Saturday, September 08, 2012

Radio Changes

My Opinion: Anyone who knows me knows my history with CFAN, 99.3 The river and knows that I have not been a cheerleader for the station, even with friends of mine that are on there.

I have been impressed with some of the changes that have been made recently with the addition of more current music and the return of Paddy Quinn along with the hiring of Brad Legere, who I think is a talented young broadcaster who is learning the only way you can, by doing it. I think the reason the station has made these changes is the arrival of the new station owned by Newcap, but whatever the reason, the changes made were for the better.

When I was working there, one of the questions I was asked all the time was “Why is that station not country?” and I honestly never had a good answer, as I always thought that was the natural format for this area. A good compromise  was the “Country Mornings” along with the more current evenings that was in place a few years ago before the move to the new building and programming that moved out of here. One of the issues that I have always heard is that the music is not consistent, which is an issue that is not going to occur now.

Is this change going to be liked by everyone? No, and I am sure that it was taken into consideration when the change was made. One of the things that is going to happen is the people who enjoy country music are going to tune in all the time, while the people who were not going to listen anyway are still not going to listen, so nothing changes.

You can’t throw out things like “canadian radio rules”. These are constants of running a radio station in Canada, you have to play (I think the number is) 35% of canadian content. It’s these rules that have built the canadian music industry, so if you are a fan of any canadian artists, chances are you have heard of them due to these regulations.

You can’t cater to all as when you try to, you please no one. You have to look at your community and see what the biggest slice of the pie is and cater to that. There are really only 2 types and music, “Good” and “Bad” the problem being everyone has a different definition of both of those terms.

I have listened to the radio station more in the past 24 hours then I have in a really long time and when I turn it on, I am enjoying what I am hearing. And I guess at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.