Yes, a likely 300 pound white elephant. Why not bring the real (album rock) EON FM back instead?
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But aside from live sport (most of which is also on local radio) the rest of the schedule of Grandstand is replays (which is nowhere near as interesting as a replay on TV) a panel show with Tracey Holmes I stumble across occasionally and replays of ABC Sportsman of the Year Awards from the 1970s and what seem to be never ending interviews with Don Bradman and Norman May.
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I couldnāt agree more! I would love to see Glenn Wheatley do a digital radio station of album rock/mixture of classic and modern rock plus a bit of new wave from the 80s thrown in just like the original EON FM was in 1980, Rebel FM does this to an extent. Maybe bring Peter Grace, John Peters, Gavin Wood, Trish Mulholland, Joe Miller or Billy Pinnell back from retirement or get the best of the fresh new professional talent. If Glenn reads this forum, please consider this for a new digital channel (name it EON Digital or EON Rock Force) or as a replacement IF EON Sports Radio fails.
Firstly, it would be much harder to get bandwidth for a station that competes against the current offerings (both FM and Digital) of the current commercial stations, considering they are who own the bandwidth.
Secondly, a music format is too niche to gain a large enough audience to make it profitable on digital. Even the commercial stations havenāt yet motetized their digital only stations.
Something like the sport format, isnāt offering in all market by traditional methods, so has more chance of building traction on digital. (though I too am skeptical that it would be able to generate the $1 million+ a year that it would need to stay on air)
A music format whilst maybe niche, is a hell of a lot cheaper that a talk format.
1 million per year in an understatement of what their costs would be 2-3 million would most likely be that range. Wages for 5 on air, producers for the shows, commercial/imaging production, lease of bandwidth, paying for news, licensing costs for live sport (EPL was 100k US$ 3/4 years ago), studio lease, tech support, sales staff and support staff, station manager and Iām sure Iāve missed someā¦ All for a station that cannot measure itās audience, could make it a little hard to sellā¦
My argument was against a proposal to have a music station with announcers in the post beforeā¦ Which would still have many of the same costs you outline.
While yes, $1 million is an underestimate, my point still stand, the same as yours, that a DAB station is very expensive to run and difficult to sell. My other point is that which not too dissimilar overheads, a music station has far less appeal that a unique offering such as sport like EON (well, unique in some markets anyeay) or kids like Kinderling. Itās also important to note that both these stations are marketing as being available online also, with DAB+ just being another distribution method.
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Which is probably why EON Sports Radio uses ARNās bandwidth: ARN does not have any sports content such as live football or sports talkback shows on its KIIS FM, Pure Gold, Edge FM or any other of its similar formatted stations. I doubt SCA or SEN would let EON use their bandwidth as they will directly compete with Triple Mās and SENās football coverage.
Also on the topic of monetizing, SENās Koool and Aussie digital channels in Melbourne have started putting commercials (usually at the top of the hour and the advertisers were all regular clients of SEN). But only one commercial per hour, which is a start. Another digital-only channel that has advertising is Edge Digital, but that is a relay of Edge FM 96.1 in Sydney. Kinderling Kids usually have sponsors for its programmes too.
Smooth FM Digital in Brisbane has had advertising for quite a while. Not a huge amount but increasing. Itās not surprising theyāre able to sell advertising, itās on everywhere you go in shops and cafes. Strange though they donāt do news yet, although Iām sure that will come.
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Ah thatās interesting ā¦
I thought they had the same networked DJs and playlist as Smooth analogue FMs in Sydney and Melbourne ??
So I assumed they had some sort of advertising to fill in the ad breaks that Sydney and Melbourne have.
EON was a shambles last night. Just after midnight (Eastern) the SportTalk programming was suddenly interrupted by local commercials and promos. About three minutes into that, SportTalk began again (crashed into the middle of an interview), while the local commercials and promos kept playing underneath.
So we had two lots of audio going for at least 45 minutes before I drifted off to sleep. To make it worse, it was the same dozen or so commercials and promos that they have over and over.
What a joke!
@Radiohead
Smooth Brisbane does have some of the networked announcers like Cameron Daddo and Melissa Doyle, but weekday breakfasts for example are automated with some advertising but no news. Some of the advertising seems a bit out of place - theyāre all local ads but some weird things like cosmetic surgery and go-kart racing venues! Ads you wouldnāt hear on other Brisbane stations thatās for sure :). Anyway it still sounds pretty good all in all.
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Because Wheatley is actually using EON rather than SCA who were squatting on the name, their trademark prevails and SCA did the right thing and withdrew it.
saw some advertising for EON on foxtel tonight.
playing big on the premier league
7RioLive is on in Sydney.
Currently playing Classic Rock Digital.
So 7RioLive is not really a pop-up station in Sydney, itās part of Triple M Classic Rock Digital.
Yeah just heard it takes over Claasic Rock digital between certain hours of the night.
But they have added a āplacecardā for the channel.
What SCA is doing is basically the DAB+ equivalent of those duplicate channel numbers on Digital TV, right?
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They already do it with Easy Radio/Stardust and Oldskool/More8090. They just should delete Stardust and More8090.
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I agree. Hopefully after the Olympics, they get rid of those legacy āplaceholderā station names.
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The 80s and The 90s appear to be having some intermittent problems here in Brisbane. It sounds like a CD āskippingā or dropping out for a fraction of a second. Itās been happening for a few days now and only on those stations from what I can tell.