| If you are using the seek function to slide up the FM band on your radio, you may think you have come across the same station twice. You haven't. What you have stumbled upon is the most curious radio battle to hit Calgary in recent memory.
Blasting out tracks from acts like Ja Rule, Eve, Nelly, DMX and Eminem, hip-hop hostilities are raging between Kiss 96.9, owned by Rogers Broadcasting, and Standard Broadcasting's the Vibe 98.5. Side by side on the FM dial, these two stations are trying to make a go of the urban music format in this often conservative city.
Roger Rhodes, current morning show host on the Peak 107.3, is a longtime vet of local radio skirmishes. Asked if he can recall a battle between such closely matched combatants, he says, "I don't remember anyone going head-to-head with a format that's pretty much exact. We've had wars in the market before, mainly between rock stations, but even then there were differences in the rock."
Kiss launched its hip-hop and R and B format in mid-July, while the Vibe didn't hit the air until September 6. The fall ratings put Kiss 96.9 ahead in the rap race, in the catch-all category of listeners who are over the age of 12. The Vibe registered substantially lower. Chad "the Pog" Martin, Vibe 98.5 morning show host and acting program director, suggests that people shouldn’t put too much stake in the initial figures.
"We came on part way through the ratings," Martin says. "So if you look at those numbers and try to compare, it doesn't make sense."
Over at Kiss, program director Steve Kennedy breaks down the numbers this way: "Both stations are in the building process. The ratings were great news for us, but this is a long war not a quick battle. We have a lot of work ahead of us. But we are excited that we jumped into the lead."
The Kiss 96.9 on-air lineup includes Manchild and Judy G in the morning and Mocha spinning tunes in the midday slot. Kennedy says that his station has the competitive advantage because it plays hip-hop and R and B hits – and it plays them often. He adds that Kiss is running a lot of contests and promotes itself more.
"I think we are more of a presence in the community at this point," says Kennedy.
Martin at the Vibe believes his station is destined for victory because its announcers have a superior understanding of urban music and culture. He says that midday DJ Drew Atlas is probably the most credible authority on urban music in the city, while Mastermind, host of the Vibe’s afternoon drive slot, has hosted the number one hip-hop radio show in Canada.
"You can't fake this format," he says. "You can't pretend to know this stuff."
A local urban music authority seems to support Martin's perception. According to Jason Corall, a long-standing hip-hop fan, experienced club DJ and campus radio veteran with CJSW 90.9 FM, "Kiss sounds like regular radio DJs playing urban music, while the Vibe guys have sounded like they are actually in the hip-hop scene."
While people ponder which is Calgary's true urban music station, a bigger question lingers: Is there enough room in this city for the long-term existence of two hip-hop/R and B operations? The answer is almost certainly no. If you combined the ratings of both Kiss and the Vibe from the fall, their joint presence would have finished in sixth place – 10 full ratings points behind market leader CJAY 92.
Paul Boucher, who has 20 years of broadcasting experience and is now a freelance commercial voiceover talent, keeps a keen eye on the Calgary radio market.
"It's difficult for me to understand why there are two hip-hop stations," he says. "I think the format culturally alienates almost everybody over 30. I question whether or not there is enough of the demographic to split up."
Boucher predicts that one of the stations is going to fail. He’s not sure which one and he can’t say when, but once a winner emerges in the rap wars, he believes that the next big radio fight will again be held in the rock arena.
The decision of Rogers Broadcasting to abandon the classic rock format of Rock 97 in favour of the urban sound of Kiss 96.9 has left top-rated CJAY 92 virtually unopposed in attracting rock and roll listeners. It's a situation that Boucher feels is destined to change.
"I suspect that some station is going to pick up a rock license and go after CJAY again."
He adds that it would make better business sense to try to split CJAY’s massive share than to have two multi-million dollar radio operations going for a smaller overall share of Calgary listeners.
As much as the city’s urban radio conflict seems ill-advised to some, it appears neither side involved is afraid of the fight.
As the Vibe's Chad Martin says, "This is fun. This is great. This is radio warfare at its best."
CJSW changes the beat
With Kiss 96.9 and the Vibe 98.5 battling over the hip-hop airwaves, campus-community radio station CJSW 90.9 FM, which has featured urban music for more than a decade, has made some changes to its playlist.
"As Vibe and Kiss came in we had to re-evaluate our hip-hop and urban programming," says CJSW music director Jason Corall. "We revamped it so we are still playing urban music not represented on mainstream radio."
For example, Corall says one up-and-comer is Buck 65, a longtime underground producer from Halifax. Closer to home, on the local scene there’s a group called Dragon Fli Empire. Also included in the CJSW urban mix is music from an upstart label out of New York called Super Rappin.
"You won't hear it on Vibe or Kiss," says Corall. "If you do, that means they are doing something right. If they really go full on hip-hop and urban, and not just hip-pop (emphasis on only charting urban tracks), that would be wicked, but of course, that would make my job harder."
By harder, Corall means he would be challenged once again with programming new jams on CJSW. Fortunately, new urban pathways are opening up all the time.
"There's a new genre term called blip-hop," says Corall. "It's electronic avant-garde artists doing their take on hip-hop. There's also a whole new resurgence of funk coming out of New York. It's new bands doing stuff that sounds like your scratchy old soul records.
"That by all means should be included in the urban scope of things, but no one seems to be touching that locally but us." |
