Rogers marks #IWD2019 with JILL FM station rebrands

By
Connie Thiessen
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JILL bumped JACK for International Women's Day 2019 as Rogers temporarily rebranded its JACK FM stations in Vancouver, Calgary, London, Smiths Falls, and Halifax.

To mark International Women’s Day 2019, Rogers temporarily rebranded its JACK FM stations Friday.

JILL FM – “Playing What She Wants” greeted listeners tuning into and visiting accompanying station websites and social media platforms in Vancouver (CJAX-FM), Calgary (CJAQ-FM), London (CHST-FM), Smiths Falls (CJET-FM), and Halifax (CFLT-FM).

Accordingly, starting at midnight, JILL FM’s playlist and imaging went all-female doubling down on Joan Jett, Cyndi Lauper, Heart, Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Alanis Morissette, Joni Mitchell, Adele, Sarah McLachlan, and Whitney Houston, among other artists in rotation.

Paul Kaye, VP, Product & Talent, Rogers Radio says the huge, collaborative effort was the first time the entire JACK group of stations has rebranded in unison.  

“We have always looked for creative and meaningful ways to connect with causes that matter to our audiences, including International Women’s Day in the past,” Kaye told Broadcast Dialogue. “This year we wanted to mark IWD with something special, and therefore we rebranded to JILL for the day.  It’s a day celebrating the great female artists that JACK plays – 100 per cent female vocalists and bands for 24 hours.”

“Putting something together like this takes a lot of collaboration, effort and communication. Listening to our JACK stations today I am proud of the work our team put into this project and for promoting such an important message in a meaningful way,” added Kaye.

Julie Adam, the senior vice-president of Rogers Radio, is among just nine per cent of women holding executive leadership positions in the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) field in Canada, according to the latest Women in Communications and Technology (WCT) #UpTheNumbers Report. Adam said the JILL rebrand reinforces Rogers’ commitment to promote diversity in leadership.

“The JILL rebrand showcases how important inclusion and diversity, including women in leadership roles, is to creating exciting, new ideas for our listeners. Rogers Radio values mentorship, training and development opportunities to support and foster all leaders across our team,” said Adam.

Women still have a ways to go to gain equal footing in the radio industry, particularly when it comes to programming roles, according to the most recent stats out of the U.S.

Each year, the Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio group looks at the number of women in radio broadcasting who are rising to the ranks of management. Data gathered for their annual MIW Group Gender Analysis Study specifically tracks the progress of female professionals holding general manager, sales manager and program director positions.

PrecisionTrak analyzed data for 11,225 AM and FM radio stations across the U.S. in December, finding that 19.05 per cent (2,081 stations) had women holding the general manager position in 2018.  That’s an increase of almost a total percentage point from 2017, which was 18.1 per cent. Notably, the number of women moving into GM roles has seen consistent growth from 2004, when the percentage was just 14.9 per cent.

The study indicates the best management opportunities for women in radio continue to be in sales management. 32.6 per cent (3,481 stations) had a female sales manager in 2018, with that number up slightly from 31.9 per cent in 2017.

The role of program director continues to be the biggest challenge for women to get into. Women currently program only 10.6 per cent or 1,139 radio stations – a percentage that’s basically remained flat for the last 12 years.

Just 37 per cent of prime-time newscasts feature female anchors

On the television side, a Women’s Media Center investigation of who provides coverage for 28 top U.S. news outlets found that male journalists continue to report most news, especially for wire services and TV prime-time evening broadcasts.

  • 69 per cent of news wire bylines (AP and Reuters) are those of men – by far the biggest gender gap in news media; 31 per cent by women.
  • 63 per cent of TV prime-time news broadcasts, feature male anchors and correspondents; 37 per cent are women.
  • 60 per cent of online news is written by men; 40 per cent by women.
  • 59 per cent of print news is written by men; 41 per cent by women

Women quoted three times less than men

Women are quoted three times less than men in Canadian news stories, according to Informed Opinions, a project of Media Action – a not-for-profit that aims to boost representation of women and girls in the media. It’s new tool, the Gender Gap tracker, has been mining data since August from online news sources like CTV, CBC News, Global, HuffPost and the National Post, among others. The Financial Times implemented a similar tool last year after finding it was over-quoting men, with only 21 per cent of its sources women.

 

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