But they could lease the 882 Frequency to Sports Entertainment Network as Lions Matches are heard on that Frequency.
And the moment SEN offer them enough money, I’m sure they could.
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They absolutely will see that as valuable, especially as it provides them a close-to national metro footprint (Bris, Syd, Mel, Per) for any future stations they could launch.
NTS was something that was inherited and I’m surprised it’s still on-air considering no-one is listening to it. It probably doesn’t cost them much. In the long-term Nine will probably close it down and lease the 32 kbs to another organisation/operator for extra revenue.
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The music stations like 4BH/2UE/Magic despite them not rating well, are very cheap to run and give Nine 2 stations in the 3 major east coast markets, so they are prized assets.
I think Nine will eventually add 2 more on-air announcers (12-6pm and 6pm-midnight, Mon-Fri) if ratings improve, especially in Sydney.
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Noticed that Stevie is now billed 6-10am rather than 6am-12 noon as previously.
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That’s what frustrates me about what they’re doing with 4BH. They’ve taken no account for the what’s already in the market - eg 4KQ.
The music should be differentiated on 4BH, not a copy of 4KQ.
4BH should have an easy listening format. That’s the format that’s missing in Brisbane and that’s what 4BH used to be! So frustrating.
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Hopefully to make room for a daytime announcer.
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I think they chose their format based on what was missing in the Sydney market. At the time 2CH was playing easy listening and also on AM in Sydney. My guess is it is being run out of the Sydney studios with the same playlist in all 4 markets.
You wouldn’t blame them for doing this, as Sydney is the most important radio market, economically and financially speaking.
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2CH was running their “Classic Hits” format in Early 2020 when the current version of 2UE launched?
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And to some extent 3MP have now set their format to counter what Magic is doing - meaning they all have found space.
Can’t see 4BH getting their own format, as much as it would make sense. Indeed it’d probably fit better on DAB in Perth with a format like that, to get away from 6IX.
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Actually Melbourne is the largest market for advertising revenue in Australia at present (March quarter 2021).
Regardless it doesn’t make sense to run a format in Brisbane that’s never going to succeed against a dominant player like 4KQ. The gap in Brisbane is easy listening.
Surely it’s not that hard to run a different music log in each east coast capital city. It’s all pre-recorded anyway, nothing is live.
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But they could offload the 882 Frequency anyway and 4BH broadcast on DAB+ quite like 2CH did.
At present, yes, but traditionally Sydney has been the larger radio market and the most important for national media companies. You just have to look at the prices paid by DMG Radio for the 96.9 and 95.3 frequencies, compared to what they paid in Melbourne.
That’s not how national networks work. Most of the national networks are run out of Sydney including Nova, Smooth, The Edge, Triple J and Double J, as well as 2UE/Magic/4BH, so it’s not about individual cities, it’s about national programming.
A similar situation happened with Nova not too long ago, where the playlist became the same across all metro cities, even though Brisbane was more suited to an edgier format (its ratings reflected this in its golden period of 2005-2009).
This is not being arrogant, it is just an economic fact of life.
The same applies in the UK, most of the national networks are run out of London as it is the dominant and most important market there. Ditto Auckland in NZ.
Also, don’t forget, Nine is not just in the radio business, they are also in the TV and newspaper business, so radio is just one part of a much larger business, and Sydney is the largest market if you include all media.
Nine won’t sell 4BH.
SEN’s best chance to get a Brisbane-wide AM license is to buy 4TAB 1008 and that is also unlikely.
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Yes, but it was still a lot more ‘easy listening’ then 2UE. When 2UE launched they were playing 70s, 80s, & 90s, then over time they moved to focus on the 70s and 80s.
While this is true, I still think it’s important for radio networks with local stations in each city to take into consideration individual market dynamics when programming music stations.
In Brisbane, 4BH needs an Easy Listening format as a point of difference to 4KQ.
In Melbourne, Magic 1278 would probably benefit from a Classic Hits format as a point of difference to 3MP.
Meanwhile, the current music format of 2UE 954 is probably just about right for Sydney although I’d personally like to see (or more to the point, hear) a few announcers brought in so the station doesn’t sound completely automated.
Let’s be realistic here: The chances of 2CH returning to 1170AM Sydney are probably far higher than Brisbane ever getting SEN 882!
It’d certainly be fair to say that 2CH did (and possibly still does, with the DAB+ only channel) have way more of an Easy Listening edge than 2UE.
But on the whole, I don’t think the music formats were overly different to each other.
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20 years ago. Melbourne will soon become the largest city overall, and the largest media market, largely already.
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Is a Katoomba radio station that happens to be carried nationally on DAB+. It’s no network.
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Tell that to ARN who run completely different music across the different capital cities on both their KIIS and Pure Gold networks. Or SCA who run different playlists on Triple M in both metro and regional stations.
Networks do not have to have exactly the same music format. It’s more laziness than an economic fact of life.
Also the ‘dominance’ of Sydney is overrated and is nowhere near the same as London or Auckland in their respective countries. Sydney and Melbourne are basically the same size, and both are only twice the size of Brisbane. London is about 3 or 4 times the size of Manchester or Birmingham, the next biggest cities. Auckland is more than 4 times the size of Christchurch.
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The Easy Listening Format hit it’s Peak in the 70’s when it was Beautiful Music, Unfortunately that Format is now Mostly Lounge music.
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