Nine Radio (Music)

Yeah I think as a general topic, if you own a radio licence it should be clean, you can choose whatever format you like.

Maybe the agreements are not written but done under the table like Channel 9 NOT choosing to broadcast Saturday night rugby league (until the final rounds), Seven choosing not bringing one day the men’s international cricket. So keep a good relationship with News Limited etc. In this case 2CH has an unwritten agreement with Macquarie. Starting to sound like a conspirator :slight_smile: . We don’t see the contracts, so its all speculation. That is what mediaspy is for I guess.

The ideal pure market place is not so pure and never was :slight_smile:.

John Laws just went on a rant on his morning show about Russell Tate and what he has done with the once famous 2UE.

He then went on to talk about the merger of newsrooms and then the trouble with the Today Show.

2 Likes

The demise of 2UE is as tragic as the demise of 2SM. Both are now wastelands.

9 Likes

Only difference (as mentioned above) is at least 2SM can hang onto its heritage name and still have a balance of talk and sport.

2UE should leverage from this and do it even better… which they were doing in the later years prior to the merger with 2GB. Under the UE banner they still broadcast cricket and AFL no dramas.

3 Likes

Agree with this, 2sm is not everyone’s cup of tea, but one thing that stands out (compared to other stations), it is stable with it’s on air staff personnel. There has NOT been much change in personnel when compared to 2ue. I think the biggest change was John Laws going on 2SM and some more live sport. There were changes with the weekend announcers, yet the weekday shows have been stable (just Talking sport had one hour less was the only recent change).

2ue could just do it better.

1 Like

Correct. Better the amateur sounding station you know, than the constantly changing station you don’t.

It would be great if they could rebroadcast the NZ cricket season too on MSR. I guess they have the Melbourne cup. I am not sure if the South African summer they could also bring that cricket (I think it is 2000 FM in SA). Potentially Shield cricket too. I know not everyone loves cricket but having live sport on as much as possible might be a good approach.

No mention of Macquarie Sport Radio?

4 Likes

Race 4 from Flemington sounded like it was on a delay whilst flicking around the AM dial earlier. Pretty poor for live sport.

No mention at all.

2UE got a mention though. But that probably means nothing.

There seems to be a belief that there is only room for two talk stations in Sydney - 2GB and 702. That is such a limiting belief and it prevents genuine competition and innovation in the nation’s largest radio market.

In the 80s it seemed that 2UE, 2BL, 2KY and 2GB all carved out sizeable audiences.

There are so many missing talk formats in Sydney. Sure 702 has “sensible news and opinion” covered and 2GB has the “outraged, right wing, silent majority, anti-government, hate fuelled, we love grey hound and horse maltreatment” over 60s audience glued to 873.

What about rolling news or entertainment based talk? How about the 1980s and 1990s 2UE format - big presenters that all had different opinions. This in contrast to 2GB’s “we all follow Alan’s opinion” radio. Or even 100% talkback radio. Maybe younger opinion radio that focused on issues like climate change, pill testing, healthy lifestyles…an AM Triple J.

Talking Lifestyle was a bad idea done well. Macquarie Sport Radio had a six syllable name. It was a bad idea done badly.

954 can work with talk - if it is a good idea, done well.

6 Likes

Especially today with other options for music (although I prefer radio), live talkback radio is fairly unique and no other media compete. Although podcasts might be considered competition. Its pretty trendy for people to listen to podcasts, in the old days it may of been talk radio.

1 Like

I love talkback radio - crazy talk back, serious talk back, news talkback, irreverent talkback, sad talkback, complaining talkback, happy talkback, confrontational talkback, Stephanie talkback …love it all.

Sydney has 5 million souls. That’s a lot of potential talkback.

1 Like

A very valid comment.

5 million people. Surely there is room for more than just 2GB, ABC and 2SM.

1 Like

Maybe not.

When you consider Melbourne only has 1 commercial talkback station, and they have never rated strongly in other capitals.

We are just not really a talkback country.

1 Like

Generally they favour the buyer actually. For example, in the sale of a cafe, the seller may be restricted from opening another cafe nearby for a while so as to not steal customers.

MRN struggled to sell 2CH - they may have had lots of potential buyers, but most took themselves out of contention based on finances and the church relationship. MRN were in no position to dictate terms given the deadline they had to get rid of the station.

Anyhow, non compete clauses generally have limited time frames so any clause that may have been in place would most likely have expired by now.

1 Like

In relation to the future of MSR:

Malone says it’s still “too early to tell”.

What Malone did appear to reveal is that Nine isn’t married to a sports format in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and on DAB+ in Perth.

“I’ve got to get in there, have a good look around, and work out what would complement our other stations and go from there.”

5 Likes

I wish Seven had purchased MML. That would’ve meant Jason Morrison could’ve been running the radio network.

2 Likes

He can always be hired by Nine, if he wants to accept, that’s Jason’s decision.

1 Like