It’s a shame Magic 1278 isn’t rating better. The music is good and the station is pleasant to listen to. I suppose there is no accounting for taste good or bad as the large audience for Channels 7 and 9 News every night proves. 
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The Magic branding really doesn’t help. Magic means the ‘hits and memories’ stuff to most people, rather than the classic hits station it is now.
Using the name for the brand recognition is pointless when the brand was so associated with something else.
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How cheeky could they be and use 3CH?
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Absolutely agree! The brand is probably turning potential listeners away because of what it was, rather than what it is now. They should have gone with something like The Sound or just Classic Hits 1278
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Or just 3EE 
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I don’t think it’s the music that is the problem, it is that the personalities aren’t cutting through in a highly-competitive market. They need to rejig their line-up and promote the station as much possible. Yes, it will cost money, but Sydney and Melbourne are up there with the most competitive radio markets in the world. Grubby and Dee Dee, or Bridg and Lehmo in breakfast, may help them. Or another high-profile breakfast team.
Melbourne is also one of the hardest markets due to the AFL obsession of the city.
Smooth have shown that getting the line-up right with well-known presenters, with good music, can work, and if Magic follows this formula, it too can gain listeners and market share. They’ve got the music right, it’s just the line-up and marketing/promotions that they need to work on. 3MP also has good music, however the AM signal is poor throughout most of Melbourne, despite it being on DAB, which doesn’t help.
Would be good to use a call sign with a semblance to the content if it has no historic importance.
Classic Hits 3CH 1278
Yea, I also don’t think they’ve just carbon copied 4KQ. While 4BH is pretty good (certainly sounds better than when 9 Radio were operating it), there’s still some things that 4KQ had like the daily themed segments (e.g. Classic 9@9) that made it sound a little more ‘alive’ and with a ‘cheeky personality’ (hard to pick the right words to describe what I’m trying to say).
The 4KQ announcers were probably also on air a touch more than the current 4BH announcers are and had a little more to say (although I’ll give credit that at least when I listen, I’ve noticed that even the interstate announcers on 4BH at least pronounce the suburbs right when referencing them, so that level of detail has been done well).
With the increased ratings for 4BH, that hopefully should bring in increased advertising and therefore increased dollars, so maybe in the future they’ll be able to invest in more purely local announcers who can be live and staff to work on some of those more time consuming to put together type of music segments like the Classic 9@9 was etc. (if they want to). The recent ratings news has got to be the start (or maybe a continuation) of a positive feedback loop I’d think. 
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Livinia Nixon should plug/advertise her Magic 1278 weekend afternoons gig doing her weather reports on Nine News
That should not be that hard for her to do
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Yes I agree with all that. The thing with 4KQ and the announcers there was always a bit of a sense of the unexpected in what they would say or play. That’s a bit lacking with 4BH at this stage and it does feel a little less ‘alive’.
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Agreed that the announcers need to be more lively- however I think they should stick to single announcer lineups even at breakfast. Get an old time jock from the 80s or 90s that might still be active to host breakfast and keep it tight with not much talk between the songs and ads. Duos or teams run the risk of being talkfests like every other breakfast show.
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Yeh you can’t beat the original. Still, they now have taken the classic hits position and it should get an audience. Shame Ace didn’t get to buy 4KQ . They had a solid team that rated well.
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Didn’t they get Bbq Bob or has he left already??
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Yeah BBQ Bob does breakfast. He’s just on leave this week.
It would also help if the presenters were local not shared between all the Nine music stations.
Shame Ace/Nine and SEN couldn’t have come to an agreement to keep 693 as the music station (now 4BH) and make SEN 1116 just like it is in Melbourne. Would have allowed the music listeners to stay on 693 and saved a lot on marketing in Brisbane for SEN.
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In the case of 4BH, the shifts that had the biggest increases were not by Brisbane based presenters.
Ace should make Magic 1278 play Yesterdays Memories and Todays Hits. ie songs from 60’s to now instead of restricting just to 60-80’s only
3EE Yesterdays Memories and Today’s Hits 1278
How does that sound?
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I dont like the 3EE call sign. They should spend some money and buy the 3XY call sign from Radio Hellas and rebadge Magic as 3XY rocking Melbourne an go back to their Heritage Playlists and formats.
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