November 4, 2010 – CBC Radio fans can now listen to CBC Radio One, Radio 2 and Radio 3 on iPad thanks to the latest update to the highly popular CBC Radio app. The new universal app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is available now on the Apple App Store.

“It’s truly exciting to be able to offer the full slate of CBC Radio’s diverse program excellence in such accessible and innovative ways via the iPad. It feels like a whole new rich content experience,” said Denise Donlon, general manager, CBC Radio.

Listeners can listen live to any CBC Radio station across Canada or program favourite CBC Radio shows on-demand such as The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti, Q with Jian Ghomeshi, The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, the new Day 6 with Brent Bambury, Writers & Company with Eleanor Wachtel, As it Happens with Carol Off and much more.

Enjoy live streams of CBC Radio 2 including Radio 2 Morning hosted by Bob Mackowycz, Tempo hosted by mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah and Drive with Rich Terfry. Plug into CBC Radio 2’s live streams of Canadian composers, Canadian songwriters, classical and jazz channels or catch CBC Radio 3 with all genres of new music including indie rock, hip hop and electronica.

The updated CBC Radio app brings iPad users the full range of CBC Radio content already available to those with iPhone or iPod touch. Users can also access the CBC Program Guide to find out what’s playing now or to plan their CBC Radio listening schedule.

As well, the updated app also offers audio sessions from CBC-TV favourites, letting listeners enjoy audio-only versions of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Mansbridge One on One and the CBC News At Issue panel.

CBC Radio content accessible through the CBC Radio app includes:

• CBC Radio One: A wide range of local, national and international news, current affairs, documentaries, arts and culture including 63 on-demand programs and 22 live streams.

• CBC Radio 2: The best Canadian music, commercial-free: classical, jazz, singer-songwriters, pop, R&B, world, soul and much more. Four on-demand programs and nine live streams.

• CBC Radio 3: A ‘Best Online Radio’ nominee at the Webby awards two years in a row, CBC Radio 3 is THE place to discover the best new Canadian indie acts. Five on-demand programs and one live stream, plus access to more than 100,000 tracks from more than 20,000 artists via the now embedded in-app CBC Radio 3 website.

The app also lets users run CBC Radio content as multi-tasking background audio while tending to other tasks on iPhone or iPod touch. For iPhone, the app also remembers episode playback positions if listening is interrupted by an incoming phone call.

The CBC Radio app is available for free from the Apple App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

More info:

CBC mobile services

Alan Neal will replace Adrian Harewood as the host of CBC Ottawa’s afternoon drive show All in a Day.

Harewood left the show to join the local TV evening newscast.

Neal will be a familiar voice to listeners. He formerly hosted Bandwidth and Ontario Today. He has been a ‘guest’ host on All in a Day for some time.

Neal believes in reaching out to his audience, he’s a regular at community events, and connects with listeners through his Twitter account. He says using social media brings immediacy to the show. ”In a world of instant communications, the program needs to reflect peoples’ desire to interact in the moment — and that’s what I try to do from the hosting chair,” says Neal.

Once the news was announced, an number of people on Twitter congratulated Neal. “He was the obvious choice really,” Bob Durie, a local listener, said.

The show is on top-rated drive show in Ottawa.

This according to the July audience numbers under the new audience measurement system.

Numbers like these contradict claims that are sometimes made on this blog, which is usually along the lines of ‘no-one watches the CBC anymore.’

These most recent numbers repudiate that claim.

Other highlights from the new book:

• the morning shows in Toronto and Calgary are still the most popular on the dial;
• the morning show in Vancouver is the second most popular;
• Edmonton captured it’s highest afternoon share all year in July;
• Calgary’s noon and afternoon audience continued to grow.

Note Nielsen’s definition of reach is: “The cumulative percentage or total of a population that has been counted as viewers at least once during a specified interval.”

Mike Finnerty.

Finnerty had hosted the show before he left for a job in London last summer.

After he left Nancy Wood stepped behind the mike, but the CBC let her go after a few months. The decision caused a bit of uproar in the local media in Montreal and disappointment among regular listeners.

I mean it wasn’t Conan vs Leno by any means, but people thought that Wood should have been given more time.

Now Finnerty has decided to return to Montreal and take up the hosting job again. He’s signed on until 2014.

Yesterday the CBC’s Steve Rukavina asked Finnerty about the controversy. “Here’s what I would say. It’s really not my place to say anything about what the CBC did and how the CBC acted,” Finnerty said, adding, “I completely understand that there was a lot of upset and I followed it from afar, and in many ways it broke my heart. Because I love that show. I love Daybreak. It was really hard to see the program coming under such trouble and listeners being upset.”

Now a corner has been turned, and whatever you thought of the last period, and whether you were a big fan of Nancy’s or not, now things are moving in another direction.

“I think we can rekindle the magic that we had,” Finnerty said.

The whole interview is available here.

Natasha Fatah, currently a producer with ‘As It Happens,’ will be hosting a national radio show for the first time.

“I’m really nervous, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. But I feel really strongly about this project, so that gives me a lot of confidence,” she said.

The new show is called Promised Land and it will look at the stories of the harrowing, exciting and often-dangerous escapes to Canada, as told by the immigrants and refugees who endured them to get here.

“The thing is that we, we meaning the CBC, focus a lot on the immigrant experience, but we focus so little on that time span that people take to get here, and that’s something we really wanted to capture,” Fatah said.

“The stories show how much people have to go through to get here,” she said, “they have to put their lives at risk.”

The new show will run for 10 episodes this summer. Every episode will feature a different person’s story told by the immigrants themselves.

The summer lineup also includes several other new shows and hosts, including shows from Jann Arden and David Suzuki. Arden’s new show, called Being Jann, will be a mix of storytelling, music and interviews.

Suzuki will be hosting ‘The Bottom Line with David Suzuki.’ It explores the disconnect between our modern values and our relationship with the earth, and features some well known guests including actress Ellen Page and Preston Manning

Matt Galloway is to replace Andy Barrie as the new host of Metro Morning.

Galloway already hosts the Toronto morning show every Friday. Additionally, since 2004 he’s been hosting the afternoon drive show in Toronto, Here and Now, so he’s familiar with both the show and the city.

Barrie announced he was retiring from hosting the show last week. The full press release of the announcement is after the break.

HERE AND NOW’S MATT GALLOWAY

TO TAKE OVER AS HOST OF METRO MORNING

Accomplished Toronto broadcaster Matt Galloway will take over as host of CBC Radio One 99.1’s METRO MORNING, beginning March 1, 2010, when veteran host Andy Barrie departs from the show.

Galloway has made his mark on radio over the past 10 years working on CBC Radio programs such as THE CURRENT, SOUNDS LIKE CANADA, GLOBAL VILLAGE and Q, and he is already the man behind the METRO MORNING microphone each Friday. He has anchored CBC Radio’s coverage of the 2007 FIFA Under-20 World Cup of Soccer and the 2008 Summer Olympics live from Beijing. Matt has also been wrapping up the day’s local, national and international news as host of HERE & NOW, Toronto’s popular daily drive-home program, since 2004.

Current METRO MORNING host Andy Barrie announced his retirement last week after a successful career of more than 15 years at the top rated breakfast show. Barrie will continue to be a part of the CBC family in a re-imagined capacity.

“We are very excited about Matt taking on hosting duties for Metro Morning,” said Susan Marjetti, Managing Director CBC Toronto. “Matt is, in many ways, already a member of the Metro Morning team. He’s been filling in for the past year when Andy is away and has helped the show maintain its number one standing in the community. We’re delighted he’s decided to make the leap to morning radio full time.”

Galloway’s role as host of METRO MORNING will see him present and represent the realities, experiences and issues that are important to the people of Canada’s largest city, with up-to-date news and information that Torontonians need to get going in the morning. METRO MORNING airs weekdays from 5:30 to 8:30 a.m.

“’Like our listeners, we’re sad to see Andy relinquish the hosting duties on Metro Morning, but we know the legacy and engagement of Metro Morning will charge ahead. Matt’s fresh and fascinating perspective on the city he loves will continue to delight and inform Toronto audiences on the issues they care most about,” said Denise Donlon, Executive Director of CBC Radio.

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster, and one of its largest cultural institutions. With 28 services offered on Radio, Television, the Internet, satellite radio, digital audio, as well as through its record and music distribution service and wireless WAP and SMS messaging services, CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it.

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Science and Sons, a Toronto design shop is working on prototype of a radio that only gets two stations – CBC Radio One, and CBC Radio 2. The prototype is called ‘RADIO CANADA’, and is “a homage to the cultural significance of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.” The design was inspired by dedicated CBC listeners who are permanently tuned to CBC Radio.

The prototype also acknowledges two different broadcast eras, on one side is an analogue tuning gauge, while the bottom has an electronic display and dial.

^{Science & Sons}

The switch means that tons of CBC Radio One and Radio 2 live feeds are now available on iTunes (under the Radio directory) and the iPhone app.

The switch was made over the last month. “The reason was simple,” Angela Misri, the manager of digital radio, said “we wanted to deliver a more robust, expandable, browser/OS agnostic listening experience.”

Misri added that this is the first step “in making it easier for everyone to listen,” and that they are still working on a few bugs but are happy with the switch so far.

Of the seven markets surveyed both CBC Radio One stations and their respective morning shows rank either first or second. Both World Report (at 7 a.m.) and As it Happens had an outstanding book, with share increase of more than 30 per cent over this time last year.

Here’s a graph of the CBC Radio One share since last year in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver:

CBC Radio in Vancouver had a particularly good showing, passing CKNW for the market lead. ”This is the highest ranking we’ve had in recent memory, in the last 20 years, and as far as I remember this is the first time we’ve been the top station overall,” said Johnny Michel, managing director of CBC British Columbia told the Vancouver Sun. 

Here is Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg:

BBM defines share as the estimated total hours tuned to one station as a percentage of total hours tuned to all stations. Of course share only captures people who listen to radio.

CBC Radio 2′s share is about the same as the last survey.

The full survey is available here.

The possibility of advertising on CBC radio is not a new idea. It has been considered and rejected in the past, for valid reasons.

The traditional distinctiveness of CBC radio would be further eroded by the presence of commercials. That insidious process, unfortunately, has been underway for some time. In a well intentioned, but poorly executed effort to broaden the traditional base of CBC radio listeners, many of its most loyal supporters, upon whom the CBC’s survival as a public broadcaster depends, have become disenchanted, discouraged, disengaged and pretty darn unhappy…

One of the most irritating features, on both CBC radio and television, is the incessant running of “promos” and “trailers” telling us what’s coming up next, or later, or tomorrow, or next week.

But others say that Moore’s comments amount to an invitation for CBC management to look at advertising on CBC Radio as a way to make up the looming budget shortfall.

Charlie Angus, the NDP heritage critic, who raised the issue with on Monday told the Globe that he was surprised by Moore’s comments. “He revealed his government’s inclination to support the introduction of commercials on CBC Radio.”

A CBC press release said Moore’s comments come on the heels of a series of meetings between the CBC and the Feds “to obtain some flexible financial measures” that will help the corp “to alleviate the burden of the recession.”

The CBC has long pressed for more flexible mechanisms to raise revenue, including last year’s failed bid to introduce subsriber fees. A submission to the CRTC in 2007 said “In the Corporation’s view, no service should be subject to regulatory constraints which would preclude it from generating sufficient revenues from the service it provides.”

Advertising on CBC Radio would require CRTC approval, and there’s some speculation that Moore’s comments may have been intended to encourage the CBC to submit a request.

Both the Globe and the Star have more on the subject.

Charlie Angus: Would you consider opening CBC Radio One and Radio Two up for commercial advertising?

James Moore: Yeah I mean, CBC has a lot of pressure… Look we’re working with Hubert Lacroix and people at CBC in order to get a full sense of the scale of the problems that they have. Commercial advertising is an option  that has been talked about for some time. I would frankly consider anything so long as the end result is to have a strong national public broadcaster that serves Canadians as best as possible.

Charlie Angus: So you would consider opening advertising onto Radio One and Radio Two? That has been discussed?

James Moore: It has not been discussed with CBC – Radio Canada. It’s not something that I’m looking at doing. But we are very conscious of the needs of the CBC – the pressures that they’re facing. I would work with them on any option that they think would work to best serve their mandate in serving Canadians.

The Minister made the comments during a heritage committee hearing that’s online here, scroll along to the 1:12:11 mark to watch it.

Advertising revenue currently accounts for about 20 per cent of total CBC funding. Although some advertising already exists on CBC Radio, such as podcast sponsorships and ads on radio web sites, CBC Radio earns very little money from these deals. CBC Radio’s total budget for 2009 is around $140 million, of which less than $1 million is from self-generated revenue.

Ian Morrison, spokesperson for the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, told the Citizen Radio One and Two ads could generate up to $95 million a year.

In radio they call it the book, and it was an outstanding showing, overall CBC Radio One:

• Set an all-time record for total audience share of 11.1 per cent, which is up from 9.9 per cent a year ago;
• Achieved a national audience of 3.5 million listerners, which is up almost a quarter million;
• Set records in Toronto. For the first time ever, CBC Radio One is now the top-ranked station, with a reach of 1.1 million listeners, and again producing the top-rated morning show in the largest market in Canada;
  
• Is in the top three of 20 of 22 markets in the morning show slots.

A bunch of shows had historic high points, including The Current, The World at Six, DNTO, Vinyl Tap, Cross Country Check-up.

This latest book is for September and October. For the full BBM results, click here.

Unfortunately the format changes at Radio 2 were not as well received. It saw its share of 2.9 per cent drop slightly.

Taking Q’s former mid-day time slot will be Aamer Haleem, who is new to the CBC and radio. Haleem is currently a VH1 personality and host of the show Bands Reunited. He was host of VH1′s Top Video Countdown, interviewing celebrities like Madonna. Haleem was born in London but raised in Canada, attending the University of Toronto and the the Humber College School of Journalism.

CBC Radio icon Shelagh Rogers will be back this fall with a new program exploring the best in Canadian literature. Rogers will speak with renowned writers and future literary stars, and examine the issues having an impact on books in Canada. It will air Saturdays at 3:00 p.m.

Both new shows will originate from Vancouver.

(Both times +30 min in NT)

The show has commissioned 120 sketches, which calls for a lot of funny from Edmonton’s hottest comics and sketch comedy writers. It will air Thursdays at 7:30pm.

• Radio One now reaches nearly 3.2 million Canadians
• Radio Two reaches 1.1 million listeners (consistent with past spring reach levels)

Radio One gained over 50,000 new listeners versus a year ago and now reaches 3.2 million people while Radio 2 reached 1.1 million listeners overall, which is consistent with past spring reach levels.

CBC Radio’s excellent performance extends to the regions as well with Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria breaking their own records.

• Calgary is now ranked #1 overall with at 9.8 % share up from its 7.3% share captured a year ago. The morning show, which continues to show significant improvement, is also ranked #1 with an impressive 14.6 % share, up four share points from S1 2007.
• Vancouver’s overall ratings jumped two full share points to a 10.7% share and maintained its #2 ranking in that market. The morning show maintained its #1 ranking and also saw a year-to-year share jump from 13.8 to 15.4%. In the noon period the station achieved a 7.8% share…its highest this decade.
• Victoria continues phenomenal growth reaching an 11.7% share overall… up nearly 3 share points from last spring. The morning show ranks #1 with a 17.1 % share… up close to 7 share points from a year ago. In the afternoon drive period, Victoria has nearly doubled its share.

CBC Radio now has 13 of 18 morning shows ranked in the top three in their markets and seven are #1 including the key markets of Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.

Genova encourages listeners to email the CBC’s radio syndication department if they “have something to say about the cancellation.”

He has prepared an audio retrospective of his column [MP3], and is now seeking sponsors for his podcast.

Wednesday at midnight (okay, technically speaking midnight is on Thursday, but you know what I mean) is the deadline to get letters of support for CBC Radio One on the FM dial in Vancouver into the CRTC.

You can keep it simple. Just tell them how much you like CBC Radio programing, and that you think it’s crucial for the Lower Mainland to have access to the national broadcaster on the FM dial. And feel free to pester your friends. They’ll thank you for it later.

To do this, go to the form on the CRTC website and click on the button #2007-18. Check the box beside #200714239 (in the list, this is the second CBC application) and go to the bottom of the page and select next. Then just follow the instructions to complete your letter of support. (Please copy CBC on your e-mail at regulatoryaffairs@cbc.ca)

The increase is necessary to pay for increasing costs in streaming CBC Radio online and producing and distributing podcasts, CBC Radio head Jennifer McGuire told staff yesterday.

“We cannot grow in these spaces at the expense of our existing programs and schedules,” she said in a staff memo. “To date, we have managed to keep in step with technology and listener/user demands by stretching existing resources to cover other platforms. As a startup strategy this has served us well, but it is not sustainable and is certainly not a formula for growth. The hard reality is that we need additional revenue to do this important work.”

To gain that revenue, McGuire says CBC will be extending the banner ads you currently see on CBC.ca pages, such as the News and Entertainment pages.

Traditionally, CBC Radio has kept itself free of any commercials or sponsorships. Last year, CBC Radio began adding short sponsorship messages at the beginning of some podcasts, also to help pay for them.

CBC Radio currently has 54 podcasts, making it the largest single podcasting organization in Canada. The CBC Radio 2 portal page, with Concerts on Demand and live streaming, attracts more than a million page views per month.

What do you think? Given that CBC Radio just can’t produce and distribute podcasts at no cost, was this the right way to increase revenue? If not, what revenue source would you have found if you were in charge?