As of Thursday afyer the apprival of of ,merger between nione entertianment and fairfax Media the advertosing Campaign witjj ciome to pass
ARN seems to be helping Macquarie Sports Radio by promoting MSR on IHeartRadio. This may help MSR in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
I have to admire your optimism Jason.
Personally though, I think it’s over for MSR.
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I’d personally be willing to predict that the ratings of Macquarie Sports Radio will be at or below 0.5% in the Sydney market before the end of this year.
Even Talking Lifestyle still had former 2UE programs/personalities but now just about all them are gone, it’s fast becoming a “Wow, that’s still on the air?” station in this market. So sad when 954AM used to be a Sydney institution!
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I wish 954 to also do well but the reality it is not. There could of been smarter ways to make it more of a sports station. Like they could of kept the sports today program. Instead putting the cricket on nts, put it on 954. Move the nrl to 2ue, have more sports programming on the weekend.
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I agree they could have done it better. But in my view there simply isn’t enough of a market for sports stations in Sydney or Brisbane in particular. Sports mad Melbourne can support 1 or 1.5 at best - and they already have 2.
Sydney can probably support Sky Sports but not another one.
Brisbane is barely interested in 4BC let alone a sports station.
First rule for business success - identify your market. For MSR, there simply isn’t one.
People watch sport on TV and if they can’t get to their TV they can watch it on their mobile phone. The only market they have is people who are driving around or in some work situations and that’s simply not enough people - as the ratings show.
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Sports fans like myself i identify MSR’s Market
Yes I know that Jason but there just aren’t enough of you I’m afraid.
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There are more in Melbourne & perth mabye in Brisbane but not as many in Sydney.
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.
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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.
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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.
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1981 With A Bullet was a great album! 
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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 |
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In Sydney MSR makes Talking Lifestyle look like it was a successful format
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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%
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It must take a special kind of management prowess to turn away 88-89 per cent of the audience 
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…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.
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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.
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