After a red-hot summer, a few of Toronto’s biggest radio advertisers and categories stepped back slightly this week – but Montreal saw some substantial recovery, according to the Media Monitors report for the week ended Aug. 16.

With the radio portion of Sobeys’ launch campaign for Voilà concluded, the top radio advertiser spot in Toronto moved to the Toyota Dealer Association, which entered the charts with 1,015 ads. The association was followed by the provincial government. Buying is once again on the upswing for the government, which purchased 895 ads after a few quiet weeks. Sleep Country Canada maintained its third place spot with 852 ads. Rounding out the top-five were Belairdirect and Nissan.

While Toronto saw some categories explode this week, many others dialled back considerably.

On the upswing were auto dealer associations – landing in the top spot with 2,888 ads, an increase of more than 2,000 from the previous week – as well as finance and domestic factory autos, all in the top-three. Asian factory autos also saw a big increase, with more than 1,700 ads and coming in sixth.

Modest drops were seen in the insurance provider, government, wireless carrier, QSR and public service categories. Business and consumer services saw the biggest drop, purchasing around 800 fewer ads than last week’s 2,686 spots.

In Montreal, the provincial government continued to purchase on radio, with 955 ads for the week. That was followed by Consolidated Credit’s much more modest buy of 386. Dormez-vous rose to third with 324 ads. New entrant Kia Forte debuted in fourth with 312 ads, while Bell Canada rose to round out the top-five with 286.

A view of Montreal’s radio market by categories, however, shows that there has been some substantial movement in the market.

Asian factory auto advertisers nearly quadrupled their collective order to 1,227, winning the week as the top category buyer. Other substantial increases came from domestic factory autos (more-than-double from the previous week), wireless carriers (up 68%), local auto dealer associations (which increased nearly eightfold) and business and consumer services (up 38%). There was also a small lift in government and union ads.

Modest decreases came from insurance providers, cable and television and public service, while the finance category had a more significant drop.