ARN Regional (formerly Grant Broadcasters)

Radio, Print, and Online Regional, Community and International Radio
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Condie is a former editor of the Milton-Ulladulla Times, and will cover news across the Kiama to Ulladulla region.

She will work alongside veteran senior journalist Rob Gooda and Highlands journalist Mitchell Kleem.

General manager of 2ST / Power FM, Gavin Flanagan, said Condie’s appointment demonstrated the station’s commitment to localism, despite redundancies across the entire media sector.

It seems that Rob Gooda is now based out of 2ST/Power FM rather than Wave FM, where he was based at for close to 20 years or so.

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Power FM SA have had “80’s flashbacks” during the day in most hours for a number of years now

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Just putting it out there… I wonder if Hayden Miller will pop up on a more mature sounding HIT104.7 in 2021 if/when the station switches to an older music format?

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Something very wrong going on at 2EC right now…
At 6:09 the announcer talked up the TOH news “up next” followed by the beginning of the 20/20 Retro Countdown on “free songs” where Aaron announced the Hoodoo Gurus - Miss Freelove but went on to play The Bangles - Eternal Flame

The weirdness continues with Aaron back-announcing the wrong songs (Billy Joel - My Life on right now, definitely no “Free” in the title)

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2EC is now playing the songs that should’ve been in the first hour of 20/20 Retro Countdown, but the breaks/sweepers are still for the second hour.

I wonder whether they will meet John Stanley at 8pm, since they are about 10 mins out from TOH)

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The cost cutting of automation and content from the network beyond Bega is beginning to show its ugly face. That’s a shame.

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Sounds like the voice tracks have been imported into the wrong spots in the automation system

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The voicetracks are in the right place, the music for the previous hour is playing in the current hour (so the music for 5-6 played between 6-7). Not sure if it’s still happening now, I stopped listening after 7.

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Yep, it’s such a shame for 2EC too because they were a really good live & local station up until very recently - and the local music log fit very well for the relaxed feel of the Far South Coast.

It’s still pretty good compared to most other regional stations though, the Grant’s Classic Hits log is a pretty great listen IMO and the station still has a lot of it’s local feel. But they’ve churned through staff in mornings/afternoons/drive like crazy for the last half-decade or so. They must be voicetracking the drive program these days (and I would say probably everything outside breakfast).

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I wonder whoever did the playlist got the times wrong or if it was a playout system error

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Not sure, could be a combination of both?

I’m not familiar with how Grant’s manage their logs or their networked programming (I do know that all network stuff is voicetracked, but that’s about it)

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What’s the reason for Grant stations to drop Sportsday and other SEN programming? Suddenly coverage of Sportsday Victoria (hosted by Gerard Whateley and Sam McClure) becomes much smaller. I am not sure if that show is available on SEN app though.

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Money.

The Camerons have and always are keen to save every last cent.

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As I understand it the Crocmedia programs were provided free of charge in exchange for being able to have in program advertising. Maybe that changed.

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Maybe. Very little is done out of spite. Always out of ruthless cost savings at the expense of consistency or local presence.

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Grant Broadcasters are set to launch a locally produced and hosted afternoon sports show into 24 of their markets in 2021.

The Sideline View will broadcast on Saturday afternoons and will cover all the latest local community sport news, local games score updates and stories from all levels of local community sports clubs. Regular updates of the major National sports codes will also be included.

Grant Broadcasters will not be taking any NRL games or networked sport shows previously sourced through Crocmedia/SEN to focus the content resources on the local production of The Sideline View in each market.

Stations in Victoria and SA will reduce their AFL broadcast to one game per weekend while the locally produced K Rock football will continue in Geelong as will their significant sponsorship of the Geelong Cats.

The Sideline View shows will be rolled out across the following markets before the start of the 2021 winter sports season: Bega, Muswellbrook, Nowra, Wollongong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong , Mildura, Darwin, Bundaberg, Cairns, Mackay, Central Queensland, Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Ipswich, Gold Coast, Murray Bridge, Port Lincoln

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So no more live sport on Grant’s stations? This won’t go down well.

As someone who benefited from Grant’s already adequate coverage of local sport in the past, this is a bad move. Yes, good to see more local content, but not at the expense of popular networked content.

And I don’t see 24 local shows going for too long before they realise it’s cheaper to produce one show.

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Wonder if they can utilise the very loose definitions of narrowcast that SEN Track are taking advantage of and put AFL/NRL onto their KIX Country feeds that are in most markets where they have local stations. Though presumably this is cost cutting rather than a station format decision?

Most of the sport they cover is on ABC Local anyway, so I think it’s better that they replace them with music shifts.

Krock keeping their footy coverage makes sense given the heritage, but it’s so out of place on the station in its current format, compared to the Male skewed rock of the past.

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