Thanks Moe for your thoughts…probably the case. I really hope ACE can get somehow get out of airing AFL and stop damaging their good work with the Easy Music stations. The new format had great consistency and to cop football when i tuned into 2UE yesterday arvo was a real turnoff. I realise they were playing music at the same time on the app but still very jarring through my DAB+
The issue is mainly right near the river, where the trees have grown a lot taller and thicker since the initial licence was issued, and with clock-radios and other small antenna receivers it is pretty hard to pick up a clear signal. I believe one idea proposed by ACE was to crank up the output power but ACMA wouldn’t have a bar of that.
1 Like
Why would you assume that?
I think it was watertight contract MSR had with the ARL. I don’t know much about AFL radio rights but when compared to NRL they rather more stations broadcast even if it is same game. Perhaps there is financial penalty if they don’t honor the contract. I have often heard 2SM also bringing the same game at times.
NRL seem to like prefer exclusive rights. For many years the only commercial station 2GB could broadcast NRL (and the ABC). Then Triple M was allowed to do Monday nights. In more recent other commercial players can call the games.
Cricket allowed Nine Radio to hand over the rights to SEN? It seems the contract was more loose. Still a shame the big bash is only “exclusive” for SEN (although Triple M had some rights but never really used them).
So I think AFL tend to want “all stations” to bring games but the other codes historically think that stations having exclusive rights is better. Anyway off topic a bit, but it is allowing the new 2UE has this overhead given SEN has the same game on.
1 Like
I am pretty sure it is in the contracting. As I recall when Bay FM bought 3XY, they were forced to continue AFL Broadcasts (headed by Eddie McGuire with the tag line Great Rock 'n Football) as the previous owners had already entered into an AFL radio rights contract. As I understand, all current AFL radio rights deals expire this year, so probably only a 1 season obligation for Easy Music 2UE.
3 Likes
With Len Johns off this week it seems like 3sh is just automated music between 5 and 6am. Sarah will replace his 1 to 3pm shift. Unsure what’s happening on Magic believe Greg Allen will be doing breakfast
1 Like
How are they meeting local content licence conditions for 3SH?
Looks like they are down to 2 hours per day during the week while Len is off. Len was on air for roughly 2 hours on Saturday before 3SH broadcast of a local Central Murray Football game from Balranald
1 Like
6an-12pm Greg Allen
12pm-6pm Nigel Ross
on Magic 1278
this week
1 Like
Gotta buy 2SM from Caralis and Treat it better with Classic Hits.
3 Likes
Team it up with Magic1278.
2 Likes
It starts from this Sunday at 9am, airing on stations across Regional VIC.
1 Like
Strange they not airing it on 3mp
1 Like
Speaking of 3MP, They need to add a Type of Food Program concentrating on their Traditional Mornington Peninsula base.
1 Like
They have Relish, hosted by Kate Stevenson on Saturday mornings. Ventures beyond the Peninsula but pretty much 3MP bread and butter sponsored content.
3 Likes
The AFL rights for 2UE probably even went back to the Talking Lifestyle days (which would have been just as jarring if not for the fact that TL was useless and no-one listened to it otherwise). Back in the earliest days of it, although produced by Crocmedia, it was a separate “hometown” call feed separate from the AFL Live/Nation calls that were sent to the ACE regional network - kinda similar to what 2MMM did for a while. That didn’t stay the case for MMM for more than a couple of years and of course it’s not the case for AFL Nation on 2UE anymore.
I wonder if part of keeping 2UE on board, though, is in case there is a clash with coverage between AFL and NRL? I don’t see SEN 1170 preferring a Swans or Giants game over NRL (it’d probably reduce their already low ratings to an asterisk if they did…), and in recent years MMM has expanded its league coverage so there’s little room there either. I’m not even sure 2SM is an option anymore as Caralis uses SEN’s NRL Nation in the regional Super Network, and they don’t split the signal in Sydney even with 1170 now in the market (and I doubt they’d want to even if given the option).
The AFL are desperate to have some kind of commercial coverage into Sydney every week (and likewise Brisbane), and perhaps it’s a smart tactic - whether they realise it or not - by the NRL to give the AFL limited room to go to, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to go cap-in-hand to ACE and SEN - who are, at least, known quantities for the AFL through their regional VIC rights - again next rights deal and it stays on 2UE, for better or worse.
I hate all the sycophantic newspaper columns about Peter V’landys but one of the things he’s been known to do is not give a sucker an even break (particularly if they’re from Melbourne!), so I wouldn’t be surprised if this move to NRL non-exclusiveness was a deliberate tactic. (The only “exclusive” for NRL now is that Nine was able to get their Friday night & Sunday 4pm games this year, ie. the ones they cover on TV, to be commercially exclusive to Nine Radio…)
1 Like
As i posted above the sooner 2UE can ditch the AFL rubbish the better. What a crock still forcing that southern sport into Sydney on what should have been a clean relaunched music station 2UE. Since my shock discovering this AFL stain i have listened less often to 2UE. Judging by their slight fall in the latest survey maybe some others are listening less too?
Why can’t Nine Radio used their Former NTS Stations for Breakaway Sport?
1 Like
I think sorting out their peak weekday slots would be a lot more important to them than giving away a few hours on the weekend to southern footy, to be honest.
Surely voice tracking the whole thing out of Melbourne (even with a locally-known voice at breakfast) can’t be helping them.
The AFL deal would also still be with Nine Radio I suspect, and it may be out of ACE’s control as to whether they go there or not this year.
ACE could continue normal programming on their online stream during that period (as they’re not allowed to stream the footy there; the AFL demands it be sent to their site) but I haven’t checked to see if they bother?
If they’re not specifically advertising the footy (and I don’t see they do on their site), it may be smart to do so, especially if they are hoping people listen in through the RadioApp/iHeart/speakers/their own app instead of AM for better quality, much like 2CH promoted.
1 Like
They could, but it’d depend on the sport as to whether they’d take it?
I’m pretty sure the AFL wouldn’t accept having Swans and Giants games on a digital-only service (or a 16xx AM service - mentioned because I think Radio 2 also did some Swans coverage at some point when they existed? Though I may stand corrected) except as an absolute last resort; likewise with Lions and Suns games on Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Their actions suggest that they don’t really care about the rest of the round, they just want coverage of the local teams as part of their expansion strategy, for better or worse.
On the other hand, cricket seemed happy with Macquarie putting some games (non-hometown BBL mainly, from memory?) onto NTS.
I think it’s a moot point though, and I suspect Nine would rather be done with sport on radio that they also don’t broadcast on TV - the fact that they wanted exclusive synergies between the live NRL TV matches and the Continuous Call is a smell of that. There is now SEN in Sydney and the Gold Coast (and to the extent they’re allowed, the Track station in Brisbane) to mop the remaining rights up now (such as aforementioned cricket), after all.
2 Likes