Charles Adler departs at a perilous time for commercial radio

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This article was published 07/08/2015 (3941 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Friends, Winnipeggers, fellow flatlanders: Lend me your ears. I come to parse the departure of Charles Adler, not to bury him.

The monologues broadcasters make live online forever; the memories need not be interred with their bones.

So let it be with Adler, who ended his remarkable, 17-year stint as Winnipeg’s most prominent radio personality shortly before noon on Friday.

There is something Shakespearean about radio talk-show hosts, and not just because of their vocal affectations, which involve long… pregnant… pauses, followed by staccato sequences of rapid-fire speech.

Working as a commercial radio host is just as dangerous as being Caesar. Yes, the job comes with power and prestige. But there’s always a Brutus or Cassius looking to stab you in the back when the opportunity arises.

You’re credited for good fortune when the Ratings Gods shine favourably upon your radio empire. But you’re blamed for all manner of horrors when these implacable deities decide to send fireballs down from the heavens in the form of less-than-happy Numeris numbers.

Adler managed to survive in this treacherous landscape far longer than the vast majority of broadcasting mortals. He joined Winnipeg talk-radio institution CJOB in 1998, when Peter Warren was nudged out of his perch as the host of the AM station’s morning flagship show.

“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” said Warren during his sign off. In a field with little job security, he would have had to heed his own advice.

Adler, now 60, was younger than Warren, but he did not represent a massive departure – in demographic terms – as the new face of CJOB.

Initially, Adler positioned himself to the right of Winnipeg’s conservative mainstream. But the polished broadcaster adjusted when he found a national audience and remained just as sober when he refocused on the Winnipeg market once more. Those who worked with him described him, unfailingly, as a courteous and thoughtful professional.

Adler is now leaving at a time when CJOB has suffered the indignity of losing its No. 1 status in the Winnipeg market to CBC Radio One. The public broadcaster edged ahead of the Corus network station in the last Numeris ratings book.

That was unusual, but not unprecedented: In the mid-1990s, former pop-music station Q-94 briefly unseated CJOB. But that happened when music radio remained a viable commercial format, as opposed to its current status as the most rapidly fading form of mainstream media.

As more people listen to music off their iPhones, tablets and computers – and some motorists switch to satellite radio – commercial music radio stations are heading for the dustbin of history even faster than print newspapers.

As a result, it’s only logical to see talk stations grab more of a share of the overall radio market. This is why CBC Radio One can increase its market share in Winnipeg even if it doesn’t grow its actual audience. (Full disclosure: I occasionally freelance for CBC.)

At the same time, the fact CJOB has lost any market share is troubling. In the spring Numeris book, when CJOB lost its No. 1 status, the Corus station dropped half a percentage point of market share from the same sampling period in 2014.

As a talk-news station in an era when information stations can not help but gobble up a greater share of the radio audience, CJOB’s loss represents a repudiation of Corus Radio’s business plan.

This doesn’t fall on Adler, who continued to attract audiences. Rather, it’s the inevitable result of what happens to a privately owned station with few content producers at a time when content, as the cliché goes, is king.

Unlike the public broadcaster, CJOB can only employ a handful or reporters, producers and announcers and still deliver the profit margins demanded by its parent network.

There was a time when a single personality was expected to carry a radio station. Peter Warren was supposed to be that flagship host. So was Charles Adler, who certainly did his job. He wouldn’t have lasted 17 years in the city if he didn’t rake in the listeners.

But it’s highly likely the era of the flagship host is over, as no individual personality can carry a commercial radio station, in this city or elsewhere.

“Thank you for your precious time and now it’s time to say goodbye, Winnipeg,” an emotional Adler said in his sign off, apparently addressing CJOB as much as his listeners. “I love you very much. Good luck.”

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca