Given the state of DAB, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a planned maneuver
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I doubt they planned, the station would have a better replacement than whatever SEN Coast is - hell just use SEN Spirit if they are so worried about cost and they could have kept a music aspect to the station.
I suppose the key stat we don’t get in the public ratings is listening by platform. You get digital listeners as the shares for the digital only stations, but not what proportion of listeners to a given station are on DAB, so how many listeners converted to DAB when AM switched over to SEN vs how many they just had already and just never noticed anything really changed.
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Actually if memory serves me correctly, they did, there was a lot of promotion about the AM being turned off & going to DAB+ to keep listening.
I kinda remember they even gave away some DAB+ radios for listeners to keep listening & did lots of advertising/suggesting listeners to buy a new DAB+ radio from Hardly Normal to keep listening to 2CH on DAB+.
Not only does this say to me that SEN didn’t give a rats, (which we all knew), but also says heaps about the state & success of DAB+.
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Someone can go back through the ratings if they want & look at the Cume figure for 2CH on AM, but I just saw today or yesterday (maybe it was somewhere in here?), in the latest ratings book Cume figures, 2CH had 66,000 listeners on DAB+, SEN had 68,000 listeners on AM & DAB+, CADA’s first ratings they have 100,000 listeners.
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Could we Expect a Few of the Now Former Announcers finding new Homes at The Nine Owned Ace Operated Music Stations, including 2UE?
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I’d like to see Tim Webster pop up somewhere on AM radio again.
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The intentional destruction of 2CH is a crime against radio.
I will never understand how someone would pay $11M to turn a rating of 5% on 1170 to that of 0.4%.
We miss you 2CH.
WTF have your done to 2CH SEN?
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Does this make Sports Entertainment Network the BOG of this century?
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I agree that they did try. Despite the turnover, they’ve been one of the best resources digital only stations to date. 5 staff in Melbourne shown on Facebook celebrating the 90th birthday. Plus several in Sydney. Sure all were part time or had other roles at SEN also, but more than was necessary if they wanted to keep it purely tokenistic. Much, much more than Nine put in 2UE/4BH/Magic.
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The final minutes courtesy Brenden Wood on Twitter:
How ironic that they switched the feed just as a gambling ad was playing.
Tim Webster’s final broadcast on 2CH from earlier in the day.
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Easy - SEN’s aim is to create a national network of sports radio stations and they clearly believe that the best way to do that involves taking opportunities that have presented themselves to purchase 2CH and 4KQ.
Yes, it doesn’t make financial sense from the outside looking in.
Yes, you can make an argument that a sports talk format only really works in Melbourne.
Yes, it’s disappointing to see heritage formats disappear in the process (even if a lot of the reaction to that happening on here has been beyond hysterical).
However, SEN is perfectly entitled to do what they want to stations they’ve legally purchased - even if it results in their ratings fall off a cliff…
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SEN launched in my home town which is starved of competition with SCA’s monopoly. They’re using an old Niche Radio frequency. They’re really pushing their brand here with lots of billboards and doing OB’s at various business openings and community days etc. It’s great. The last time we saw any fanfare over radio was the launch of Hot FM (now HIT) back in the late 90s.
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SEN have bought all the old Rete Italia frequencies.
I am surprised they have not made an offer for Albany’s Gold MX on 1611AM, an S39 licence which recently changed ownership from The Great Southern Weekender newspaper (now defunct) to a local consortium.
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I know gambling is big business in this country, whether we like it or not (I certainly don’t). Even so, we really don’t need two horse racing networks. The TAB aka the Gambling God Squad has the market pretty well stitched up. It also raises another question: if there truly is enough demand for two horse racing stations per market, should they be classed as narrowcasters?
I actually think an all sports format as heard on the SEN primary channels would be marginal enough to be classed as narrowcasting. The proof is in the nearly non-existent pudding on 1170.
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That was SEN’s original plan, they originally applied for their sports format to qualify as narrowcast, but were knocked back by ACMA in the below ruling.
That’s when they decided to go down the SEN Track path as that qualifies being predominately horse racing as well as buying any commercial licences that come up for sale such as 2CH/4KQ.
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Interesting; I wasn’t aware of that. I agree that sport has broad appeal in Australia, but an all-sports radio station is probably of limited appeal in most areas (apart from Melbourne, as discussed). At the very least I think they should be classed as a narrowcaster in smaller population centres.
I would much rather have a general sports station than another horse racing station…
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Here we go - the final hour minus the bulk of the ads and music. Recorded from the web stream and includes the cut over to “SENCoast”
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even though Melbourne has the reputation for being sports lovers, the appeal of sports radio is still limited, SEN only got 2.7% share in the last survey and sits towards the bottom of the ratings ladder. RSN sits around the zeros.
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SEN 1170 is only 0.4% away from being an asterisk.
Considering the survey size, that’s about three people away from a zero.
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Absolutely agree on all points.
I think this was a dud decision from ACMA, allowing SEN’s format on narrowcast would have been a much better use of spectrum and also may have saved 2CH and 4KQ from extinction.
Bizarre that SEN Coast has been chosen as the replacement DAB+ stream- it’s virtually SEN Track most of the time. Would have been much better to replace with SEN Fanatic which does have a point of difference especially with the cricket (and other sports as well from time to time).
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