If they do end up selling it to Ace at some point in the future, surely one of the conditions would be to keep it as a music format and to not launch a talk format.
Yes, it’s likely this will cease.
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True. I’m surprised they’ve never put 5AA national on DAB.
I very mixed on this too. I don’t know why the networks haven’t done a DAB only station like this. They do fil a gap even when 2CH was around on the AM Band. It is different enough from 2CH’s format.
Why? It’s very Adelaide centric.
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The toe in the water is more SCA running Australia Today on DAB nationally.
If that’s successful you’d think they could build a talk brand around it.
5AA is more or less just an off brand member of Nine’s network - don’t Nine do national ad sales for them?
To be more on topic, 6GT is an interesting question. Given Ace are getting involved to presumably run a full service radio station and not a jukebox, it becomes harder to run a DAB only station. Maybe it will just become Magic and fully network the Melbourne station to be as cheap as possible.
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They could introduce some more “national” programming segments.
The point is it would cost them nothing to have a national talk network based on 5AA, if they wanted it.
Except every listener in Adelaide who actually wants to listen to Adelaide content?
It wouldn’t have to be all the same content! There could still be Adelaide specific content on 5AA in Adelaide and national content on “Double A” on the DAB stations in other capitals. Shared national content at night. Networks don’t need to be always having exactly the same content.
But you said it would cost nothing. Creating separate different content will cost something. Possibly a lot for a tiny audience.
Ok whatever.
If the national content was from Sky it would be next to nothing.
Even if they did just rebroadcast 5AA as is across the country it would still be a basis of a national talk network and cost them nothing.
Anyway it’s just an idea, and you can’t tell me it has never crossed their mind.
Wonder how ACE would differentiate Magic and 3mp. Also Ace does have some talk content. Could they have some more shows on some of their channels.
Could be an indication as to why they’ve signed the Coodabeens. Could move them back to 1278 on Saturday mornings. Their old home on the dial.
Smooth Relax is a station that fills the gap, and there are 2 easy listening 80s stations - Easy 80s and Smooth 80s. WSFM/Gold 80s is more rock and classic hits oriented and then you have Triple M classic rock, so I do think this market is catered for.
But NOVA don’t have enough available capacity for a station like this, as it is filled with the new Nova and Smooth digital stations as well as Radio Maria.
Drawing a long bow there. Nova Entertainment aren’t actually owned by News Corp and have no affiliation with News Corp.
“Sky News Radio” or something similar is a pipe dream.
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Don’t get me wrong, I would never want Sky News polluting the airwaves personally. But I don’t think it can be ruled out.
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Obviously I meant they would have to sacrifice one of them to do it.
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Well said. Although the lack of advertising/talk breaks on the Nine Music stations (soon to be Nine-ACE Music Stations?) are probably OK from a listener perspective, it’s probably not so good from a profitability point of view.
If we’re being realistic, even ACE Radio only deciding to introduce live, local breakfast shows + voicetracked shifts in other daylight hours would be a major improvement on how the Nine Music stations are programmed at the moment.
Certainly I can’t imagine too many people shedding tears for the demise of the current Nine Music breakfast show(s)!
News Corp are also a major shareholder in HT&E, parent company of ARN.
That said, I don’t think there’s a particularly major News Corp influence evident in the news services or overall content of ARN’s predominately music-based stations.
Agreed.
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They might be the third biggest shareholder, but that only gives them a 14.8% holding. Not enough to get them any real influence.
They can’t increase that much because Lachlan would exceed control limits if they went over 14.9%.
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From what I’ve heard of 3MP they seem to do it well and it doesn’t have that air of something taped weeks ago. Whereas listening to Magic the voice tracking was so generic you just knew it was taped weeks (or longer) earlier?
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Going way off topic but i’m kinda surprised they’re not supplying a radio news service to anybody who wants it (I think Nine does quite well out of its radio syndication arm).
Nothing stopping them from supplying Bolt and Jones for syndication right now (at least for regional commercial stations).
I wonder if we’ll see the Coodabeens on these “new” stations? Can’t see an AFL centric show doing that well in Sydney or Brisbane though unless it was played overnight or in a non-peak time.
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