GRANDE PRAIRIE RADIO STATIONS

1050 CFGP AM was the only radio station in Grande Prairie for years until 1979 when Big Country CJXX started playing country music on the AM bandwith. CFGP is now Rock 97.7FM, and Free FM, Q99 and Shine FM have now come on board trying to capture their market share. Every listener has his own preference to style of music which will determine which Grande Prairie Radio Station a person listens to. Some like more music and less talk, while others like more news and information. Announcers voice, personality, how professional they sound, also come into play. One of the factors of which radio station is doing better financially is by the amount of commercials the stations would play each hour. The more commercials sometimes results in less music. Even though the commercials are not priced the same at each radio station, the 8-9am time slot is usually higher priced than most other times of the day.

Here are some results done by DiscoverThePeaceCountry.com on a special spotlight of the 5 Grande Prairie Radio Stations morning shows.

Spotlight done April 29, 2010 - 8am-9am - Rock 97.7, Free FM 104, Q 99 (similar music formats)
Spotlight done April 30, 2010 - 8am-9am - Big Country XX, Shine FM
(Information was taken from a recording of each radio station and is as accurate as possible. This spotlight was not done to determine which radio station is best but done
for a matter of interest to find out what each one was doing at the same time.)

GRANDE PRAIRIE RADIO STATION	Rock 97.7	Free FM	Q 99	Big Country XX	Shine FM
Total minutes of NEWS	2:54min	6:22min	5:22min	7:45min	4:15min
Total minutes of SPORTS	2:47min	3:32min	2:13min	4:54min	1:36min
Total minutes of WEATHER (at newscasts)	20sec	1:15min	1:34min	45sec	58 sec
Total times "TEMP/WEATHER" was mentioned	10 times	4 times	10 times	5 times	5 times
Total times when "THE TIME" was mentioned	3 times	4 times	9 times	6 times	14 times
MISC: Station ID/Promo	33sec	7sec	2:17min	30sec	48sec
(The Announcer Chatter, is the amount of time when the announcer is talking either by himself, or with co-host, doing intro to song, time and temperature, or interview, or doing a live contest)
Total minutes of ANNOUNCER CHATTER	9:57min	12:47min	8:15min	7:51min	19:05min
Total minutes of ADVERTISING	12:40min	6:41min	13:20min	B18:43min	8:15min
Total minutes of MUSIC	30:49min	29.16min	27min	19:32min	25:03min
Total number of SONGS PLAYED	8 songs	8.5 songs	8 songs	6 songs	7 songs
Announce the SONG/ARTIST	4 of 8 songs	4 of 8 songs	5 of 8	5 of 6 songs	5 of 7 songs

Some overall facts:
Most news: Big Country XX
Least amount of news: Shine FM
Most Sports: Big Country XX
Least amount of Sports: Shine FM
Most music: Rock 97.7
Least amount of music: Shine FM
Most ads: Big Country XX
Least amount of ads: Free FM
Most DJ Chatter: Shine FM
Least amount of DJ Chatter: Big Country XX

Interesting observations: Rock 97.7 and Shine 96.3 FM do not do interview clips on their news or sports. The newsperson reads the entire news without any breaks. (Don't know if this is the style they prefer, or if it is a cost cutting measure, as it costs extra to get national voice clips, or if it is a time cutting measure, as doing local interviews requires a lot more time to set up.)

Also, interesting to see how Terry Van Veen of Shine FM juggles the announcing of the morning show, with interviews in-studio as well as doing the news and sports. (That is a very difficult thing to do. Makes it difficult to "get the news" when one is doing all the other things)

It does seem that a number of the radio stations do not mention the "time" or "temperature" very many times. One would think that it would be helpful, as a listener getting ready for work or school is only hearing fragments of the show. (not everyone is sitting listening to the entire show)

-Ken Connors of DiscoverThePeaceCountry.com