They’ll probably keep iHeart as is, as it only covers Australia, and the new app will house both ARNs and Anchorage’s suite of stations - and make it available globally.
Like I said before, no one has any idea what’s going to happen, it’s just speculation - but you’d think making a global Australian radio app would be on the cards with the number of stations and scale of a combined entity behind the new app giving it a good chance of success with the overseas Australian diaspora , and the ability to make money through geo-located, targeted advertising (for example UK, EU and US/Canada).
I think this is very clear cut killing off of iHeart. The licensing agreement is a cost they don’t need, Listnr is a good technical base, if a horrible name.
Imo “Austereo” would be a great name for an app.
For me the best thing out of this alignment would probably be the chaos - the fast flips for Anchorage might see the simple stuff like Nova completing their network, SEN buying Cruise, Seven buying the Tasmania TV operations, etc - but then the potential for basically an independent Melbourne/Sydney set of stations on FM hyper targetting the local market, and maybe a handful of regional stations in a similar position depending on who buys the regional network, it would bring some nice new competition to a number of markets.
I think the point is right - the 2 station rule means this is shuffling the deckchairs more than it is some radical consolidation - I also hold out hope that the ARN model of running regional stations is better than the SCA direction right now.
It mentions a new app, it doesn’t necessarily mean killing off iHeart. Otherwise who would pick up the iHeart rights in Australia? Nova, or ACE? That would be an interesting development.
That would be hilarious. Half of the stations in the ‘Austereo’ app would be theirs anyway, under new ownership.
iHeart is a global platform. ARN pay a pretty penny for the rights to use the brand locally. ARN currently have to as they don’t have their own platform for streaming and podcasts in one place.
Why would they run 2 platforms? They would conflict with each other. ARN clearly want in on LiSTNR or they’d be leaving it for Anchorage.
No one needs to pick up the iHeart rights. It’s a global platform that than either set up their own operations here or simply not be a major player in the Australian market.
I read that as being they hadn’t determined whether to use an existing brand or a new one. I’d imagine there would be contractual matters that would need to be dealt with around use of the iHeart brand that may also not be finalised
Had a bit of a laugh reading that comment @gordo92, I guess you do look after the SCA transmitters, but how things differ between your workplace & mine. Over 75% of the TXA team here in Sydney are ex-SCA employees who were used, abused & shafted by SCA, who will now never listen to an SCA station. We actually have Fun Super Digi on in the office all day, from your old network, as there’s no ads, no mindless chatter & good mix of music.
Yeah called “Service Monitoring” I am told, 4GR isn’t to bad accept when they sometimes play more modern music then what Hit is playing at the same time…
When it gets to much put I put one headphone on and listen to Nui FM Taupo for the same reason as you have stated, no commercials, oh and the music is quite good, with decent Audio Processing
Not really. You punch “listener” into a search engine and the first results that come back are “Listnr” websites. Therefore their SEO must be working right and this allows them to get away with the “trendy” misspelt brand name of Listnr.
I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t keep spelling it out. But the logo is out there on TV ads, billboards etc. The branding exists and I’m just pointing out that the SEO works. Therefore I don’t think it’s a branding fail as a result.
Why not? They could still make money from a global app just housing the Anchorage and ARN stations , to a global market on the Google Play and Apple stores.
The local app, if it’s still iHeart would house ARNs stations plus those from Capital, ACE, Nine and Community stations as well as the Podcasts etc.
That would be hilarious. Half of the stations in the ‘Austereo’ app would be theirs anyway, under new ownership.
