Radio ad spend appears to be entering a stage of less turbulent change in the Toronto market. For the first time in weeks, government does not represent the largest bulk of category spend in the city.

The Government of Ontario remained the highest spender, but its buy now pales in comparison to its peak several weeks ago. In total, it purchased 1,249 ads in the city.

The government’s purchase was followed by HydroOne, which lifted its buy slightly to 766 ads. In third place was 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which held relatively steady with 735 ads.

CBC made a big jump to fourth place with 570 ads, while Scotiabank rounded out the top five with 471 units, down slightly from its order of 501 last week.

For the first time in weeks, government advertisers were not at the top of the categories for Toronto, but public service, which has been on an upward trend, took the top spot with just under 2,000 total ads.

While many categories have been growing in Toronto for the last several weeks, some have started to even out or decrease slightly. Government and unions made a significant drop, down to 1,281 from 2,117. Other big drops were in car and truck dealer associations (680 down from 1,183) and insurance providers (529 down from 1,054).

However, some categories are still boosting their buys: television and cable TV has gone up to 1,435 total buys, and the financial services category went up by nearly 300 ads to 1,961. Business and consumer services, power, electric and water companies, local auto dealerships and legal services all saw relatively small lifts.

Montreal saw some change, although the Gouvernement du Québec still led the pack with 841 ads purchased, keeping relatively steady. Groupe Spinelli, a chain of Mazda, Honda, Toyota and Lexus dealers, previously stayed off the radio buying charts but came back with 383 ads. CTV, which has been slowly but steadily increasing its buys, came in third with 315 ads.

Rounding out the top-five in Montreal were grocer Shopico (226 ads, down slightly from 237) and iHeart Radio, making a big jump to 203 ads.

While some categories in Montreal showed stability or small decreases week-to-week – government and unions have remained on top with a consistent buy of 1,012 – there were some big jumps in Montreal categories for the week. Local auto dealers shot up to 499 from only 50 the week before. Business and consumer services tripled to 474. There were also moderate increases in consumer electronics and wireless internet services, and few significant decreases in categories.