2ST has reinstated separate breakfast programs for Shoalhaven & Southern Highlands at the end of 2020.
5 Likes
5 Likes
Makes sense for now, my feel is that ARN is undertaking a gradual integration program. The first step is to align syndicated programming, second will be looking at the brand consolidation and then lastly establishing a hub for day time networking whether that be Sydney, Maroochydore or GC. DMG did the same thing in the late 90’s- April 2000. Took about 2 years to integrate brands and set up the Albury and Townsville hubs.
7 Likes
I think the branding of ……Best Music Network could either go two ways.
-
Rebrand to Hot in line with Hot 100, Hot 91 etc.
-
Rollout the KIIS network nationally.
Probably option 2. Would be most likely.
At the moment there are two many brands so ARN may try to consolidate to one brand like SCA did with Hit.
After two years when they don’t have to maintain same staffing levels this is when they may go to a hub from the Gold Coast, and network day parts to smaller markets.
Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast Darwin, and Wollongong would be live and local weekdays, the rest (Power fm) with voice tracked weather updates, and local traffic reports, and plugs for the local breakfast shows.
They could even hub and voice track all on the weekends. This would not help Wave compete against i98 in the Wollongong market.
Wave needs local programming and their own locally researched playlists, not a generic playlist which goes out to the whole network to compete with i98.
Lastly for the Greatest Hits network particularly 2ST will it get rebranded Gold, and whether ARN will allow them to have two separate breakfast and morning shows, or whether it will be networked and voice tracked from out of town outside of breakfast? If this is the case it would be a massive loss as 2ST has a lot more local content then Power fm.
4 Likes
I tend to agree. Would predict Power fm and Sea fm would be the first to get Kiised. Power Murray Bridge may be treated a little differently if there is a view to rebrand mix102.3 in Adelaide
3 Likes
Let’s not discount Hobart or Launceston being a regional hub.
ARN’s business, is (I can only imagine), very strong in Tasmania, owning all but 2 commercial stations within the state. They have commercial dominance in all but Hobart where SCA have a Hit and Triple M presence.
4 Likes
Possibly, but still it’s a small population. There are more people on the Gold Coast than in Tasmania.
I also suspect ARN might run everything out of Sydney and not see the need for a regional hub at all.
5 Likes
Sunshine Coast is the obvious choice for a regional hub. Grants already had a lot of network stuff based there and they have the studio facilities to back it up. Prime Radio were hubbing a lot from there and Grants actually scaled it back to increase local content in their Queensland markets.
3 Likes
Scaled back and rightly so.
Networking in the Qld ARN regional markets is unnecessary with great revenue to be extracted.
4 Likes
Does anyone know where the Random 20 is broadcast from? The announcer has mentioned in the past that they are in QLD
1 Like
The Sunshine Coast.
As mentioned on this Radioinfo article:
4 Likes
I really can’t see ARN doing a rebranding campaign. Surely no one looks at SCA’s outcomes with Hit/Triple M and wants to copy it? Like would they flip Hot Tomato to KIIS, after watching Hit flip back to Sea? If you wouldn’t do it to your flagship regional station, why do it anywhere?
I think visual alignment (like I mocked up here) so they can use the common lips/guitar pick device in network wide branding campaigns makes sense, and they can just slot the local name in.
They can hub almost as effectively without a network brand, and they’ve had no problems selling the KIIS and Pure Gold networks with nearly no common names in metro areas.
It’s easy enough to just not name the station or use a common positioner - like ‘Pure Gold’ in networked voice breaks - and just insert sweepers with the station name. Far less noticeable to listeners than a metro brand replacement.
7 Likes
Funny that it used to be the other way around in Tassie a decade + ago
3 Likes
I’d agree with you except they have form recently rebranding 97.3 to KIIS. There was no real point to that either yet they did it. Hot Tomato or Mix Adelaide will be next.
2 Likes
Yeah, and no petitioning to the ACMA (I am aware of) for the amalgamation of areas from a local content point of view either.
I think you could argue the Scottsdale area could be amalgamated with Launceston, and the Burnie, Devonport and possibly Queenstown all being thrown together.
Would reduce costs for the broadcasters…They all currently (with the exception of Scottsdale) all running significant local programming…
2 Likes
Maybe the regional …. Best Music network will be rebranded Hot,
Some possibilities-
Gold Coast - Hot 102.9, they drop the tomato
Darwin Hot 100
Sunshine Coast Hot 91
Hobart HO fm, becomes Hot
all Power fm become Hot
96.5 Wave keep as a standalone brand, or relaunch as Hot 96.5???
ARN regional has too many brands for their ….Best Music network, I would not be surprised if some brand consolidation takes place.
3 Likes
I think there’s something a bit different with tacking a network name onto a frequency brand to ‘renaming’ a station.
A closer parallel there I think is the bit of time where SCA were branding stations like “Hit 101.9 The Fox” - link the network to the local brand. Even the KIIS 97.3 logo shows quite a lot of focus on the core 97.3 brand, and their on air usage of the KIIS brand seems very subtle.
Maybe they think some of their regional brands suck - and might think no one really cares for ‘Chilli’, ‘Power’ or ‘Magic’ and a KIIS rebrand would be fine for those stations. To some extent I think that’s also a lesson out of SCA - the ‘Hit’ network stations had changed so much before hand, no one was attached to Sea/C/Star/Hot, so the flip to Hit didn’t really matter much, especially to younger listeners with no brand attachment.
3 Likes
I have to dissagree. Frequency brands like FM104, 96fm and even 97.3 are just as much brands as Sea FM or SAFM or whatever.
People in Brisbane and Perth in particular are used to refering to FM stations just by frequency.
Mind you I think some of the regional brands won’t be any loss. I really dislike Hot Tomato as a brand and always have.
2 Likes
I agree with @Moe
KIIS 97.3 isn’t so much a rebrand as a co-brand. 97.3 still gets a lot of use and KIIS also slots along side that. It’s subtle, but doesn’t wipe out the old brand as it would changing Mix 102.3 to KIIS 102.3.
In the TV world it’s more similar to Prime becoming Prime7. It lets the local heritage brand to remain while also being normal to use the network brand when required.
I think SCA actually showed that the rebranding alone didn’t make much difference to audiences in most markets (but not all). Their main downfall as been a lack of a clear and consistent music strategy over the same period.
I don’t think ARN will go as hard with rebrands as SCA did, especially on the heritage/AM/classic hits side. ARN have been reasonably happy to keep different brands in their metro markets so far so there’s no clear network name to take except maybe Gold, but even that means nothing to anyone outside Melbourne (or the regional markets with an existing Gold station like Bendigo/Maryborough). Consolidation of branding elements such as locals and positioning are more likely.
On the FM/CHR/AC side there’s less brand heritage to lose and a clearer network brand in KIIS. We could see some change here as many of these brands don’t mean a lot and I think these stations typically have a format that lends itself better to expanding outside of pure localism. The younger audiences are used to national and even global brands and typically want to reach out beyond the limits of their local area. Part of this audience see a national brand coming to town as a positive as they often get forgotten by the cities. Strong stations in competitive markets may not change, but I think we’ll see a KIISification of some stations over time.
7 Likes
Messy
I can see 7HOFM been rebranded to KIIS so that ARN can say they have a KIIS Station in every capital city.
1 Like