Probably the new paint in the North Sydney studios?
I disagree. The reason we have such limited and duplicated formats in this country is because of the 2 station rule. An operator should be allowed 3 or 4 stations in larger markets. Look at Brisbane, out of 4x FM stations there are 3x CHR stations. That wouldnât happen if one operator owned 3 of them. Youâve only got to look at the UK, NZ and North America, where operators have 3 or more stations in a market, they actually offer a variety of formats. The old argument that the 2 station rule preserves competition and thus local content against networking has also been blown out of the water. It doesnât. Anyway, thatâs for another thread.
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Itâs actually about the limiting the influence of a single operator. The more media outlets a single person/group/organization own, the more they are able to promote their own agenda. By limiting that reach, even if all operators push their own agenda, they will have different agendas and therefore the audience wonât be so easily swayed to one opinion.
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they donât âget awayâ with it, the 2-station rule only applies to commercial broadcasters.
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Also, the ABC isnât being run to make a profit so there is much less chance of corruption and collusion. See: Ballarat where RSN is leased the AM licence that used to be 3BA in order to prevent competition.
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I wonder if the launch of Gold in Brisbane and Perth could happen when this change happens on April 14 for Melbourne and Sydney.
Iâm waiting patiently.
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Iâd predict that 96fm would move more into the Gold Network, and more KIIS elements would disappear - theyâre pretty much there considering we now have Huggy in the arvos, and the adoption of the âJust Great Songsâ positioner.
they just need to change the logos and the brand elements now.
not sure what Brisbane would do⌠unless they start to touch River 94.9
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Yes it will either be a River rebrand or theyâll just go it alone with a DAB-only Gold in Brisbane.
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How about renaming it to Gold94.9, keep it licensed to Ipswich but also market it to Brisbane. Cater to both cities. Iâm sure that even though itâs licensed for Ipswich, ARN could easily seek approval from the ACMA to upgrade the transmission power of River94.9, or perhaps install an FM repeater in the Greater Brisbane area. Otherwise, they could just simulcast the Ipswich station on DAB+ in Brisbane.
Since I can no longer create polls anymore, I have to do this the old fashioned way.
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Should River94.9 rebrand to Gold94.9 and also cater to Brisbane instead of just Ipswich?
Yes
No
I Donât Know -
If River94.9 rebrands to Gold94.9, and they wish to launch it into Brisbane, what should they do?
A. Seek approval from the ACMA to upgrade the transmission power of River94.9 on FM to better cover the Brisbane area.
B. Install an FM repeater in the Greater Brisbane area.
C. Go all-in on Gold via DAB+ in Brisbane.
Can we please not do this? Having a poll this way will just flood the thread with many unnecessary posts.
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The other Brisbane stations would (rightly) kick up a right stink if a new FM station was to suddenly enter the market, given that there was a reason ARN opted to exit Brisbane in the first place. Probably the most they could do is just include a DAB relay, given thatâs essentially what ARN is doing with Cada in Sydney (AFAIK?)
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CADA is on-air on DAB+ in all capital cities, not just Sydney.
No they canât.
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Two things can be true. Yes CADA is national, but so is the fact CADA is on 96.1 across much of Sydney, and on DAB in Sydney itself. Itâs possibly what ARN might do with a Gold 94.9 & DAB combo in Brisbane.
There is next to no chance the ACMA would allow any change to broadcast specs for 94.9 to allow it to increase presence in Brisbane, unless they ever formally amalgamate the 2 licence areas, which is possible one day although a remote possibility.
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Isnât 96.1 supposed to be a Katoomba station not Sydney?
It is, but it doesnât sound anything like a Katoomba/Penrith station.
It uses fortuitous signal overspill from the Blue Mountains into western Sydney to target younger listeners in that area.
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Yes - but the ACMA, wrongly, decided that an exact simulcast of an out of market station on DAB+ didnât constitute an out of area broadcast, so ARN were free to put CADA/The Edge on the Sydney multiplex despite it being a work around the 2 station rule.
ARN were dumb to not push their 4KQ listeners to a digital only station, they could have kept significant market share among listeners who werenât going to stick with SEN, and could have then used that digital station as their base for a Brisbane Gold network station going forward.
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Correct.
Rural Press tried doing this 20 years ago, by increasing the power so that River 949 was heard across most of greater Brisbane, and even in the car in the CBD.
It caused a stink amongst the Brisbane broadcasters, rightly so, and ACMA (back then it was called ABA), put license conditions on River 949 which effectively blocked the signal from reaching the CBD.
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I actually donât think thatâs what happened at all. The ABA ruling was that River couldnât PROMOTE themselves as a Brisbane station, nothing to do with the signal or broadcast specs. IIRC the wording of the ruling actually favoured River and said any fortuitous coverage into Brisbane was their good luck. No changes to transmission was ever required. By the way their signal still reaches the CBD and welll beyond in the car. Had them on in the car at the Airport the other day. And they still come up in an FM scan literally anywhere in the metro area.
Back to what ARN might do, I think theyâd be mad not to try and leverage the existing 94.9 FM audience to launch Gold on DAB in Brisbane, in exactly the same way as they leverage 96.1 for CADA. Nobody believes those âDAB-onlyâ figures for CADA in Sydney donât include a substantial number of people who are actually listening on 96.1, and not on DAB/online. The ratings for CADA in Sydney are vastly higher than the true (and miserably low) DAB-only figures in the other capitals.
Similarly, the fact 94.9 will scan (with a station name and RDS) in basically every car in Brisbane could be used as a huge head start if ARN does plan to launch Gold in Brisbane. That combined with a large existing audience on FM will translate to fairly decent ratings which can actually be reported in Brisbane surveys.
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Agree, the River 94.9 signal is the strongest âout-of-marketâ station in much of Brisbane, easily receivable in the car out to the bayside suburbs.
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