What’s next for Corus?

I have made a few posts over the years regarding Corus. Specifically about the stations, the layoffs and other staff changes. I even made some comments about how disappointed I was when the company laid off the staff in Kingston and then later in Ottawa, to then have shows from other markets.

Well to expand on some of the programming changes, we have Tucker and Maura on the Jump Morning show, as well as Edge Toronto. Jump middays have nobody listed and from what I can tell there is no show during the middays. Afternoons at Jump are handled by Kyle. As in Kyle from the Kyle and Kendra morning show on Country 104 London.

Boom Ottawa has morning man Dan Chen who is also heard at 101.1 Big FM Barrie as well as on Q107 Toronto. Fresh Barrie morning host Tara Dawn is the midday host at Boom Ottawa, with Kendra Moore (of the Country 104 morning show) on afternoon drive.

That is 2 stations in the nations capital, that have no local hosts. Now I don’t mind hosts that are out of market, at times of the day, such as middays and evenings. What bothers me is they have zero local hosts in market at busy times of the day. I know most of the feedback I hear from people is content is very important on a station, which is why Indie 88 Toronto is live from 6am until 10pm Monday to Friday and on weekends from 1 until 6 on Saturday and 11-4 on Sunday. The station has been climbing in the ratings and they have actually taken a shot at the Edge who used to have much better ratings.

So what is next for Corus? Well we know that the financials are not doing well. As I am typing this Corus stocks are a whopping $0.03 a share. Yup you read that right, 3 cents. I said this a long time ago, when Corus started the downward trend and I will bring it up now. As a company they need to look at radio and see how they can build it back up. One thing they have done is they launched 107.3 The Edge Calgary as a classic alternative station, and then they moved that format to Winnipeg on Power 97 and most recently to Toronto on Edge. As a company they need more unique formats, currently the Boom and Big brands are very similar to many other stations. Fresh, Energy, Jump, and the Beat are mostly the same as Kiss or Virgin. Q107 has a playlist similar to BIG. Y108, FM96 and Dave basically sound the same and all share the morning and midday show, and FM96 and Y108 share the afternoon show. There is nothing unique about that at all.

All of these stations are generic and don’t really stand out. I brought up Indie 88 already, but there are two more stations that have caught my attention for alternative formats. The Peak in Vancouver and Alt 94.3 Winnipeg, both are Pattison owned stations, but they also do something a little different. The format is unique in the sense that they only play music from 2000-now and it’s mostly newer music. Also they have a morning show, on both stations and in Winnipeg they have an afternoon show and an evening host. At other times of the day they have on air staff but the segments are all recorded and mostly on the day of. Depending when you listen you can hear any one of the hosts listed on the station website, and they discuss different relevant topics. Such as the Jets or Blue Bombers game from the night before. The big concert last night, something that happened that is newsworthy. The way the stations both operate it is hard to tell that they are not live and local.

The Peak was a popular enough format that when it was replaced for 2 years as Now Radio people still tuned into the Peak online or on HD-2. Eventually the demand was so popular that The Peak came back to regular radio, and this time they have done it different. With the programming like I mentioned above. Although Vancouver only has a live morning show, and then all the other segments throughout the day. I was told by someone who works within the company, that this version of The Peak is seeing some of its best ratings the station ever has.

Could Corus essentially do something like that? I think they should. I do know as well that I was talking about the importance of live and local programming but The Peak and Alt 94.3 do not claim to be live and local all day. But also with the segments recorded the way they are it sounds better. When people tune into a show that is voice tracked it is almost 100% likely people will notice that. For instance I have tuned into Boom and Jump in Ottawa and the hosts are morning show hosts in London, so there is no way the show is live. It shows. I have heard them say things about stuff, that was old information, stuff that was changed or updated later on. Also it has happened a couple times when talking about events or just things in general that there have been mistakes on the information they have.

If a station like Boom were to have a morning show only and then prerecorded segments all day it would actually be a good sounding station (as long as they expand the playlist as well). I feel Corus could do that with many stations they operate and it would sound better. This way they aren’t taking one host to run on 2 or 3 stations at different times of the day trying to do full live shows. I think making changes like this would allow Corus to keep all remaining staff but also possibly boost listeners. Maybe change some formats to bring new listeners, with new segments by new hosts that are new to the market. Either way, something needs to be done, because currently this business model cannot continue. Another thing is continuing like this will make the station a lot easier for a sale as other companies could come in and buy stations for dirt cheap, if Corus is out of money. My hope is that Corus pulls through and doesn’t shut down, sell or go into Bankruptcy. But at this rate something needs to change and it starts with new ideas in the radio division, to help bring listeners back. Edge and Q used to be ratings leaders in Toronto, Jump Ottawa, used to be The Bear before it was sold to Corus, and the ratings there were much higher than Jump ever was. If Jump were to flip to a Rock based station, and if programmed well, it could give CHEZ 106 or even Live 88.5 a good run for the money.

Let’s hope Corus does something to change things around soon. I am rooting for the company to grow and get more financially stable. This way there can be more jobs, better sounding stations, better music variety, and just things that could make Corus an industry leader potentially. Until then we just have to wait and see what Corus does.