BY RICK PUSIAK
The radio war is over in Sudbury and it ended with a whimper, not a bang.
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The rivalry ceased without any publicity a few months ago when the last Spring ratings book involving private radio stations in Sudbury was published.
The only station in town that participated in the fall ratings, due to be released shortly, was the local CBC radio outlet, a pubic radio station.
And they have no immediate plan to renew their subscription with the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM), an independent business that collects data on who listens to what radio station and for how long.
Private radio stations use the information to help set advertising rates and the more people who tune in, the more a company will charge for on-air commercial time.
The radio wars in Sudbury wound down following the next best thing to a merger over the summer between what is still technically the CHNO and the CKSO side of the trenches.
CHNO is now called Z-103 FM, owned by Newfoundland Capital Corporation Limited (Newcap) and located on Barrydowne.
CKSO is now Q-92 FM, owned by Rogers Broadcasting Limited and located on Lasalle Boulevard.
Last June, Z-103 laid off its sales department in Sudbury and contracted out the job to Rogers.
With one sales department there was no need to spend thousands of dollars on a BBM ratings book.
Â?It was strictly a business decision,Â? said Jim Hamm, the general manager of Q-92 and the other RogerÂ?s radio stations in town, Easy Rock and CIGM.
Â?The subscription to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement is expensive on an annual basis.Â?
Hamm preferred not to give an exact dollar amount but did call it a fairly significant amount of dollars.
Meanwhile, there are questions these days about the relevance of ratings.
Hamm explained advertising clients know what kind of radio format they want to buy commercial time on, based on who they believe is listening to a radio station.
Â?ThereÂ?s no longer the competition, I think, for the same audience among the radio stations that now exist in this market,Â? said Hamm.
Â?We all have a relatively unique audience based on the format that we deliver.Â?
Before radio stations were known to take out full-page newspaper advertisements making it known they were number one, or at least number one in the listener age group they were after.
The end of radio ratings in Sudbury marks the end of another piece of broadcasting history is this city.
But Hamm said radio is a business like anything else and Â?we canÂ?t live in the past. We have to continually adapt to changes in the market place and to technology that is available. To not do so would be fool hardy on our part.Â?
Z-103 and the RogerÂ?s people have gotten closer on another front.
Hamm said the RogerÂ?s promotion department is also handling sales-based promotions like remote broadcasts for its former competitor.
Z-103 will still handle its own contests.
