Wendy Boomer claimed the 2023 Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Country Personality of the Year honour, as the CCMA wrapped up Canadian Country Music Week in Hamilton with its annual awards shows recognizing industry talent. Boomer serves as the National Music Director for Rogers Sports & Media’s Country radio network, as well as Assistant Program Director at Country 92.3 (CKBY-FM) Smiths Falls/Ottawa. In addition to hosting afternoons on Country 92.3, she also helms hour-long, national Canadian talent spotlight “Boomer’s Canadian Club.” Starboard Communications’ Cool 100.1 (CHCQ-FM) Belleville, ON secured Radio Station of the Year (Medium or Small Market), while Pattison Media’s JR Country (CJJR-FM) Vancouver won in the Large Market category. Read more here.
SiriusXM Canada, in partnership with the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA), celebrated the end of the SiriusXM Top of the Country competition by crowning Hailey Benedict from St. Albert, AB as the 2023 winner. The finale of the country music showdown marked the official kickoff to Country Music Week 2023 and was broadcast live on Top of the Country Radio (ch. 171). Benedict walked away with the coveted title and a grand prize of $25,000. Runners-up Noah Derksen and Teigan Gayse each received $10,000.
Numeris’ summer 2023 listening insights indicate that Adults 25-54 tuning Country, Classical/Jazz, Modern Rock, and Classic Rock do more out-of-home (OOH) tuning than listeners of other formats. Sixty-five per cent of radio tuning with A25-54 was done outside the home between June and August with drive and daytime dayparts continuing to have the highest share of OOH tuning at 76% and 72%, respectively. Calgary (70%), Edmonton (72%) and Vancouver (76%) all saw an increase in OOH tuning, with Anglo Montreal experiencing the biggest lift, up six percentage points year-over-year. Live radio streaming maintained a 10% share of total AM/FM listening for summer 2023, A12+ (up 1% over summer 2022), and was at 12% for both the A18-34 and 25-54 demos.
The Echo Community Podcast Network has launched in North Bay, ON with an eye to introducing an “intentional, modern media model” to meet changing audience habits. The venture is being backed by Story Studio Network (SSN), the branded content production house co-founded by father-daughter broadcasters Dave and Erin Trafford, and Scott Clark, the owner of North Bay’s Clark Communications and a former morning radio personality. The network’s inaugural original podcast is the community and culture-focused To North Bay with Love, hosted by North Bay actress Lisa Boivin. Other offerings include The Frontline, the official podcast of local Ontario Hockey League (OHL) team, North Bay Battalion; and The Backroads Bill Podcast, exploring the history of the region. Echo has also launched Echo Essentials, a newsletter offering further insight into community news and events. Read more here.
Corus Entertainment’s Waterside Studios and its Curiouscast podcast network, have partnered with Boston-based Blanchard House to produce four podcasts, which will also be adapted for television. The first production under the partnership, Black and Blue: Behind The Badge, is a true crime podcast centered around the experiences of Black officers in law enforcement, set to launch Oct. 17. Read more here.
Curiouscast has announced its fall 2023 lineup of new and returning series, headlined by the premiere of a new show from Alan Cross that melds true crime and music history. Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry is set to debut Oct. 24, with new episodes to drop bi-weekly. The radio veteran and host of the Ongoing History of New Music podcast, dives into true stories of crime, murder, scandal and strange behaviour from inside the music industry. Q107 (CILQ-FM) Toronto morning show hosts Shawna Whalen, Ryan Parker and Johnny Garbutt join the Curiouscast podcast slate with Bad Parents (premiering Sept. 27). With seven kids between them, all under the age of 13, the show is billed as a chance to laugh and share parenting mistakes, comparing notes with celebrity parents. Curiouscast also picks up sports talk podcast, Homestand Sports, hosted by Albert Vartanian. Read more here.
CBC has unveiled its fall 2023 podcast and audio slate that includes the debut of new series exploring the disappearance of a gay rights activist in Syria, the children caught up in ISIS, and the unsolved murder of a Yukon high school student. Among other new series is Crime Story, hosted by veteran podcaster and investigative journalist Kathleen Goldhar, launching Oct. 16, which will dive into true crime investigations with the journalists behind the stories. Read more here.
Triton Digital has released its inaugural Canada Mid-Year Podcast Trends Report. According to the report, Canadians are listening to an average of three hours of podcast content per week, equating to an average 4.4 episodes weekly. Listening peaks Wednesday mornings between 10 a.m. and noon ET, with 92% of podcasts listened to on a mobile device. Dateline NBC leads the Top 5 most-listened to podcasts, followed by Wondery Network’s SmartLess, and CBC daily news podcast, Front Burner. audiochuck’s Crime Junkie and Wondery’s My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark round out the top five. Read more here.
The Edmonton Oil Kings have announced a new broadcast agreement with iHeartRadio Canada for the 2023-24 season, becoming the first sports team in Western Canada to have their own exclusive channel on the platform. This season, all 68 Oil Kings regular season games will be available to listen to through the newly-created “Oil Kings Radio” channel on iHeartRadio.ca and the iHeartRadio Canada app. Game broadcasts will begin and end with 15-minute pre-game and post-game shows. Oil Kings radio broadcaster Andrew Peard returns for his sixth season as play-by-play voice and will be joined on home broadcasts and select road games by longtime Oil Kings colour analyst Guy Flaming.
Rosalie Trombley was honoured in Windsor on Sunday morning with the official unveiling of a statue in her honour at the corner of Riverside Drive East and McDougall Street. The late CKLW music director, credited with breaking radio hits for many artists from the late 1960s through to the ‘80s, passed away in November 2021. Sculptor Donna Mayne created the statue with funding provided by the City of Windsor and support from St. Clair College. The Rosalie Trombley Commemorative Exhibition also opened to the public Sunday at the Chimczuk Museum in Windsor, featuring photos, awards, and memorabilia showcasing Trombley’s legacy.
Mike Kakuk and Lisa Williams celebrate 20 years of “Mike and Lisa on the Morning Drive” on AM 800 CKLW Windsor this Friday, Sept 22. The station is collecting listener memories on its website, culminating in a special broadcast Friday from 5 – 9 a.m.
Kat Callaghan has been featured in People Magazine, as the talent behind TikTok’s text-to-speech voice ventures into sleep stories with the Calm app. Callaghan, who is also one-half of the Scott & Kat Show on Corus Entertainment’s 91.5 The Beat (CKBT-FM) Kitchener and Energy 95.3 (CING-FM) Hamilton, has narrated Calm sleep story, Once Upon A TikTok Tale, which was released on Aug. 29.
94.3 ÉNERGIE (CKMF-FM) Montreal radio hosts Sébastien Trudel and Jason Rockman managed to prank former U.S. president Donald Trump earlier this month, convincing him he was on the phone with supporters Clint Eastwood and Georges St-Pierre. The co-hosts told Noovo Info they were stunned at how fast they were able to reach the former president.
Canadian Music Week (CMW) has announced the creation of the CMW Top 50 Music Industry Leaders list. Nominations close Oct. 20 with the list to be unveiled Dec. 4. The music industry is invited to self-nominate or nominate a staff member or colleague. Nominees must be Canadian citizens, a landed immigrant or resident. Canadians working around the globe are also eligible. The list will be determined after careful consideration of an individual’s accomplishments from the previous 12 months and may also include those not nominated, as decided by CMW by examining available data, including ticket sales, chart positions, streaming numbers, YouTube plays, social media breakthroughs, market share and other significant statistics. A leader can be a person in any music industry role who has been instrumental in the success of an artist or business. Only members of the music industry, or artists who also run a company with staff, will be considered. Find the nomination form here.
LISTEN: Stephen Keppler is the morning drive host at MOVE 101.5 (CILK-FM) Kelowna, in a region where wildfires have been wreaking havoc over the last few months. Keeping people informed and safe has become a huge part of Stephen’s job. He talks to Matt Cundill on the latest Sound Off Podcast about his humble origins as a radio-loving kid in Edmonton, his morning show roles, and of course, what it was like helping listeners avoid those raging wildfires.
OP-ED: “The need for accurate and timely information has never been greater,” writes Barry Rooke, Executive Director of the National Campus & Community Radio Association (NCRA), in his latest feature for Broadcast Dialogue. “In times of crisis, access to news is not a privilege but a necessity, and it’s high time that tech giants like Meta and governments recognize the immense responsibility they bear in ensuring the flow of vital information and capacity to those who need it most.” Read more here.
