I reckon Trev suits Easy Breakfast nicely. I am a Tim Webster fan but he is more of a talker and buried over on 2CH DAB. I much prefer the new Easy Music 2UE mix versus 2CH. Yesterday on 2CH breakfast Tim played JJ Cale’s “Cocaine”. I mean who wants that for breakfast?
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I’m still getting a lovely surprise when I hear announcers doing localised (even if not live) talk breaks. Yes, some are heavily scripted, but it’s definitely got more life than what Nine ever gave it.
… Who else recalls when Nine made a mention of potentially introducing more announcers as time went by. How’d that end up working for them? A music network across 3 cities and only two announcers.
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A waxwork figure at the museum has more life than Nine gave their music network. They couldnt be bothered and ran it deader than a dodo to protect the Talk network. Smartest call of all time to lease to Ace. Both have good upside if this thing works out.
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It was more of a case of the available resources were all dedicated to the talk network, which makes sense considering it’s the money maker.
If they were worried about the music stations taking listeners from the talk stations they wouldn’t have accepted ACE’s proposal to run them.
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You are right nine radio music stations were run on the smell of an oily rag. It’s amazing how Magic 1278 was left to decay and not improve on radio ratings performance especially down the Melbourne end with no promotion or advertising of the station as all programming networked out of Sydney. As the ratings show since the failure of the sporting format and the dreaded talking lifestyle the stations have rebuilt some traction in the ratings with 2ue & 4bh around 2.4 and Magic 1. since feb 2020.
The rebirth of 3MP from June 2020 has been a blessing in disguise as 3MP has improved and on the rise with its performance and easy listening format.
Nine leasing the stations to Ace Radio is the best thing that has ever happened as you only have to hear the difference in each station since the takeover from last Friday with a more professional outfit running these stations.
Magic 1278 will now get the localised attention that’s been missing since 2015?.
3MP and Magic will complement each other as not directly head to head with its easy listening and classic hits formats.
I have been listening to the new Magic 1278 under Ace radio since last Friday and impressed with the injection of some local announcers from the ace stable.
Listening in the breakfast shift with Len johns some time calls up to date information what’s going on in the news and mixed with the classic hits 10 in row…
What have we been missing down here?
At least now we have some localised announcer’s for 18 hours a day and not the skeleton crew from the previous management networking from Sydney.
We have the juggernaut 3AW and the Minnow Magic 1278 in the same building and floor of media house in Melbourne.
Does anyone know now that ace radio has taken over whether Magic 1278 will be broadcast out of there South Melbourne studios or one of there regional one’s as I don’t think they will use the old magic studio as management has now changed.
I think ace is on a winner here as improvement will grow and these newly acquired stations will get back to some form of glory when they were very successful in there own right.
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ACE are actually making the most of modern technologies here. They use the Zetta playout system which allows the presenters to run the station from all different locations. No content is 100% live, so there doesn’t need to be central point apart from a computer running Zetta, which could be at any on their offices around Victoria, or even at the transmitter site.
I understand that Len Johns is in Swan Hill, and Greg Allen is in Traralgon. They would be “live” for part of their shifts, but not the full 6 hours. Also for Len, he’s on air 6 days a week, so Saturday is probably fully voice tracked. The most live the get is recording the breaks for playout a few minutes later.
Across the whole network, I think the only presenters who would need a studio are Livinia Nixon, Gavin Miller, Mardi Cole and Gareth McCray.
Trevor Sinclair and Dave Ferguson have home studios. The others work at the ACE regional stations, so would use studios there.
In Melbourne, I don’t actually know what facilities they have in South Melbourne. It was just a sales office, but they could have added a studio now. If so, the Melbourne based announcers would use that. Otherwise, and for Sydney (and Brisbane if necessary later) I would imagine the agreement with Nine would give studio access. Since they don’t need a studio in each city 24/7 it would be a waste of money to set one up.
I don’t even think they’re going to have sales offices in Sydney and Brisbane. They have setup 1300 numbers that go to Melbourne, and the small number of sales staff can work from home.
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They were advertising for a Sydney-based sales executive though earlier in the month. Not sure Brisbane.
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Is Trevor or John & Julie taking calls or soliciting for calls during brekkie?
Jon & Julie do. They have a game they play around 8am that they get people to call in for. Haven’t listened much at other times.
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They have advertised for sales positions in both Sydney and Brisbane so you would think there is at least a sales office in both cities, or it would be autonomous and work from home.
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Ace bought 2QN Deniliquin and 3NE Wangaratta and their associated FM stations a few years back. One of the things I remember about 2QN and Classic Rock FM (as it was known in 2009) was that both stations were broadcast from Deniliquin, but the FM breakfast host usually worked from a poky little studio at the back of the Echuca sales office and either went live via tieline to Deni or voicetracked a few minutes ahead of time. From memory they voicetracked a shift for Wangaratta too.
It’s amazing how little space a decent studio can take. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ace have mini studios in most of their locations. Even if they don’t broadcast from them, having facilities available for local staff to lend their voices to commercial production across the network is invaluable in making sure commercials don’t all blend together in the minds of listeners.
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Available resources or Preferred resources? Nine Entertainment is a huge business with deep pockets. The fact they put their resources into the Talk network and neglected the Non-Talk (music) network meant of course the music network could never be a money maker. Contrast this with ARN who resource KIIS and Pure Gold both well and make them openly compete with each other.
Is Mardi Cole back on air? Last time I heard her she was doing traffic for ATN?
I’d have to admit I really like the new format ACE are running with 2UE. I listened online last week and it was good. There’s still a few bugs in the system but I think you can see 2UE take some share off some of the FM’s in Sydney.
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With a good quality mic and the use of programs like audacity, even from a room in a house with simple sound proofing like blankets over windows, you can record your voice tracks easily. Just then VPN into the Zetta system and upload the breaks.
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The music mix on 2UE is great, better than the old format. The Announcers sound good and the production is slick.
It’s interesting to note that the log for 2UE and 4BH is different to that from 3MP, so ACE are running 4 logs in the metro markets.
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- 2UE and 4BH are the same (just time shifted because of daylight savings)
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@webguy makes logical sense. I think ACE are really doing some great things. I hope their 3MP ratings improve in 2022. They deserve it.
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Last time I checked 2UE was running the same as 3MP
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Agree with the earlier sentiments regarding Magic and 3MP. Its great to have announcers on weekends and nights again. The music has greatly improved. Even 3MP over the last 2 weeks has improved greatly. They are playing a wider variety and not as many dreary boring songs. Hopefully the ratings will reflect this.
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Sorry I meant to say 3 logs! One for Magic, one for 3MP and one for 2UE & 4BH.
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