A reminder that Capital have no foresight. We all knew Alan was winding down and Nine’s long planned acquisition would hasten that.
Yet Capital were too hasty to save money and cut a local shift.
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Does Canberra have much talent that was born in Canberra and could do breakfast radio?
It wouldn’t overly surprise me if shifting Leon Delaney to breakfast (and running the 2GB program with whoever the new host is at drive) is exactly what 2CC have in store for the post-AJ era.
While it would’ve been preferable for neither local shift to be axed, it was a bizarre decision to axe breakfast rather than drive which 2CC has been extremely low rating in for years.
If the Capital Radio Network really had to cut down to one weekday local shift, surely it would’ve made more sense to keep local breakfast while having networked content on 2CC at drive (which still isn’t ideal, but networked drive shows seem to becoming the norm on radio right across the board)?
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Macquarie and Jones are obviously influential on the Liberal side of politics, so piping him into breakfast where his most loyal audience is living and working is a logical move.
Remember too that most of the talk audience in Canberra is with the ABC - either Local Radio or RN - and 2CC hasn’t been competitive as a talk station for as long as I can recall. I’ll leave my thoughts about Alan aside; his show is completely different to the ABC offerings, let alone the other commercial radio offerings, and if your ratings are sub-5% standing out is one way to build share.
That is, of course, reliant upon enough of the Canberra market to be interested in a shouty man up the Hume to grow revenue from. That’s what Capital is interested in: making money. Without Alan, and depending who is appointed to drive on 2GB and 4BC, I suspect they’ll move Delaney into breakfast. There’s more revenue there to be made (I suspect) than a low rating drive show; the Canberra market isn’t like Melbourne or Sydney where hard, opinionated news can be sustained across weekdays.
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Whilst in Crookwell today, discovered that the 106.1 2GN relay feed has been switched back to mono (was stereo last May when I was there last). Am guessing it will stay that way until 2GN moves to FM (as Eagle 103.7 is stereo).
Still has stereo pilot though.
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Stephen Cenatiempo will host 2CC b’fast.
Tim Shaw missed out, wonder what the relationship was with management.
Best wishes to Stephen retaining the job for a sustainable length.
It’s now on 2CC’s FB page:
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That press release is something.
Two new local radio stations! Ignoring the fact, of course, that one of them (My Canberra) was a relaunch and the other (Snow) is piped in 100% from Jindabyne with no localisation whatsoever. But I digress.
Curious to see how Stephen fits into the Canberra market. I’m not sure the Tim Shaw fan club will enjoy his style of broadcasting much!
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I wonder if he started that himself.
Not enough free sets of steak knives?
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His last day with Blyton Group will be Friday, July 24, with his announcement to be announced in the next few weeks.
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A note to all Capital Radio engineers…
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One of the many IMD spots on the dial.
Perhaps that’s the problem, they don’t have any engineers.
Wonder what the ABC and community broadcasters make of the mess surrounding their own outputs?
Good video, thanks @dxnerd
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yeah what a mess that is.
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I’d be interested to hear @RFBurns 's take on this, though he may have written something in the past related to the Goulburn issues.
What qualifications must you obtain to work in broadcast engineering? Would a civil engineering degree- perhaps with a major in electrical engineering- be sufficient? Or are there specialist qualifications? Maybe even a background in IT related work is enough for some jobs? Sorry for all the questions… I’m a numpty when it comes to the technical side of radio.
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I’ve also seen their RDS appear on 95.9.
I can only tremble at how much worse it might get when 2GN moves to FM (hopefully this year sometime).
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I thought there were TAFE courses that specialised in it? I did toy with the idea many years ago, before settling in a different field, but the somewhat limited work opportunities (only reducing now sadly) and the need to work at heights put an end to it for me
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I wonder how long it will take for this sign to be updated? I couldn’t get anything from 98.7FM (although I did not proceed any further than this point due to road closures so I don’t know if the reception is better further on).
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Depends what you want to do? Engineer to design broadcast networks, theoretically should have a degree in electronics engineering having studied the RF subjects, but not formally needed.
Broadcast tech to repair things & set up networks, etc. no qualifications at all needed.
You used to have to do at least a TAFE course & hold a BCOP Broadcast Operators Certificate of Proficiency, but that went out a long time ago, there’s not really any TAFE courses you can do now, no one runs them.
I did Cert. III in Broadcast Technology, which still exists as a training course, but you’ll be hard pressed to find anywhere that runs it.
A lot of radio stations got rid of their old school tech’s years ago, & just had a technology proficient staff member look after the transmission gear.
A number of industry people have commented about how dangerous that could be, but money talks before safety.
There’s a few old techs around that can be called in if needed on a part time or contract basis, some of the regional radio stations used to & probably still do to a point, call in techs from the local TV networks engineering.
SRN Newcastle has 2 x old techs that work part time or called in when needed, but AFAIK to this day the promotions Manager looks after the day to day engineering of 2HD & NEWFM, & has been doing it for years, with no qualifications whatsoever, other than what he’s taught himself.
There’s very few techs, outside of TXA, Broadcast Australia or BTS now who have any proficiency or knowledge in the transmission side, there’s still quite a few techs around who are good in the studio side, but have no idea about transmission, that’s partly why SCA sold off all their Transmission to BAI.
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You couldn’t get anything on 98.7FM, obviously 918AM is off air, but then yesterday XLFM & SNOWFM posted on their facebook page/s they were having some technical difficulties due to heavy snowfall, so I’m guessing you couldn’t get anything on the new 96.1FM or 97.7FM either?
I wonder if they’re wishing they stayed with 918AM?
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See the car radios topic about my car not liking to pick up stations when scanning with marginal reception so at that point I couldn’t find anything when scanning (after trying 98.7FM). I didn’t know any alternative frequencies so I couldn’t check. I was listening to ABC South East on FM before it dropped out on approach to that area.
For reference this was at The Wattles Chain Bay and until I needed to turn around at that point due to road closure I was heading towards Jindabyne.
A bit ironic considering they are meant to be a source for road/snow conditions.
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