Hey Charles: Here is an e-mail I received from Tom Young. This is in response to my letter to Mr. Young asking if he could re-vamp his show since Talk of the Town is gone now, we have no local voice. SO I thought you and your listeners would be interested in the response.
Thanks
Susan
August 31, 2006
Dear Mr. Young,
We enjoy your afternoon talk show on Rogers Radio 88.9 and have been listening to it since you began the program.
However, with Talk of the Town gone, it would be more convenient for your many listeners if you would consider changing the format a bit.
Many citizens are remarking that you have mainly special guests on, and rarely offer a general call-in show, as was Talk of the Town.
If you could offer us a show such as Talk of Town with all the happenings in the City, which we will not hear about without it, It would be greatly appreciated. If you cannot, the City of Saint John will be gratly disadvantaged.
Right now, Mr. Young, as far as local talk shows go, you are the only game in town and you should really capitalize on that. Many new listeners would flock to your station once the word got around that you were offering a general "citizens-call-in" format. We so desperately need this right now.
Yours truly,
Susan ????
Saint John, NB E2L 2E5
Jennifer ????
Saint John, NB
Robert ????
Saint John NB
Mary ????
Saint John NB
Susan,
Thanks for your email. Let me point out that in addition to being on 88-9 in Saint John, my show is also on 91-9 in Moncton and 95-7 in Halifax. Aiming my show at a Saint John audience only would eliminate participation from Moncton, Fredericton, Halifax and Prince Edward Island.
Talk of The Town had outlived it's usefulness, was generating precious little advertising revenue and became a victim of the same small number of callers who, for the most part, wanted to talk about a very narrow number of issues.
It is our intention to bring issues of International, National, Regional and even local to as wide an audience as we possibly can.
Again, thanking you for your interest,
Tom Young
7 comments:
At least he replied.
I thought his reply was fair. As he stated, he has Saint John and Moncton NB in addition to Halifax, NS as a taregeted audience.
And I also heard Mr. Bruce Court on Tom's show as well about the proposed LNG Pipeline.
Yes we know that people are usually not able to have a voice unless it is on topic and somewhat sugar coated. No one wants to talk about what people have on their minds exception are sometimes made.
Serious issues that the people of Saint John have may not be of interest. We don't have objective news, radio, TV or radio in Saint John. Some things are not made public and having a voice from the general public was a good thing. Most of the time we all work and read the paper and that is one major thing some people base their thoughts on. It has become less factual and more like a ragg paper. Unfortunately it has not been very disclosing of alot of issues and objective it is not. The election advertising for Hooton was one good example last fall of trying to brain wash people. They forgot that people do know that they were trying to buy votes. Some corporations benefit and condone all the tax breaks. They have nothing to lose; the citizens have lost alot.
No one is expected to agree with us but having a platform to voice our concerns was important and still is.
Its time for the people of Saint John to put pressure on the CBC to step up to the plate and provide more coverage for Saint John!Do we not deserve this as taxpayers. It is time for the CBC to start asking the tough questions of the Irvings and politicians in our area. They have been afraid to tackle the tough issues in our city!
Interesting idea on the CBC, but like the others, they do not have a local management. It sounds odd to hear Tom Young say that, I'd say it is being a bit of an apologist for his new masters because first, he has no choice in the matter, and second, he used to always brag about being the longest running call in show in the country. It seems odd he would have done so if he only had a 'narrow audience'. Does he think suddenly there will be a wider audience in Saint John to hear about 'international, national, and regional issues'? Aren't there already dozens of places to find that?
I wish you and Sean O'Shaunessey would get the funding to start a local radio talk show.
Saint John is going to hell in a handbag with no local talk show to speak of now.
Good Luck and maybe some one could step up but it is alot to ask.
As published on page B3 on September 5, 2006
City gets new classic rock station, replacing C98
C98 had been fourth in market share
By Sandra Davis
Telegraph-Journal
SAINT JOHN - Rock radio station C98 has been replaced by Classic Rock 98.9 FM.
The station began playing strictly classic rock last week.
The new station, 98.9 BIG JOHN FM, along with K-100 and CFBC, are owned and operated by Maritime Broadcasting System Ltd.
"In the past, there had been new music mixed in with old music," says operations manager Rob Alexander.
"We're focusing on the classic core artists, the Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and artists like that," he said.
The new station's target audience is 35- to 49-year-old men.
"Because of all the competition both from satellite radio and the Internet, you really have to focus on a specific segment and try to own it," said Alexander.
Six months ago, a new radio station The Pirate, 103.5, was born. It offers new rock.
The old C98 was fourth in the ratings of the seven stations that subscribe to BBM Canada, but Alexander says past market shares don't concern him and the change wasn't made to try and beef them up.
"We just felt that it was time for a change. Things had gotten a little stale, I think," he said.
"The ones coming up will be of far more interest to me than the ones that have gone past."
Old ratings do matter to CBC, however. The public broadcaster is enjoying a resurgence in its market share, which fell by about five points in the morning during last summer's lockout, says CBC's Susan Mitton of Halifax.
Based on BBM statistics from April, CBC in Saint John is back to its historic average, which sees 17 per cent of the total radio-listening audience tuning into the weekday morning show. During the CBC's lockout of its unionized workers, that percentage dropped to 11. Normally, CBC's morning show places a strong second in the marketplace, Mitton said.
"We're back to historic shares again. We've recovered fully," she said. "That's true right across the country."
On an overall basis, from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., CHSJ is first in the market share with 24, CHWV is next with 21, CBC with 14, CJYC with 12, CIOK, 10, CFBC, 10, Rogers 2 and CBC FM, 2, said Mitton.
The French radio station, CHQC 105.7 and the UNBSJ radio station do not subscribe to BBM Canada and so are not included in the statistics.
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