Could you see a Merger between MacQuarie Sport radio & Nine’s Wide World Of Sports After Thursday?
I expect we will see changes to Macquarie Sports Radio, but probably not until next year.
1 Like
I’d cut the losses and sell 2UE and 4BH to Crocmedia and be done with it. Sell 1278 to EON and concentrate on the main stations. Maybe provide some ongoing services like 2GB does with 2CH in terms of studios and engineering but dump those stations.
Like my life at the moment, it’s a ongoing, expensive joke.
10 Likes
Survey 7 is out on Thursday so their only hope is to do something to lift ratings for Survey 8.
Grabbing thirty or so compilation albums from the 70s and 80s - Bacon and Eggs 78, 1981 Over The Top or Throbbin’ 84 - and playing them back to back (with 4 minutes of ads once an hour) would surely rate higher.
There’s also 1981 With a Bullet. Is that a premonition? MSR With a Bullet sounds about right. For goodness sake - end the embarrassment. On the few occasions I see 954 on a radio tuner a little tear forms in my left eye.
More people read this thread than listen to the three stations combined. Dead set.
4 Likes
1981 With A Bullet was a great album! 
3 Likes
MSR fails on its own metric of success - boosting the network share by driving people to their talk stations. The only place where it seems to have worked to any extent is Sydney, where from this unscientific sample they at least gained most of their remaining Talking Lifestyle listeners.
In Melbourne and Brisbane, it’s a total failure. People wanted music and switched off the moment the talk started, and particularly in Brisbane they weren’t making their way over to the talk offerings.
It’s not at all scientific, a comparison between the same survey year on year, but I’d expect this is indicative of a trend.
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey 6 | Survey 6 | Survey 6 | |
| UE/Magic | TLS | MSR | |
| 2UE | 5.2 | 3.7 | 0.6 |
| 2GB | 13.3 | 12.6 | 15.4 |
| 18.5 | 16.3 | 16 | |
| 3EE | 3.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| 3AW | 14.1 | 16.2 | 13.5 |
| 17.5 | 16.6 | 13.9 | |
| 4BH | 3.8 | 0.6 | 0.4 |
| 4BC | 5.3 | 5.3 | 4.6 |
| 9.1 | 5.9 | 5 |
6 Likes
In Sydney MSR makes Talking Lifestyle look like it was a successful format
6 Likes
And if you add in the Survey 6 of 2015 figures, when Magic in Melbourne & Brisbane was still programmed independently from each other, the figures looked something like this:
| 2015 | |
| Survey 6 | |
| UE/Magic | |
| 2UE | 5 |
| 2GB | 12.0 |
| 17 |
| 3EE | 3.8 |
| 3AW | 14.5 |
| 18.3 |
| 4BH | 4.2 |
| 4BC | 5.3 |
| 9.5 |
And the percentages increase/decrease from Survey 6 of 2016 to Survey 6 of 2018:
2UE: -88.5%
2GB: +15.8%
3EE: -88.2%
3AW: -4.3%
4BH: -89.5%
4BC: -13.2%
5 Likes
It must take a special kind of management prowess to turn away 88-89 per cent of the audience 
10 Likes
…and the only station that has seen an increase in ratings (even then, it’s debatable as to whether ex-2UE listeners have moved over to them or other stations) is 2GB?
What a waste of time.
3 Likes
This is like going into SimCity and deliberately destroying a city, accidentally saving the game, and realising you don’t have an earlier copy. Whoops.
5 Likes
Let us remember the old days for a moment.
4 Likes
I think that in Sydney TL could have been made to work if they were really determined not to continue with 2UE. Some core ingredients were there, including many of the familiar 2UE presenters and shows and it did start to sound better once they had moved away a bit from the launch advertorial format. BUT it would have needed very effective management, clear positioning in the market, considerable advertising and lots of TLC, none of which Macquarie were prepared to give it.
However TL was always going to be a lost cause in Brisbane and Melbourne. The change of format - music one side of the news, talk the other side - was too sudden and dramatic. There were no familiar elements to attract listeners to stay or to try it, exacerbated by the complete lack of advertising and marketing.
All that said, MSR has dragged those frequencies down to levels previously unimaginable, especially for 954.
6 Likes
Even 3EE in its original format (MOR music and talk) in 1992 would have rated higher than Macquarie Sports Melbourne have now.
1 Like
It did. Though it was a pretty woeful product. Old has-been (or never-were) announcers. And a strange music log.
But it was up against a relative AM music powerhouse at the time in in 3MP.
4 Likes
The problem with the original 3EE was that it was a 3MP clone with the exact same music one would find on 3MP. Then 3MP bought out 3EE and simulcasted 3MP’s signal on 693, but that lasted about a year until the ABA stepped in and ordered a different signal on 693, hence the creation of Magic. 3MP’s older songs were moved to Magic while 3MP had a more soft AC sound, hence the ratings decline of 3MP while Magic’s ratings improved.
The relevant portions of the speeches by the Chairman and CEO at the Macquarie Media AGM yesterday.
Russell Tate:
Adam Lang:
2 Likes
I invite you all to listen. All of you. Any of you. Someone. Please. Listen.
4 Likes
MML have admitted their focus is on the News-Talk stations.
That is like a parent admitting that they only have ONE favourite child.
Just end it already. MML are becoming the new BOG - hanging on to a once very valuable station (and network).
RIP 954AM & 1269AM.
7 Likes
4BC is not really doing that well in the core business? I don’t have figures but has 4BC lost audience since the networking… Or that doesn’t count? ie Compared with 3AW and 2GB. How can they fix 4BC then?
3 Likes