Nine Radio (Music)

MacQuarue Sports Radio In February 2019 I read is likely to do crossovers with Nine’s Wide OF Sports this might mean Wide World Of Sportrs Talent and MSR’s Talent may well be shared by MSR & WWOS & MSR’s name may/will be changed to NIne’s Wide World Of Sports Radio Mark Levy & Mark Riddell ar at bit 2GB & MSR

If Sophie Monk was a Bachelorette and the Honey Badger was a Bachelor, don’t rule that out.

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I did once listen to a league game it was pretty good. I think it is good breeding ground for next gen. Of sports commentators.

I am sure the likes of Nick Bennett (filling in at 2ch), Rob Duckworth, Tim Webster, Mike Jeffreys and even the likes of Ian Macrae and Clive Robertson are all waiting in the wings for the next format change

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I noticed he appears to be filling-in on weekdays at the moment.

Add Clinton Maynard and John Stanley to the list.

John is working across both 2GB and this disaster?

John would be waiting for a permanent gig again.

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Perhaps unkind and certainly not in the Christmas spirit but I always blamed Clinton Maynard as being the main instigator of the Talking Lifestyle format as his afternoon programme was first to trial the somewhat flawed format. I remember it being claimed as this brand new format, nowhere in the world was something similar and look how it ended up. Certainly Tim Webster also thought highly of the format and his morning programme at the time was amongst the worst of the worst. I have to agree, have all sport including the CCT on MSR and fill in the rest of the time with something compatible, whatever that may be.

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Sales and management would’ve dictated prior. He simply was the champion of it, hoping to keep his job naturally.

On a then 2UE Facebook group, Maynard was direct messaging many who criticized his show on Talking Lifestyle. He was dedicated to the cause.

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How desperate.

He’s welcome to direct message me here but will have to understand you have to take what you dish out.

TL and MSR are all disasters. Incorrect format choices by ego driven, intelligence bereft management who don’t understand the benefit of two successful stations.

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I can’t imagine SCA, ARN and Nova purposely letting one of their stations die in an attempt to benefit the other.

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I think it’s you people who don’t understand commercial radio and how it works.

I’m no fan of either format they’ve tried but it makes perfect sense to offer an alternative to 2GB/3AW/4BC.

You don’t see ARN offering 2 classic hits radio stations in the same market, just as don’t see SCA offerings 2 versions of CHR.

It takes time to find the right format, Nova struggled with Vega and the formats that followed for quite a few years before lucking out with Smooth which required no real investment other than a clever music director.

And by the way Clinton Maynard is a smart, dedicated journalist who was doing his job. If you’ve got a young family and bills to pay you don’t walk out and you don’t give the boss a mouthful.

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The music they had in Brisbane and Melbourne was an alternative to 3AW and 4BC and was rating higher.

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I don’t think anyone’s disputing the fact that any radio broadcaster with two analogue stations should program them with two separate formats.

But from what I can tell, the FM networks seem like they’d be happy to have either (or better yet, both) of their stations rating well. ARN here in Sydney, I think they’d be happy if either KIIS or WSFM was the #1 station. Even though 96.9 and 100.3 are their main stations for Sydney & Melbourne, I’m sure Nova Entertainment would be happy that Smooth 95.3/91.5 has been enjoying ratings success in recent years.

MRN on the other hand, I somehow get the distinct impression that they’d probably prefer their audience to listen to their main talk stations (ie, 2GB/3AW/4BC/6PR) rather than the secondary service. May explain why sold 2CH and killed off the higher rating music alternative in Melbourne/Brisbane.

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That’s true, but there are several reasons why they were never going to persist with that;

(1) Macquarie is a talk network, they’re going to do what they know (or think they know)

(2) They want to maximise network synergies and since 2UE couldn’t go music they took the other 2 stations to talk (I’m assuming there was a contractual caveat on the sale of 2CH that would have prevented a competing music station)

(3) Music on AM is dying. No want would launch a new music station on AM. Heritage is different but still heading in that direction. And DAB isn’t coming quickly enough.

(4) There’s little point in launching a station that’s little more than an iPod on shuffle. Even music stations pepper on air with a variety of other offerings including comedy and personalities etc.

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Exactly. I read something recently quoting a Nova exec saying they see Nova and Smooth as truly complementary and don’t care if people switch between the two. He was making the case that sometimes when people switch stations they’re looking for something quite different and not a similar station. It’s a mature approach.

Also when BBC Radio 2 started to skew a bit younger they were asked weren’t they worried it would cannibalise audience from Radio 1. They basically said they wanted Radio 1 and 2 to actually compete.

I also recall when Northwest Airlines and KLM had a very deep airline alliance back in the 90s the head of one of them said he didn’t care if passengers flew across the Atlantic on a plane with a blue tail or red tail, as long it was one or the other.

If only Macquarie was as smart.

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I don’t really agree with (3) or (4). I think DAB+ is coming just fast enough to complement an AM music station. And I think there is a market for music stations that just play music and don’t clutter it up with talk and “comedy” - just as Smooth listeners. That’s why they should have left 4BH as an easy listening station and pushed the DAB+ aspect. 4BH used to rate 7-8% not that long ago in the same competitive market. Now it rates less than 1%. If they’d left it alone it would still be rating 7% or more. Surely that would be better?? How can anyone argue that. It would have been tougher for Magic in Melbourne with Smooth on FM there but you can’t seriously think that if they left that as is it still wouldn’t be up in the 3 - 4% mark, as opposed to where they are now - zero% or close enough.

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Fair enough IF DAB is moving as fast as you say.

I’m skeptical, The Australian experience seems to me to be very much the poor cousin of the UK for example where, I think, about 40% of primary listening is on digital.

As for purely music stations, I still reckon there’s not much point… most people want added value or something extra, otherwise use your iPod or Spotify or whatever.

But I’m happy to be proven wrong

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