Tuesday marked the debut of advertising on CBC Radio 2 and its French-language counterpart Espace Musique, part of a three-year trial granted to the public broadcaster by the CRTC when it renewed the services’ licenses earlier this year.
Patrick Grierson, president of Toronto-based Canadian Broadcast Sales – which, along with its French partner, Groupe Force Radio, was tapped by CBC in August to handle airtime sales – said that the two services will spend this week testing to ensure that all systems are operating properly before paid advertising formally debuts on Monday.
While the CRTC is permitting the services to carry four minutes of advertising per hour in a maximum of two advertising blocks, Grierson said the CBC has opted to minimize the commercial load in the beginning so as not to alienate listeners.
“They’re not used to commercials, so they’re being introduced softly,” said Grierson. While commercial loads vary by day-part, Grierson said that two minutes per hour would be a “reasonably fair assessment.”
Grierson said there has been a “very satisfying degree of interest” from national advertisers and agencies about the two properties, with particular interest shown by what he called “up-market” advertisers and categories. “This is an audience otherwise not largely reached,” he said. “Not a huge audience, but certainly a special and different audience.”
Inventory is already booked said Grierson, with the first paid commercials debuting Monday. “You don’t go from zero to 100 immediately – we’re working our way up to it,” he said. “We’ve got good interest from the advertising community and we’re confident we’ll see demand being pretty solid.”
