If Nine keep the three stations my guess is it’ll be a dumping ground for the overflow of GB/AW.
Ie if there’s a clash with AFL/NRL/cricket then it’ll be heard on MSR.
UPDATE: The SHOWS tab has been removed from the MSR website.
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Roy and HG with a more savvy manager than the largely unknowns on the rest of the roster may have different contract conditions.
The duo have a weakness for relevance deprivation syndrome, so they will want the exposure, however inconsequential the miniscule MSR share is.
Real question for the Nine board upon completion of the acquisition is, when are you doing the right thing by shareholders and initiating a profitable revenue stream these three licences as has been demonstrated for decades by successive less than wonderful owners/managements.
If not, when will the board find a buyer to realise some (the only) capital gain the licences have has in years?
The MRN board have treated the three licences plus 4BC as next to useless, penny dreadful licences without realising GB and AW are the same simply with established talent.
As I’ve written before, the MRN board were never close to the top of the radio gene pool.
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They also have a following that is likely to listen to them and not the rest of the programming on the station as well
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It does raise questions why you’d bother buying out MRN - Nine dont have the luxury of being able to close the stations, so they have to do something with them and that needs to be profitable in some respect.
On-selling some licences is an interesting option, but you’d have to wonder what value they have and whether there is actually a market for them
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I agree. Roy & HG are obviously still on air meeting their contractual agreements.
I thought other presenters would have had contracts still to run too. Seems very odd for only Roy & HG to still be on air then.
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their agent has negotiated water tight escape clauses whereas the others’ haven’t?
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Yeah I guess that would be the reason. The other contracts might have been pretty generic. Last night I listen briefly to the cricket on MSR and it seems the coverage had a lot less advertising.
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It’s rolling sports news 6:00am to 6:00pm Monday to Friday, then News Corp’s talkSPORT UK from 6:00pm. There is horse racing this week on Tuesday and Thursday, and cricket on Tuesday and Friday nights.
https://www.sportsradio.com.au/this-weekend-on-macquarie-sports-radio/
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…and who is presenting this? Just the Macquarie newsroom?
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Yes, the Macquarie Sydney Sport Reporters supplemented by the likes of Clinton Maynard and Sam Stove.
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Good on Clinton. So good that he has survived so long since the 2UE newsroom axings.
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There can be a market for ‘each’ station as opposed to there probably being no market for ‘these’ stations.
As I’ve already stated, first thing that needs doing is to unbundle this so-called network and realign each station to a different network, even if it’s Nine that retains ownership.
To suggest there is no direction for each station beside being rigidly defined as being a second Macquarie network isn’t backed up by the evidence. Compare, for example the complete collapse of 2UE with ARN’s mid-2000s relaunch of 1323 AM in Adelaide (as Cruise 1323).
It’s not even a bold prediction that this network will continue to be a ratings dead zone so long as the 24/7 tri-city networking persists.
I personally believe approaching the smaller networks like Eon, Capital and SEN aligns each station to actual opportunities pertinent to each market.
Melbourne is a particular problem for MSR and the main reason the brand needs to go. Simply move the Storm NRL games over to 1377 SEN+ and you’ve pretty much removed any need for sport on 1278. You do not need sports consuming every commercial AM licence beside 3AW. Neither do you need any further ratings reports to verify that.
And without Melbourne, it then makes sense to merge Sydney’s 954 with SEN, assuming all-sports is worth persisting with. It occurs to me that Sydney has yet to get a 24/7 sports station…for Sydney. It’s reasonably arguable that format hasn’t been tried yet.
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IMO Sydney and Brisbane are not ready for a 24/7 commercial sports radio station.
And in Melbourne, there is no room for another.
MSR needs to go. But I don’t see why they can’t keep the sporting rights in between another format.
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A curious question why does MSR 954 sound like the audio on-air is been feed by a low quality MP3 stream, I was quite surprised when I was listening to it last night because I know 2GB doesn’t sound like that and there DAB+ stream sounds ok. Call me picky but hearing that on-air is a huge turn off for me.
Its like how 2SM has a hum under it a lot of the time (Just listen to the news to get what I mean).
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Maybe 954 is now being fed by the DAB signal?
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Listening to MSR a bit this morning & all they’ve really done is canned the openline & all the interesting content.
Fair enough about axing shows & personalities to cut costs, but surely a few small comps or the occasional caller wouldn’t hurt the budget.
Now it’s 2 dimensional non-interactive radio.
I can’t see this minimalist approach lasting till next year. The announcers are going go to go mental at the sound of their own voices.
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Don’t know why Macquarie’s cricket commitments couldn’t be split between 3AW/2GB/4BC/6PR (for international matches and except in Melbourne, BBL games involving local teams) and the NTS digital station (all other BBL games)? The EPL rights could be on-sold/sub-licensed to Crocmedia if they want to get rid of them.
MSR’s rights would stick out like a sore thumb if they remained on a station which has a completely different format
100% agree. Nine could dissolve/absorb MSR into 2GB/3AW/4BC/6PR and then offload the stations.
I think (as mentioned earlier by someone else) the best option would be to sell the stations separately.
882 & 1278 could go back to easy listening, while 954 could become a PROPER commercial talkback station to take on 2GB.
Sydney has proven itself - there is no room for a sports talk station, and there is room for THREE commercial talk stations (2GB, 954 and 2SM).
I just hope Nine/whoever purchases 954 will see the value in the old 2UE brand.
… I’ve been listening on & off today and it sounds like MSR is just looping through its content. It’s “Press Conference Radio”. Simply playing back-to-back press conferences/outsourced interviews throughout the day.
I wonder if Clinton is even live in the studio right now?
This is the second time I’m hearing the Eddie Jones rugby press conference this morning.
Talk about wanting to drive away the listeners.
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