DSA Online | New Media Updates

I’ve just returned from the CBC launch. I was very glad to be invited this year and was looking forward to what CBC had to present for the 2009 year. With more and more media suppliers suffering from the lagging economy, I was surprised to see CBC host their launch party at an external location, but I am glad that I had the chance to check out the Goldfish Pacific Kitchen without needing to fight the supper crowd lines.

I chatted up Stephen Jodoin for a bit before the launch and chatted up about the upcoming IABC one-day conference coming to town. I encouraged him to take it as I am very glad anytime that the IAB makes the effort to do anything west of Manitoba. They haven’t yet offered the class for registration online – but keep your eyes peeled (www.iabcanada.com)

The presentation started off by stating that the CBC was the only broadcaster who had experienced growth in the past few years, which was definitely a positive way to start the event. I was disappointed that the only mention of CBC.ca was to proclaim that they were the #1 news content site in Canada. Having made it back to my desk, I have tried to run the numbers several different ways and have had some trouble duplicating this claim.

Against Canadians, the #1 ComScore news/information property for April 2009 is the CTV Globe Media property grouping. The Weather Network, Canoe, CanWest and the New York Times all appear before CBC – Radio Canada sites.

In British Columbia, the top news property (April 2009) is CanWest with CBC still coming in behind CTV at #5.

After both of these reports came up like this, I went back to national to see if I could run the number to match CBC’s claim to ultimate news dominance online.

General News (national): #3 property
Top 100 properties (national): #24 property

HUH…I wonder what’s going on. I know the relative strength of the CBC performing against Adults 35+ with a high household income, but this claim was turning out to be a bit of a stretch…hrmm, I wonder if I ran just CTV, Global, and CBC against each other. I chose the entities “CBC-Radio Canada” (P*), CBC Sites (M*), CBC.CA (C*), CTV (M*), CTV.CA (E*), CTV News (C*), and Global TV(S*).

*These are all ComScore specific “entities”: Property, Media Entity, Channel, Custom Entity, and Site.

Finally!! CBC was the #1 property when compared to this list. This ranking was duplicated when run against Western Canada as well.

I don’t know why anyone in agency or client land would ever choose to run their data like this unless they were specifically trying to back-up a claim made by someone else. I will always compare CBC.ca against all other reach sites, rather than against it’s news partners. All this being said, I know that the industry is still wrapping their heads around online and I applaud their trying to boost up their website clout amongst the advertiser community. Unfortunately, the second time the website came up in the presentation, it was skipped over casually with a “well, you’ve already heard about our great website”. All this being said, the CBC does come up in the top 10 for most national reports that I ran on ComScore and they are always considered when I am trying to reach affluent Canadians online. This is just another cautionary tale to always site your methodology or research in your presentations.

The CBC.ca in western Canada provides 7.7 million impressions monthly which translates to a 21% reach. As you would expect, the CBC’s online audience tends to skew a little older with an even split between women & men.

Since most of the new fall show information has been available online for the past 2 months, I was already aware of most of their new lineup. However, I do know that Jamie & Jennifer were both salivating when Tie Domi appeared on-screen for the clips from Battle of the Blades. I agree with their enthusiasm and think it will do quite well across multiple demographics. Also new to the CBC line up is the Ron James Shows. Canadian Comedian Ron James has the following to say about his new show:

[audio:ron_james.mp3]

I was personally ecstatic about David Suzuki is returning to the Nature of Things for the 25 anniversary. I haven’t watch conventional TV for the past 8 years, so I sure hope they are planning on making it available via Broadband. *cross fingers* Well, if not, I have other options: http://torrentfreak.com/nielsen-hugely-underestimates-bittorrent-traffic-090531/. More about this later.