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CBC Radio programming director Chris Boyce isn't expecting quick success with Radio 2. The ratings for the first two months following the Sept. 2 relaunch of the network won't be available until December. Even then, Boyce expects the numbers to be flat to a little lower. But that's the nature of radio, he says. “If you look at how people listen to radio, it's habitual. We see this all the time with Radio One, this stuff takes time. It takes 18 months to get traction.”

So, it won't be until the spring or even fall ratings of 2009 that Boyce anticipates seeing the first signs of who's tuning in to the new Radio 2 – and who's not. The previous round of alterations to the Radio 2 schedule, in early 2007, with the introduction of the suppertime jazz show Tonic, along with Canada Live and The Signal, didn't see the downturn ratings that many expected: Radio 2 ratings remained steady to slightly improved, Boyce says.

For now, Boyce is happy with the e-mails and overheard responses about the new weekday schedule and the introduction of new, non-classical music shows, which mark the biggest “radical departure” from the old schedule, he says. “It is always a work in progress. If you look at a playlist on a piece of paper or listen to it off your iPod, it feels a little different than it does coming out of the radio. I'd say overall we're really happy with where it's gone.

“And I think Rich's show in the afternoon” – Rich Terfry's program Drive, which plays a mix of pop and rock with an emphasis on songs and song craft – “has carved out a super-unique niche in Canadian radio. Listener response to that show and to him has been really great. And going in, of all the shows we launched, I think it was the riskiest,” Boyce says, particularly because the show is all about discovering music with which many CBC listeners might not be familiar. “For me, it's really exciting that the show that was probably the biggest risk is the one that's really being embraced with open arms.”