I do enjoy magic2ch’s music. But its a real shame the audio in off peaks time. Feels like its streaming off the internet at a low bit rate… Its sad stations pay little attention to sound quality these days.
With just over 3 weeks (I can’t believe the 6-month extension is nearly over!) until Macquarie Radio Network has to sell off 2CH, Radioinfo has this article: Who will buy radio 2CH?
The key likely buyers for 2CH include: Grant Broadcasters, Capital Radio Network (hello “Forever Classic” 2CH?), ACE Radio (owner of regional AM/FM stations across VIC) & EON Broadcasting (owner of Mix/Sea Sunshine Coast).
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EON is an obvious buyer of the 2CH licence as they could put EON Sports on it and maybe get some listeners. And there is Bill Caralis who could put Zoo or Fun onto 1170.
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I think it’ll be very interesting to see what happens with the DAB+ spectrum in the next few months or so. Even if only for consistency, could we possibly see 2CH move to 9A while 2UE/NTS goes to 9B?
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Whoever buys 2CH will have the smallest ownership share in the joint venture company that owns the Sydney digital radio multiplex, all thanks to John Singleton’s disbelief in digital radio. Singo reduced the 2GB and 2CH shares to a bare minimum.
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or could he just buy 2CH and keep it as a cheap-as-chips oldies music station as a combo with 2SM?
I still wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they sell 2CH, Magic Melbourne and Magic Brisbane as a package. Hopefully it goes to Grant Broadcasters or Hot Tomato - someone who can actually run a music station with a little bit of originality. It would be a way for these operators to get some of their existing music formats onto DAB in the biggest 3 cities. Lot’s of possibilities, River 949 could legitimately get into the Brisbane market at least on DAB if they owned Magic Brisbane for example. I doubt Rebel media could afford them but imagine if Breeze FM and Rebel could be heard on DAB - happy days 
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I agree that MRN should sell Magic 882/1278 along with Magic 2CH 1170, but I have a suspicion that they might keep those stations and flip them over to a new format. Really, I wouldn’t be too surprised if we eventually have “Lifestyle Radio 882/1278” if the experiment on 2UE manages to work out alright!
In any case, lets hope that whoever buys 2CH plans to keep it as a music station with a decent enough bitrate for the main DAB+ channel!
Grant Broadcasters would run into troubles in owning a Brisbane station due to having licences in Nambour and Ipswich, both of which overlap with Brisbane by more than 30%.
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I don’t think they would have a problem because the overlap is at different “ends”. i.e. Ipswich doesn’t overlap with Sunshine Coast at all so there’s technically only 2 stations overlapping at a time? Ipswich and Brisbane, then Brisbane and Sunshine Coast. I think it’s similar to the KIIS, WS and Edge situation in Sydney. Happy to be corrected but I think they’d be fine.
Katoomba overlaps by significantly more than 30% with both Sydney and Western Sydney though, so it still gives them 3 licences that each cover at least 76% of Katoomba.
I don’t think that the legislation is watertight on this so it could be argued in court if it ever became an issue, but my interpretation of it is that if areas overlap by more than 30% they are treated as the same licence area, meaning that Nambour and Ipswich would each be treated as all of Brisbane.
Based on this interpretation, there would also be a breach in Nambour, as there is a significant overlap between Gympie and Nambour.
The other point of contention is that the 30% doesn’t have to go both ways… for example Nambour overlaps with Brisbane by 33.88%, but Brisbane only overlaps with Nambour by 7.68%. Going by this interpretation, Brisbane would count towards Nambour, but Nambour wouldn’t could towards Brisbane… while I’m not convinced this could hold up, it would be worth giving it a crack.
SCA couldn’t own two Brisbane licences and two Nambour licences due to the overlap so they had to sell the Nambour licences, so Grant wouldn’t be able to own three licences in Brisbane and Nambour.
They wouldn’t - Zinc is licensed to Gympie.
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Ok.
That is true, Zinc is licenced to Gympie with some overlap on the Sunshine Coast. So if they could get away with it they could potentially have 4 stations stretching from Noosa to Ipswich. Pure speculation I know, but that would be quite a unique situation having: Zinc (Noosa), Hot 91 (Sunshine Coast), Magic (Brisbane), River (Ipswich). Then they could put all 4 on DAB in Brisbane itself. Sorry off topic I know.
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Not that having a decent bit rate matters to the other Magic stations. 56k in Melbourne and atrocious quality. Nothing above about 7kHz in audio. And it’s so gurgly sounding during music these days it’s virtually unlistenable. I’m sure it’s deliberate. They’ve been wanting to kill off Magic on “legacy” technology, as they call it, for a while.
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In the Macquarie annual report 2CH is worth a bit over $4 million, so it’s probably doubtful they’ll get anything over that in the sale.
$4 million for an AM music station that LOSES money? Tell 'em they’re dreaming.
250K and it’s mine 
Jokes