The above news now means that Melbourne will be the only city in Australia to have two AM music stations: Magic & 3MP, both operated by ACE. This also happens to be the same market that has a Smooth & Pure Gold station on FM.
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Awful news. Only a few years back, 4BH was converted to a sport station and 4KQ was the beneficiary, how the tables have turned.
SEN should have gone after 4BH instead, had ARN worked out a deal with Nine Radio to sell 4KQ to them and lease it to Ace ala Sydney and Melbourne.
This is reminiscent of when 5DN became SEN1323 in 2005, result will be the same.
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Could they not move Laurel, Gary and Mark to 97.3FM drive maybe and remove Will and Woody?
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Yeah isnât there complication with The river then? Only two station rule.
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Unlike most of the other media moves that barely raise a flutter- except in radio nerd circles like here- I think this will be keenly felt by Brisbane listeners. 4KQ is about as heritage as they come; there may well be a strong backlash.
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What I meant was.
Nine buys 4KQ from ARN, leases to ACE and runs the same format as Magic 1278
Nine sells 4BH to SEN and becomes SEN 1116.
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Judging by the following line in the SEN press release about the 4KQ acquisition, it doesnât seem like that will happen:
The move also signals the end of the 4KQ music format in Brisbane.
You would hope another station like 4BH could capitalise on this announcement, pick the trio up and build the format around attracting the 4KQ listeners who will soon have to find a new station.
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Does the sale of 4KQ to SEN mean we could see ACE switch Easy Music 4BH into 4BH Brisbaneâs Classic Hits?
Do it now and they will win.
On the other hand, whatâs the bet that ARN will have River & Zinc all re-branded & re-aligned as a Pure Gold station well in time for July 1.
I wouldnât be surprised if Laurel, Gary & Mark pop up on 94.9FM or 96.1FM sometime soon in some capacity.
You never just âkill offâ a number one breakfast radio show.
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Tell that to ARN in Melbourne. Two examples where they have done this being Chrissie and Jane in 2014 and Jo and Lehmo in 2017.
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Yep this is exactly why it sucks.
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Complaint already lodged with ACMA today. I urge others to do the same, even if they are useless.
ACE need to jump on the KQ breakfast team now and have them on 4BH from day 1 of the change.
What a complete debacle.
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what is ACMA going to do about it? A station takeover and change of format is not going to bother them
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Today is a sad day for radio.
ARN did the smart business thing but they should hang their heads in shame selling to the only bidder that would not cause ratings/revenue headaches for them.
So sad.
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The 2 station rule made it happen.
Also they are ultimately responsible for the diversity of format choices.
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Craig Hutchison must be a great BS talker getting investors to continually spend money on a sinking ship. SEN wont be around forever.
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I get all the above sentiments and very sorry for existing staff. I do think though SEN have shown they do employ local staff and support local programming. The net result will probably be more jobs.
I also think AM music can survive on DAB but a local sports programming canât.
Itâs not on the market but Iâd be happy if they bought 1323 in SA. Itâs all basically run interstate anyway.
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Itâs happened before: SEN leased 1323 in Adelaide from ARN in the mid-2000s and look how that turned out!
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I imagine ACMA will just say there are still plenty of music stations on offer, whether it be AM, FM, DAB and considering also community or neighbouring stations, and will let the market sort it out. The fact that a particular niche of music is not going to air is probably not of their concern. And another station could well pounce on it, anyway.
Market forces can prevail, as we have seen in Melbourne, when two AM music stations went to talk formats and now both are back to music formats because the market spoke and didnât like what was being dished up. Same when SEN took over 5DN in Adelaide. Nothing to say that Brisbane wonât be the same.
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Yes Iâm sure that will be the response. But it doesnât hurt to make them aware of the consequences.
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You might be happy, but what about the 10% of the Adelaide listeners that listen to Cruise? The point is stations like 4KQ and Cruise have a lot of listeners.
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