2CH Sydney

I’ve changed thread title to reflect new branding.

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What a difference a few hours can make.

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I wonder if they’ve decided to make 2UE the one they sell off if they need to. They just needed to buy it so they could gut it first, so that a new buyer can’t just pick up an established station and be competitive.

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I agree with that theory.

Obviously MRN would want to own all three (and I wonder if they would be eying off the Pacific Star stations in Melbourne, should the two station rule be dropped?) but surely it wouldn’t make sense for MRN to have a talk station plus a music one in Brisbane and Melbourne but not Sydney?

My guess is the 2CH will be phased out and it will end up as just “Magic 1170” within a year or two.

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Or maybe they’ll take a page out of SCA’s book and revert back to the “2CH 1170” brand after about 6-8 months if the ratings tank? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Probably the rules will change that will allow them to keep 2CH but my guess is that they will try and sell all 3 Magic stations and thus create a mini network for an astute buyer. It would be hard to imagine anybody buying 2CH on its own with a rating of about 4% and no doubt rubbery figures supplied by MRN.

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I agree. Who would be interested, I wonder?
Capital? Grants? Perhaps even Resonate?

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Anyone!! Please buy the network and make it listenable again. There is so much potential being wasted.

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Hopefully it lasts longer than Magic 11, a short-lived rebranding 2UW had in the early 80s. I quite liked the snippets that I heard back then but Sydney didn’t seem to like a brand without call letters at the time. Had some innovative ideas such as “News at 55” etc.

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Wasn’t it “The Brighter 2UE” that did the “News at 25/55” idea complete with jingles? Of course, it’s quite likely that 2UE may have copied the idea from Magic 11/2UW or visa versa.

In any case, I sure hope that the new “Magic 2CH 1170” branding lasts longer than “Hit 104.1 2DayFM” did last year. If the “Magic 2CH” experiment fails, well I think we’ll know for sure that Sydney radio listeners quite simply don’t like naming changes!

Or not very often anyway, unless there is a major format change, like from MIX to KIIS or the introduction of Smooth.

2BL to 702, and the incremental shifts from 2WS to WSFM and then WS FM101.7 are the only ones that have worked in Sydney.

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Yep, I have to agree with that the only Sydney radio naming/branding changes that have worked are either major ones that have had a format change to go with it (such as the introduction of the KIIS and Smooth brands) or minor ones like 2BL to 702 ABC Sydney and 2WS to WSFM. If they count, I suppose that 2FC to Radio National, 2JJJ to Triple J and ABC-FM to Classic FM could also be classed as successful name changes in the Sydney market.

Magic 11, pretty much any branding on 2SM 1269 after 1988, Vega, Classic Rock, Sydney’s 95.3 and Hit 104.1 2DayFM are among the major Sydney radio branding fails that I can think of and there have probably been others.

2CH 1170 is Magic 2CH 1170 as of midnight, at which time the station name on DAB+ changed.

There wasn’t much fanfare for the switchover. After the end of Kel Richard’s Sunday night openline program finished, 2CH aired the usual TOTH pips followed by a station ID and into music.

Mardi Cole doesn’t appear to be a part of the new line up according to the Magic 2CH website. Unfortunate, as she has been a key figure at 2CH for a long time. A weekend spot maybe as they haven’t really list who is on the weekend shifts.

They would have been better off with

Magic 1170, 2CH

or

2CH Magic 1170

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I agree.

One thing that I’ve noticed with this new branding is that they’re not referencing the 1170 frequency so much. The station is usually just called “Magic 2CH” from what I’ve heard.

That is unfortunate, she was 2CH’s music director too, another job at 2CH that’s no longer needed, seeing as they’re now running the same music logs as Melbourne & Brisbane.

If she’s gone, maybe they’ll be able to find a place for her upstairs at Smooth 95.3?

After 84 years of broadcasting in Sydney 2CH suddenly and without warning appears to have re- branded as ‘Magic’. Why?? Just because the format is changing does the traditional call-sign 2CH really need to change into a word? Many long-time listeners will be less than impressed. No doubt plans are afoot for 2CH Sydney to soon transform into ‘Magic 1170’ and network with ‘Magic 1278’ (3EE) in Melbourne and ‘Magic 882’ (4BH) in Brisbane. A bit more local flavour on these cities airwaves will be lost.

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They’re branding the station as “Magic 2CH” during local programing (which I believe is only breakfast & mornings now) and in local IDs, etc but apart from that the station is mainly just referred to as “Magic” during networked programing.

While I agree that I’d prefer more local branding (not just on radio, but generally), unfortunately most of the other music-based stations in this city use network branding and programing so it was probably only a matter of time before 2CH succumbed to the inevitable.

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