Nine Radio (Music)

Sharina claims that she picks the Melbourne Cup winner every year. Could her ‘skill’ be expanded out to footy tipping?

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That’s the joke

**strong text*To my way of thinking john, Garry, Tim, Ed, Kayley, Nick Trevor & Jonno will finish broadcasting at \Talking Lifestyle on Friday while the rest of Talking Lifestyle will Finish on Sunday like in 2003 qwhen it was announced that 3AK was to be SEN On Sunday January 17th 2014 3ak had their last day of broadcasting in Melbourne and on Monday January 18th 2014 SEN Started.

Paying OCP for 2CH’s content to be broadcast in Brisbane and Melbourne would certainly help to offset the $2.6 million annual loss 2CH is currently making.

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You may well be right. However, the point is that this is another example of Macquarie saying one thing and doing another. Why announce it’ll finish Friday if it’s then going to continue over the weekend? Just adds to the impression that they’re making it up as they go along.

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If 3AW are not only keeping but actually expanding their AFL content and 2GB keeping the NRL can anyone explain how this new outfit are going to talk Sport 24 hours a day 7 days a week.It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Indeed they are just making it up as they go along.

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strong text THIS MEANS JOHN, GARRY, TIM, ED, KAYLEY, NICK & JONNO WILL FINISH ON FRIDAY WHILE PETE GRAHAM WILL FINISH ON SATURDAY WHILE ROB DUCKWORTH AND CLINTIN MAYNARDWILL FINISH ON SUNDAY MIKA BUCHEN WEILL BE ON THE NEW SPORTS STATION MEANS SHE IS THE ONLY TALKING LIFESTYYLE PERSON WHO MACQUARIE MEDIA WILL KEEP ON THE NEW SPORTS STATION SHARINA FINISHED THIS SUNDAY THOUGH

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Looks like the “special program” is code for her final show this coming Sunday then. As I noted in a previous post, this will in one sense be quite a big deal after around 20 years on Sunday nights and surviving all sorts of station changes and formats.

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Pete Graham on Facebook:

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It now seems that it will be still Talking Lifestyle until next Monday, Matt Tukaki just concluded his show this evening stating that next Monday will be the last edition of second career.

Perhaps next Monday being a public holiday they are not wanting to launch the new format, not sure what will be on the rest of the day, Trevor Long multiple times tonight made mentions that as of Friday he would no longer be on.

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Interesting Pete did not mention 2ch in his post.

So much for last week’s announcement that the new format would launch over the Easter weekend then! Once again Macquarie changing things seemingly every 5 minutes

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Very interesting, thanks for posting. I went to look at the original on Pete’s Facebook page and the comments on his post make for interesting reading - not least a comment from Clinton Maynard saying that he still doesn’t know if he’s being kept on. I’d have thought that being the self-confessed sports nut that he is, he’d be a shoe-in for the new format. I also find it staggering that with only a week to go, the presenter line-up still isn’t sorted. How can they hope to start marketing and promoting the station if they don’t yet know what and who they are marketing and promoting. No wonder it has the air of failure before it’s even launched.

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The Monday night Second Career program wraps up next week. Therefore the Tuesday after the Easter weekend maybe when they flick the switch on the format. In my opinion, the current batch of presenters have all behaved very professionally. They are getting on with the task until they can’t anymore. I don’t care much about the details of the new format: 1278 in Melbourrne is an also-ran to SEN from day one. I’m not exactly getting excited when it’s goodbye to diversity and hello to self-imposed narrowcasting.

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Well it was Clinton Maynard that pushed for the Talking Lifestyle in the first place. He was doing Monday to Friday afternoons at the time when the format was first trialled. At the time it was introduced management proudly declared a first in the world. Is it any wonder that the whole world would have known it was doomed. I certainly think Clinton’s style has remarkably improved over the years apart for his ongoing panter of his love for the Shire and the Sharks. Perhaps he should have stayed in the newsroom where he first started.

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Clinton Maynard and Tim Webster both defended the format telling anyone who criticized it that they didn’t know what they were talking about. I copped it from Webster a couple of times.

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Over the 13 months I listened to Talking Lifestyle, I never found the actual content to be the problem. It’s more how it’s been packaged and scheduled. There’s nothing inherently wrong with so-called ‘native’ content. It’s commercial radio and even the next format is likely to engage in some of it. However, the packaging (as the TL jingle implies with “like it, need it, love it, want it”) presented the station as one long commercial reel and the scheduling didn’t encourage time-spent-listening.

Had the station been allowed to be truly complementary to 2GB and 3AW, rather than subordinate it to, the content would have been wrapped up in a more conventional package and time-clock. To blame the content (and therefore the presenters) is a scapegoat. The talent and content pool was sourced widely for this format and some of the content appears across other stations and media as proof of that.

The Brad Smart article on RadioInfo Read more at: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/macquarie’s-lifestyle-dilemma-once-more-unto-breach, I believe, isolates the true problem.

In it, he writes that the top execs do not having a radio programming background. I would also question what their marketing background is because they are not demonstrating a clear idea of how to position their second network of stations in the market.

So it’s no great surprise Mr Smart mentions that: “Figures in Macquarie’s recent annual reports suggest that their management style is more about making profits by focusing on cutting costs than driving revenues”

So is the management style to change along with the format?

Don’t count on the obsession with operational efficiencies to change. Apart from a few local shifts of programming expected for the deeply depleted 1278 in Melbourne, it will be a one-size-fits all programming schedule. Whatever your overall impression of ARN may be, you must at least concede they tailor their stations to each city and sets a model Macquarie should follow (but probably won’t). Then there’s the rather confusing link between the new tri-city sports station and Croc Media (who, arguably, have their hands full with a fairly low-rating SEN). If true, that will mean there’s a ‘frenemy’ relationship between SEN and the new 1278 station.

What’s the outcome of that expected to be?

I suspect that not only will the new station continue to be required to be subordinate to the 2GB/3AW network (by not actually calling the sports they talk about) but will also be subordinate to Croc Media’s own operation which includes SEN in Melbourne.

With those odds at the starting gate, it would probably be so much less painful to dig out the all-time favourites for those that still appreciate music from pre-generation X.

My best suggestion (though I don’t pretend to know if it’s fully thought through) is to divide Macquarie Talk into two networks as the ABC does with its Local and RN networks. A commercial example of this was a decision taken a few years ago in Los Angeles to move the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh show off KFI (the most locally produced and most successful LA talk station) and onto KEIB (featuring a particularly conservative talk radio branding as ‘The Patriot’). This freed KFI to maintain its edge over all the other talkers in the market by covering local issues more often. The ratings outcome has KFI continuing to dominate while KEIB sustains a niche audience.

I suspect within a network that skewed towards national news and current affairs (while keeping well away from local coverages better done by 2GB or 3AW, etc), you can include lifestyle, sport, music, whatever else to fill the time in. In my view, a ‘format’ is meant to skew a station, not sledgehammer it.

Whatever the strength of this suggestion, that thinking is not what’s guiding the current set of decisions. The risk of this new sports station is that it will be like a KFC minus the chicken: a very big claim backed up with content of only small appeal.

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Let’s just all put up with this 6 month trial and once the Comm Games and footy is over it’ll be nothing but cricket airing and nothing but crickets listening.

They’re sitting on a gold mine with the name 2UE.

For years Sydney has survived with 3 commercial talk stations. Now they’re just handing the audience that doesn’t like Jones or ABC directly to 2SM.

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Perhaps they are needing a bit more time to prepare for the new format, Jono Coleman has just given the impression that the segment that has just been on (the midlife crisis show) will be back next Tuesday. It is a bit like how the launch of Talking Lifestyle was seemingly delayed.

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