You’re completely right. It’s a problem of their own making. They’ve managed to turn three stations who were doing reasonably well in their own niche into three complete failures.
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You can have Coke and Pepsi.
You can have NRL and AFL.
You can have Apple and Samsung.
You can have 2GB and 2UE.
2GB/3AW/4BC’s ratings have not skyrocketed since TL was introduced. So you can have two AM stations successfully existing without fear of cannibalising each other.
MML’s answer is right in front of them.
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strong text i ljke bOTHh NRL & AFL, i like bith CokE & pepsi, I like 2GB & 2UE while i am in SYdney iti s hopefully going tO be soon, i love 1116 SEN in melbourne
Look at Kia and Hyundai. They have bloomed after joining forces. Nothing wrong with internal competition .
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Exactly right. Although not a commercial enterprise, BBC has said in the past that they don’t care if Radio 1 and Radio 2 compete for listeners. This was in answer to some criticism a few years ago when Radio 2 went a bit younger with some of their music.
A bit obscure but Northwest Airlines and KLM (who had a joint venture) also once famously said they didn’t care if you crossed the Atlantic on a plane with a blue tail or a red tail, as long as it was one or the other.
MML wouldn’t have a clue.
ATalking Lifestyle joins the List of Australian Radio Disasters including:
Melbourne Talk Radio - MTR 1377,
CBC Network combining 2UE and 3AK,
Lite and Easy in Sydney & Brisbane,
4BH attempting a Talk Format,
5DN’s Unsuccessful FM Experiment which we’re named Radio 102 - Sounds Like Adelaide to me & X102, Not to Mention SEN’s Adelaide Abortion.
6IX becoming 1080 The Eagle,
4BC axing local Announcers,
3XY’s transplant to Geelong which soon AWA bought the Licence, Closed it Down & Returned it to Melbourne as 3EE The Breeze, and last but not Least:
Gold 1269 & Kick AM in Sydney.
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MTR1377 - Melbourne Talk Radio
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'Gold 1269" had respectable ratings
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You can have 2GB and ABC. 2UE would be the third wheel.
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It was led by Grant Goldman, Sam Gales and Gareth McRay. If only they kept with it.
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A very wobbly 3rd wheel at that.
You can add a 4th with 2SM, which is just as wobbly.
At least 2SM understands the importance of building a heritage lineup.
The main reason for 2UE (and to somewhat extent 2DayFM) has been the chopping and changing of shows.
Just pick a lineup and stick to it.
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I think @tamago_otoko is absolutely right on the Barassi line issue. Assuming a bias to NRL (given Macquarie are Sydney based and two of three stations are north of the Barassi line), I think the outcomes in Sydney and Brisbane will be broadly similar and Melbourne will fail.
For Sydney, an SEN style market share with Sky (2KY) the equivalent of RSN(3UZ), this means no real change to its current ratings of 3.5 (maybe 4.0 max, not dissimilar to what SEN achieves) - just a shuffle of listeners to 2GB with a small transfer from 2MMM and Sky. On a combined basis, hard to see any significant growth for Macquarie.
For Brisbane, in theory with less stations, 4BH should rate higher, but I am expecting the networking will deter listeners. So a 3.0 share with listeners dragged from 4BC and 4MMM. On a combined basis, Macquarie should get ahead.
For Melbourne, as pointed out above SEN is established making 3EE’s task degree of difficulty high without even taking into account the Barassi line issue. Whilst it may pick up some of the listeners disappointed with Hutchy’s axing of a number of SEN commentators, Hutchy still has a fair ownership of sporting media rights that may limit what can be broadcast on 3EE. As I understand Crocmedia has already transferred a few programs from RSN to SEN, so I can’t see why he would be prepared to share any other media rights with competitor, especially given the ownership of 3MP. Bottom line, maybe 0.5 - 1.0 market share with it dragged from all stations. I do not expect a huge impact on SEN. Ultimately, I think 3EE will have to revert to a music format (“the new Magic”) if it wants to make any inroads.
Its interesting to compare the actions of the then management team at PSN when the MTR joint venture started - they transferred 3MP’s music format to MyMP on DAB, making it easier to transfer back to 3MP when MTR was terminated. If only they had contingency planning like that at Macquarie - Magic could have been operating on DAB with a recommencement on AM just a flick of the switch away…
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The Barassi line is virtually the same as the TV aggregation line.
Deniliquin is a great example. It is a reasonable distance inside NSW but would be south of the Barassi line by virtue of the fact that they have always received Victorian TV which would have had a major influence on their football tastes.
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Wagga Wagga would be the main exception. They tend to be more AFL oriented despite receiving NSW TV.
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I think Wagga Wagga is pretty equal football wise.
I think it should be noted that ABC Local Radio takes NSW Grandstand (though down the road 2CO Corowa takes the Victorian Grandstand), and Prime7 takes the Sydney based AFL programming (when there’s no reason why they couldn’t link up with the Melbourne feed for this if they wanted to).
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I once lived half way between Echuca and Deni (a town called Mathoura)
Although technically we were in NSW we considered ourselves victorian. We had a daily bus to Melbourne (Nothing to Sydney). We were 800km to Sydney but only 260 to Melbourne.
We had TV out of Melbourne (AFL Footy Show was shown first thursday nights) , radio was generally out of echucha or moama and honestly, given the choice we would have voted to move the border to put us in VIC
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Deni also is technically in Victoria because the railway out of there is BG (Broad Gauge) and controlled by Victoria. The CFA also go to Deni for major fires.
2QN gets most of their programs from 3AW and the local TV station is a Victorian station.
Deni also gets the Herald Sun and The Age from Melbourne.
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Deniliquin has always been covered by Victorian TV even before aggregation, they had a translator of GMV6 on channel 10. The ABC repeater on channel 9 was from NSW and had NSW news at 7pm. So you had the choice of NSW news on one channel and Victorian news on the other. Also if you go into the Riverina you often see signs for Victorian papers such as the Age and the Herald Sun outside newsagents, even in places such as Wagga and Narrandera.
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Somebody made a mistake and the border became the Murray.
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