Was listening to KAFE 104.1 Bellingham WA and was intrigued how often they mentioned Lower Mainland (Vancouver area) listeners. What other Border stations market to Canadian listeners? Any American stations rank strongly in markets like Vancouver or Toronto?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
American stations that market to Canada
- Thread starter installLSC
- Start date
Toronto's own radio dial is so crowded these days that it's hard to listen to most Buffalo stations. Nearly all of them now have something either on an adjacent channel or even co-channel.
Buffalo's superpower Christian stations, WDCX 99.5 (Crawford) and WBKV 102.5 (K-Love) are still usable in most of the GTA and draw some audience and revenue, but the commercial stations from Buffalo don't really do any cross border selling anymore.
Buffalo's superpower Christian stations, WDCX 99.5 (Crawford) and WBKV 102.5 (K-Love) are still usable in most of the GTA and draw some audience and revenue, but the commercial stations from Buffalo don't really do any cross border selling anymore.
WDCX has quite a few GTA ads and sponsorships
Crista Media's 106.5 KWPZ Bellingham was the only US station to subscribe to Canada's Numeris when its numbers were publicly available to serve the Vancouver market. There are also a couple AMs and rimshots near the border running ethnic programming.
K-Love bought 102.5 Buffalo and some other stations along the border in upstate New York to rimshot into Montreal and Kingston.
Other Canadian groups have owned stations along the border as well. 102.7 WLYK Cape Vincent NY was previously owned by a subsidiary of Rogers and now by My Broadcasting to serve Kingston.
And the same thing happens in reverse on the Mexican border in San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, etc...
The promos mentioned both Vancouver and Abbotsford. One promo pitching the station app specifically mentioned Canadian listeners, so maybe that's their way of dealing with IBOC.
I seem to remember the old Top-40 WMJQ 102.5 used to cover such a wide area that it tried not to sound too local to Buffalo. That didn't work out very well. It didn't get very many ads from outside the market, and Kiss 98.5 ate its lunch in Buffalo.
WMJQ garnered as much as a 2.1 share in the Toronto BBM ratings in Spring 1990, placing it 16th overall, but it typically averaged in the mid 1 shares and had fallen into the tenths of shares by the mid 90s.
The largest share for any US station in the Toronto ratings was a 2.7 for WKSE in Fall 2004.
KPWZ has been as high as a 3.2 share in the Vancouver ratings - and that was recently, in 2021.
The largest share for any US station in the Toronto ratings was a 2.7 for WKSE in Fall 2004.
KPWZ has been as high as a 3.2 share in the Vancouver ratings - and that was recently, in 2021.
What is interesting is that, unlike Mexico, none of Canada's larger cities, though they are largely in the southern parts of their respective provinces, are close enough to any U.S. cities of any significant size where U.S. radio stations could greatly influence the ratings of Canadian stations. The closest Canadian city to any major U.S. city (and this includes both Buffalo and Bellingham) would be Windsor, Ontario, which is just across a short strait from Detroit. I'm sure both Fybush and Huff will correct me if I'm wrong (and please do) but I wouldn't be surprised if the Detroit radio stations dominated Windsor radio ratings now in the same way that CKLW dominated Detroit ratings back in the 1970s.
The only other U.S.-Canadian markets that I think would be close enough where the radio stations could influence the other side of the border are also along the Michigan-Ontario border and are a lot smaller. They would be Sault Ste. Marie (both Michigan and Ontario) and Port Huron, Michigan/Sarnia, Ontario which is an hour or so northeast of Detroit.
The only other U.S.-Canadian markets that I think would be close enough where the radio stations could influence the other side of the border are also along the Michigan-Ontario border and are a lot smaller. They would be Sault Ste. Marie (both Michigan and Ontario) and Port Huron, Michigan/Sarnia, Ontario which is an hour or so northeast of Detroit.
The BBM ceased publishing figures for Detroit stations in the Windsor ratings in the mid 80s. At that time, the Detroit stations accounted for approximately 60% of the listening, with WJOI 97.1 and WLLZ 98.7 each accounting for nearly a six share each.
Well, it looks like Victoria is approximately 35 miles away from Port Angeles so I would give the fair reception of theNWPR class A station a possibility. However, because that station is a non-commercial NPR affiliate operating in the noncommercial sector of the U.S. FM band, I highly doubt that the station, beyond its ID, is heavily marketing to Victoria listeners.
Neither Victoria nor Vancouver BC have a 24x7 Canadian-based classical music station on the dial. CBC Music/Musique do offer large blocks but mixed in with jazz, modern, etc. Perhaps that's why KNWP has a foothold in Victoria.
Does not the GTA and Montreal both have commercial classical music stations? Too bad the Lower Mainland has no possibilities there.
Does not the GTA and Montreal both have commercial classical music stations? Too bad the Lower Mainland has no possibilities there.
The GTA has CFMZ 96.3 for classical. Montreal had CJPX 99.5 Radio Classique, but no longer.
Correct, CJPX flipped to AC in 2020.
None of the US signals that reach Montreal do so very cleanly, there is a good deal of shadowing that keeps any of them from reaching all of the Montreal metro with a usable signal. The largest share for any of the US rimshots was a 2.2 (among English language speakers) by WYUL/Chateagay, NY (now K-Love WQLR) in the early 2000s.
Well, let's remember that Canada never declared the FM dial below 92 as non-commercial. So commercial stations operate there. In fact, Victoria has a commercial Alternative Rock station at 91.1 FM, CJZN. It also has its CBC Radio One affiliate at 90.5, CBCV.
The map on Radio-Locator.com for 90.1 KNMP-FM makes it look like Victoria is within the station's range. No land or hills between them, just the peaceful waters of Puget Sound. On the other hand, KNMP-FM is only 1,600 watts on a 200 foot tower, so it's not even a full Class A.
Canada's Tim Martz and his company, Martz Communications, ran a bunch of American-based border blaster stations that targeted Brockville, Cornwall, Ottawa and Montreal. I think he also tried to target Windsor with a couple of Detroit translators fed by WGPR's HD subchannels, but if I recall correctly, the effort failed miserably. Martz sold a couple of his best border blaster signals to EMF/K-Love of course, so now that organization probably has the most radio stations targeting Canadian markets from the U.S.
I've always wondered how well the Northwest Public network does in the Western part of the state. With KUOW, KNKX and KING, their KVTI doesn't do much in the ratings. It and some of their other stations seem a bit "redundant" in the current picture of public radio. Nothing against them, but those other stations have much better signals and resources.
Martz also tried the same thing targeting Sarnia, ON:
en.wikipedia.org
And tried to get into Thunder Bay from the Minnesota north shore, before ultimately abandoning the project after legal troubles.
Martz also tried the same thing targeting Sarnia, ON:
WBTI - Wikipedia
And tried to get into Thunder Bay from the Minnesota north shore, before ultimately abandoning the project after legal troubles.
Whatcom County's only three full-powered FMs do have BC listeners (KAFE, KISM, KWPZ) - especially 92.9 and 106.5 . The fact that three full power AMs in the same county (550, 1550, 1600) target BC should be no surprise. After all, they're either religious or "multicultural" in nature. There are just no open frequencies in the region unless someone wants to jump on an AM channel from the Canadian side.