The Radioactive conference, held March 10-13 in Toronto as part of Canadian Music Week, was marked by the same cautious optimism that has characterized all radio gatherings this year. On the dais, industryites congratulated Canadian radio for never making the same draconian increases in spotload or use of network radio as their American counterparts, although you were still likely to hear some of those complaints aired privately about Canadian radio.

Thursday’s “Radio Stimulus Package” session was less emotionally charged than its predecessor at the 2009 NAB Radio Show and featured some of the same presenters, as well as the same division between the optimistic and concerned camps seen in Philly. Jacobs Media’s Fred Jacobs told Canadian broadcasters, “If you’re one of those programmers who goes to America and sits in a hotel room [to get ideas for your station] save your money.” But Rogers Exec. VP Chuck McCoy, referencing the “radio is dead among young people” mentality asserted that “parents don’t know their teenagers listening habits any better than they know their other habits.” And consultant Mike McVay also encouraged broadcasters to “stop giving our competition ammunition.”

The session ended with Jim Cuddy, frontman of legendary Canadian band Blue Rodeo who declared that “radio is as bland as it’s ever been in my lifetime.” Referring to Pink and Beyoncé’s Grammy performances, he said, “It’s now about whether you can do a Cirque de Soleil spectacle while you’re singing.”

At Friday morning’s “BBM/PPML Key Learnings and Challenges In Audienc e Measurement” session, Coleman Insights’ Warren Kurtzman previewed the company’s upcoming look at “The PPM DNA of Canada’s High Performance Radio Stations.” As in a previous U.S. study, Kurtzman found that those stations were driven by higher daily cume and by more listening occasions. Canada’s PPM rollout, while not without issues about sample size or challenges for Top 40 radio, has been less contentious than its U.S. equivalent. BBM president/CEO Jim MacLeod says that he thinks his Arbitron “are doing well with it, but that’s not what the press is saying,” while Kurtzman says that there may have been “unrealistic” expectations about what PPM could show. Asked about the cellphone only issue, MacLeod said that the higher cost of cellphone service in Canada made CPO a different issue there, as well as asserting that CPO listeners’ habits were not different than landline listeners—even at the younger end. On a later panel, the subject of capturing smartphone listening would come up and Jacobs Media’s Fred Jacobs would comment that the instructions for the current headset-to-PPM meter mechanism look like “how to assemble an Ikea desk.”

At Friday’s RAIN North Summit, hosted by RAIN’s Kurt Hanson, featured keynoter Joe Kennedy, CEO/President of Pandora, as well as executives from Slacker, Listener Driven Radio, Livio Radio, and other key new media players. Slacker VP of strategic development Jim Rondenelli told the audience that his service has been sold out since the second quarter of 2009, including a “pretty brisk business in locally-targeted” spots, thanks to partner Target Spot.

Slacker recently became available in Canada as a paid-only offering. Rival Pandora has not been available for three years, and Kennedy says he looks back with “incredible sadness at the day we had to pull out.” He says that Pandora has begun conversations with various rights-holders’ groups with an eye toward becoming available in Canada again.

The issue of standing out on radio’s new infinite dial had been raised when media critic Bob Garfield commented several days earlier, “On mobile, your competition is 25,000 stations and that’s why you’re fucked.” At Friday’s panel on “The Leap to Mobile,” Livio Radio founder Jake Sigal suggested that “making sure that your information is updated [with stream aggregators] is crucial.” Predicting that in five years there would be one main database for station information, he also said, “any keywords that make you different from anyone in the space would certainly help.”

Who’s standing out in the space now? Vision Critical VP/managing director Jeff Vidler unveiled the highlights of his forthcoming “Radio Futures 2010” survey of 3,021 “engaged online consumers” divided roughly equally between the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Asked what online stations or streaming services they had listened to in the last year, U.S. respondents easily chose Pandora (42%) over Rhapsody (6%), Last.fm (5%), Yahoo Music (5%), AOL (4%), iTunes (4%), Slacker (3%), YouTube (3%), and Live365.com (3%). In the U.K., the not-yet-available-here Spotify—more of a music on demand service—led with 20% to Last.fm’s 9%. In Canada, where neither Spotify nor Pandora are available, You Tube leads with 9%, followed by Last.fm and Shoutcast with 4%. Pandora somehow manages 3%.