courtesy of
Graham Hicks
Hicks on Six
EdmontonSun.com
Thursday April 10, 2008

YERXA RESURRECTION

Cheer on John Yerxa's application to open a new youth-oriented radio station in the ol' hometown.

On one hand, it would be the return of a radio dynasty. John's dad Hal Yerxa founded today's country giant CFCW Camrose in 1954.

Growing up with local radio legends like Warren Holte and Al Anderson, John was involved with CFCW's second station K-Lite (now Capital FM) before both were sold to Newcap in 1989.

On the other hand, it's the kid in the garage taking on Corporate Canada. No independent radio stations are left in Edmonton. None are locally owned. All have been sold to media giants like Rogers, Corus, Newcap and Astral. The closest to local ownership is Magic 99, owned by Saskatoon's Rawlco Radio.

And this is a family story.

John's four kids - Zack, 23, Barron, 21, Hunter, 19, and Signe, 17 - are very much part of his bid. Zack was music director for The Bounce.

"I never really left radio," says John, who in the intervening 20 years built up an impressive radio consultancy business as a division of his city-based John Yerxa Research. "It was always my dream to be involved in radio with my kids," says John. "Last summer we decided it's now or never."

The Yerxas are proposing New FM, a music station for 15- to 24-year-olds, highly interactive, featuring new and emerging artists. "I haven't had to spend a lot on research," jokes John, "given my four associates."

The station would be 100% owned and financed by the Yerxas, allowing them to program it as they see fit for their home city, not subject to the whims of a head office far, far away.

Hearings for prospective new stations are set for June, with winning applicants named in the fall.

Go, John, go!

CHED RULES THE RADIO ROOST

Back in the existing Edmonton radio world, things are settling back to the established pecking order.

The amazing CHED further opened its lead over all other city stations, with a 13.3 "share" (a measurement of number of listeners and hours listened) in the January/February/March Bureau of Broadcast Measurement ratings.

CISN (9.7) took back its traditional second spot while The Bear slipped to third with an 8.3 share.

As for the rest ... 4. EZ Rock (8.5); 5. JOE-FM (8.1); 6. The Bounce (7.0); 7. CFCW (6.4 excluding its rural listeners); 8. Sonic (6.1); 9. CBC1 (5.8]; 10. K-Rock (4.5); 11. CBC2 (3.2); 12. Magic 99 (2.7); 13. Cool 880 (2.5); 14. Big Earl (2.2); 15. The Team 1260 (1.8].

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CHED

CHED just keep going along, up a point or so from this time last year with its formula of news, sports and talk serving Edmonton well. Gord Whitehead proved his worth, returning to the morning show after a lengthy sabbatical in 2007. And it helped that the Oilers had a great late-season run.

CORUS station manager Doug Rutherford has a great big grin on his face. All his stations (CHED, CISN, JOE, Cool 880) are doing well, with Cool 880 on a great advetnure morphing into all-news radio.

CISN came in second, AND the station knows it'll get an additional bump next time round now that country competitor Big Earl has officially bowed out.


NEWCAP (K-Rock, Big Earl RIP, and CFCW)


Things are a bit Titanic-like at Newcap, with two of its three stations (K-Rock and the freshly-minted Capital FM) in seriously poor shape.

As has been much reported, Newcap's run at CISN was aborted when the company pulled the plug on country Big Earl in favour of Capital FM, using the golden-oldie pop format that Corus abandoned over at Cool 880.

Sadly, things are still tanking at K-Rock, despite the return of Terry Evans with female sidekicks Melissa Wright and Karen Kaye to the morning show. One wag calls them Terry, Laverne and Shirley. The once-mighty classic rock FM station is staggering about in 10th spot.

On the bright side, Newcap's CFCW's very weird 2007 dip proved inconsequential, with the AM country giant back to its usual greater Edmonton numbers plus a huge Northern Alberta audience.

With the poor performances, you have to wonder if Newcap station manager Randy Lemay's neck is on the line, and how much of this was the result of head office meddling. Hate to see Randy go - he's a prince of a fella - but it's business.

MAGIC 99

Magic 99 has been stalled way down the line since its launch with much fanfare, including the return of local legend Rob Christie as morning show host, two years ago.

Some say the station is a victim of its own making. Owner Rawlco agreed to a "speciality" radio licence, meaning that Magic 99 has to stick with the same soft rock/soft jazz/big band musical mish-mash – that's clearly not working.

Speculation is Rawlco will tough it out, trying to keep costs down, until its current restrictive musical format expires in three or four years.

Too bad as it means Christie won't get any kind of surrounding cast that made his shows such hits on CHED and Power 92 in the good ol'days.

CBC

It's puzzling. In most major Canadian cities, CBC radio does extremely well, being the top-rated or in the top three radio stations.

Edmonton's local morning and afternoon shows are just as good, if not better, than other local CBC shows across the country. So it's puzzling that CBC Radio in Edmonton doesn't do better than middle-of-the-pack.

Could it be that the other cities haven't the quality of CHED's news/talk show/sports to compete against?

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2008/04/10/5244926-sun.html