I really hope not. Another distorted audio foreign language station is not what the AM dial needs!
The licenses would have at least some commercial value. They could be sold with a “do not compete” provision to protect their precious 2GB and 3AW. Not that anything is likely to unrust the dials of those listeners.
Can they do this? It’s a restraint of trade in my view.
Not forever, but they could have a non-compete clause for a set period of say a year or two. Usually it would be justified by a discount on the sale price.
A few years back a 2GB executive, now ex 2GB executive told me that all they were really interested in was 3AW and 4BC. They didn’t want 2UE, the Melbourne and Brisbane music stations and 6PR was just too far away.
No doubt a lot of ideas would had been bandied around but 3AW and 4BC would take Sydney from 6pm until 530am and also afternoons with breakfast, mornings, drive and most weekends would have stayed local but possibly not in Brisbane.
They would have kept 2CH and if needed (in the short term) would have sent the same programming to the Melbourne and Brisbane music stations and just tweet them with local news, traffic and advertising.
Whilst 2UE was doing poorly at the time they realised it possibly could have bounced back with clever programming from the likes of the Brennan family. Peter on deck in Greenwich and father John pulling strings at home in retirement.
Well things didn’t quite work out like that but would have been interesting to have seen what Fairfax would have done with the unwanted frequencies.
I’d say that mentality has stuck with the current situation at MML.
Look at 4BC and look at the amount of networking into 3AW.
Talking Lifestyle is like the unplanned/mistake child that you just have to deal with. The way TL is being programmed and treated, the management at MML could’ve practically played Wham on loop if they really wanted to.
There’s no doubt if they are to continue to keep the TL format that it will only mean more axings, more replayed/recorded content, and more automation.
They may as well admit defeat and only keep Breakfast and George and Paul.
If only EON could buy the network and restore it like they’ve done with 2CH. That network seems to understand the importance of a radio brand.
But is 2CH actually profitable. I am a tad disappointed they have not jazzed it up a bit.
Would probably rate higher than a 0.3 in Melbourne 
It’s early days, we don’t know the specifics of the sale agreement, there may be some restrictive clauses preventing more rapid change.
That’s true - but often these agreements work both ways. From EON’s point of view, they may have insisted that 2UE be prohibited from offering a music station with a 2CH style format.
Given the synergies from networking, that might even be the reason why 3EE and 4BH ceased to have music formats. Maybe Macquarie has launched TL as a programming option (see what it does approach) whilst they are restricted from a Magic style format in Sydney and they are just waiting anxiously for the clock to expire…
I wish they would make these clauses public. Like the John Laws one. As soon as it expired he went to 2sm.
Prompts advertiser and listener uncertainty. There’s no way they would dream of it.
I can’t see MM launching a Magic format on 954 in Sydney after dumping it in MEL and BNE.
I would love to be wrong here though!
Actually I hadn’t thought of that. It’s entirely possible. Possibly a long shot but who knows, 2UE/3EE/4BH might rebirth with a music format after all. Or even a BBC2 format 
Given back to the ACMA and turned back into noise.
They’d sell it off if they wanted to get rid of it. No point handing the licence back to ACMA and get zero.
If the licences were handed back, ACMA may auction them off to the highest bidder. If government policy is a specific number of commercial radio stations in each city, why would ACMA and the government allow a company to shutdown a service permanently?
I wonder what would be more valuable these days: 954AM Sydney/1278AM Melbourne/882 Brisbane or the bandwidth that Talking Lifestyle uses on DAB+ in those markets?
I’d say 954, simply because it’s in Australia’s biggest city and has a good signal across Sydney. It’s also worth keeping in mind that 3AW vacated 1278 due to signal issues.
even with the signal issues, 3AW was still #1 in the ratings when it was on 1278, In fact their ratings took a bit of a dip for the first few surveys after switching to 693. But they did recover.
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