corporation’s success at building a large and devoted listenership. Fulford thinks Andy Barrie’s morning show has become a ‘mourning show.’

From their point of view, Radio One’s loyal listeners have been treated shabbily; made to suffer through quake-like alterations in their program day. Well, judging from the new fall survey, it looks like the press was right to be concerned. The numbers ain’t pretty.

Metro Morning, the 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Monday-to-Friday block hosted by Andy Barrie, has become a fragmented, fast-paced, frantic collection of news, weather, sports and traffic snippets interrupted by amateurish debating teams and the occasional hip-hop music cut. What was once a guaranteed learning experience during the drive to work has become a turnoff and a tune-out for many people. Fall 2002 audience result…15% decline in tuning.

Poor Shelagh Rogers. She took on the thankless task of carrying on after Peter Gzowski exited Morningside in 1997 and actually grew the numbers. And then she became ear fodder through the September/October 2002, 9 a.m. to noon Monday-to-Friday time block, thanks to a jumble of programs called This Morning, Out Front and C’est La Vie. To confuse matters just a little more, Shelagh was re-injected back into the schedule mid-October, hosting a new show called Sounds Like Canada that shuffles haphazardly throughout the mid-morning schedule. Fall 2002 audience result…15% decline in tuning.

Here and Now, the 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-to-Friday drive home show hosted by Avril Benoît has a new theme song and some additional new irritations. For one potentially magical moment in November, Austin Clarke sat beside Avril as her houseguest just days before he won the Giller Prize for The Polished Hoe. Oh the things that could have been said – the remarkable conversation that could have unfolded. But in the end, it was a lost opportunity. The questions were bad. The feeling was bad. The new, frantic pace is apparently not appealing. Fall 2002 audience result…20% decline in tuning.

CBC Radio president Alex Frame and his project architect Adrian Mills wanted to democratize Radio One’s age profile. In the fall of 2001, 60% of hours tuned were by listeners over 50 years of age. In Spring 2002 the 50+ composition stood at 62%. Fall 2002 audience result… 63% of hours are 50+ years of age.

CBC Radio One is not just a radio station; it is an audio landmark. It is to the airwaves of Toronto what the Art Gallery of Ontario is to visual art or the Royal Ontario Museum is to antiquities. The members of the CBC management team have a responsibility to manage change, but they must also see themselves as guardians.

Programming alterations that speed up the flow and dumb down the content will produce smaller not larger audiences; older not younger listener profiles; lower not higher education profiles. Management shouldn’t fuss about the young demography in this city or country. Youth will grow into the station when they tire of their banal private options. Quality will cure all.

But if changes like the ones introduced over the last few months continue or are accelerated, that exclusive, loyal, intelligent audience will continue to shake loose. Those listeners might sample some of what the private radio stations here in Toronto are offering, but probably not for long. They’ll just listen to their CDs instead.

Rob Young is one of the founders of Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell. He can be reached at ryoung@hypn.com.