Have a look there’s 132 pages of comedy gold to trawl through…
2SM’s amateurish production isn’t lost on league fans either!
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Crocmedia Produce Rugby League not 2SM
It’s MRN,Radio, Print, and Online - Media Spy we always knew this would be a joke.
They don’t like it, no surprise.
Just a theory on why they are persisting with a talk/sport format.
Maybe the sale of 2CH came with a ‘no compete’ clause ie. That they would not run a music format on 954 to compete with 2CH for an agreed period, say 3 years?
So they are running the talk/sport formats across all 3 cities to spread the cost?
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I think a sport format works well as a complement to the main talk stations, with good opportunities for crossover with both advertisers and presenters - much better than Lifestyle because Sport does have an audience in the market.
However, that (and any other format for that matter) will only work if it is done properly and given enough of the right resources to succeed. Any future failure of MSR will be a result of how it is managed, not the format alone.
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Does MSR ever Broadcast into Perth on Digital Radio?
MSR (and previously Talking Lifestyle) is available on DAB+ in Perth. Ads are local, but shows are still live on Sydney time.
It will interesting to see if they get the Melbourne or Sydney/Brisbane breakfast show. Melbourne would seem like the obvious choice given that it will be more AFL focused.
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Liar traffic spreads to MSR (PS. this is how you use strong text and get it working correctly!)
This happens in all markets (esp Adl as very quiet) and many stations, but it’s not just the Mix 106.3 example that caught the eye of Riot Act and gave it a spotlight.
Listening to MSR this morning (purely research, not enjoyable), since 6:50am, their twice hourly traffic reports have invented traffic congestion that simply doesn’t exist.
Example of congestion to them is a red line on Google traffic of the length of two house frontages on Green Rd, Boronia Heights.
Simply, none of it exists.
What stations don’t pay for this liar traffic from ATN? I wouldn’t waste the money if I was calling the shots.
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No station pays for it. ATN actually pay the stations to put their traffic reports and attached advertising to air.
A couple of years ago, SCA signed a 20 year contract worth $207 million with ATN.
I know they don’t pay for it directly, but you get what I mean - what stations don’t use this poor quality service from ATN?
I wouldn’t lose my airtime to this ‘service’ if I was making the decisions.
I’ve had MSR on in the background whilst working this morning since 6:50am, the prognosis is no better.
Hosts Brig Duclos (ex Melb FM) and Bill Woods (ex or still 10 sport?) on air together. They joked they get crazy after 9am as on air so long.
It’s mostly them chatting to themselves, filling in time, speaking with journos here and there.
Program production is poor, there should be updates of current sport underway and twice hourly read outs of scores overnight/last 24 hrs etc for those who need to catch up.
The range of sport is limited, there’s a lot more that could be covered which isn’t.
Again, callers are kept off the air, on air solicits for calls are seldom, hearing a caller even moreso.
When they did have a caller on after 8am, they apologised to him and cut him quickly as they needed to time out for the news at 8:30am. This is basic time housekeeping that the producer should know and have held the caller until after the news, it sounded terrible radio.
As presenters, Brig and Bill are who they are, competent, good broadcasters; however they’ve been dealt a bum steers with the content and format, it is pathetic and smacks of micromanagement and an over cautious style. It won’t win and retain audience that way.
Time calls, they give time calls as x past the hour and x to the hour, the format began days after DST ended, so they’re all in the one timezone (I don’t care for Perth, very few listening and they’re used to it by now with the ABC, Foxtel and others).
So what’s happened, the on air has done practice shifts to orientate themselves prior to DST ending and the dill giving them the directions has told them and the producers to make the time calls generic and not realised the end of DST, ridiculous.
More production folly, there are no lead in stabs coming back from news or ad breaks about the names of those on air. Those on air rarely say their names either. Again, another idiotic decision by people who don’t understand broadcasting, how are you supposed to build rapport and following with audiences if you don’t let people know to whom they’re listening to?
Commercials are as discussed, limited. Four breaks an hour, two close to each other before TOH. About three mins in length. The same prop up advertising or Singo’s 50 Up Club rubbish, his mates with Oaktree insurance and on it goes. Sounds like there’s a few gullible Brisbane clients who have been conned into a two station deal, Task Industries and Up Tiles who have an hourly ad on the station. Honestly, how silly are these clients, why would you advertise on either station, they’re both a joke and the sales team knows this, constant turnover and turmoil of people leaving because they can make much better commission elsewhere.
As often stated, on the cheap, no one is on the ground calling sports at the Comm Games. Why pay the money to be an official broadcaster if you don’t even have a skeleton staff to call key events? The theme word arises again - idiots.
If holding a licence was competency based, these fools would’ve lost theirs long ago with this form.
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Jumped in the car and heard Tim Lane on 1278, for the briefest moment I thought they’d sent him to the Gold Coast for the athletics which kicked off today.
Silly me, just previewing the AFL later today on 3AW.
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Seems probable there were ‘no compete’ clauses that applied to both 2UE and 2CH. Anyhow, better for the listener if this is the case. Here in Melbourne you now have two relatively small stations - SEN and Macquarie Sports Radio - competing. One week in and it really isn’t making any sense and I never doubted it wouldn’t make sense.
I’ll be very surprised if the Melbourne MSR works. I simply can’t understand where the audience will come from. Even with the inclusion of some Melbourne-based shows (with breakfast being just for Melbourne), MSR can talk footy all they like, but SEN actually holds footy rights and broadcasts games.
I reserve my assessment about the Sydney MSR - considering the John Stanley led breakfast show will be the first of its type, being the lead into an all day sports talk (which you can’t say about Sydney’s Sky1017AM anymore than you can say about Melbourne’s RSN927), Plus having a program not having to cater for Melbourne audience (the smartest decision of this format change) means there’s an opportunity to skew heavily with NRL coverage (which I hope they actually capalise on).
But if success (if any of the MSR stations are successful) gets limited to Sydney, that would confirm the MSR format choice, just like the 2UE Talking Lifestyle decision, is a Sydney-centric decision and it’s going to be too much of a stretch to make it work across three cities.
Not forgetting Talking Lifestyle, despite having competitive weekend ratings against 2GB, got axed because it failed to appeal nationally, a failure by MSR to appeal nationally in 13 months time (the ridiculously short period TL was given to perform as a national entity) would surely leave MSR’s fortunes as limited as Malcolm Turnball’s fortunes after delivering a second batch of losing news polls.
So if music is not an option and MSR turns out to be a narrowcast parading as a commercial station, don’t be surprised if Macquarie Sports Radio morphs into Macquarie National Radio and brings a broader format back.
I can’t see how this won’t happen…eventually.
I tried over weekend to listen to MSR for the Storm game. Yet as I only had access to my phone and not an AM radio, I noticed they were not streaming it while ABC Grandstand was. Tonight I note 1278 covering the EPL, yet ABC NewsRadio 1026 were already doing so (as well as 3RPH also taking the BBC feed). there’s no point of difference, except what’s missing from the format that shouldn’t be (such as actually calling the AFL which will never happen due to the flawed ‘companion station’ mindset that so burdened Talking Lifestyle.
Marketing 101: there is a fine balance to be struck between filling a market need that also satisfies organisational needs - this is the marketing concept.
But I have doubts their ‘perceived’ organisational need to run MSR as a ‘companion station’ to 3AW or 2GB is in harmony with enduring the challenge tapping into an actual market need.
A format needs to be broad enough that you can ‘establish it’, then ‘adjust it’. Otherwise, you get what happened repeatedly to 3AK before it finally settled on being SEN: a cycle of “sink or swim, flip format, repeat”. That’s no way to build a brand.
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Whilst sampling MSR, it has got me thinking more about AM radio beyond my usual sole AM listening choice, 612 ABC.
Comparing client lists of MSR, its sister station 4BC and that of 4KQ; it’s clear KQ is well in front.
KQ have a larger range of clients and clients that are more suited to radio advertising.
MSR pales in comparison of a very small local client list, those clients who are likely to be direct sales are the most noticeable. They’re largely not businesses that would benefit from radio advertising, are of a low client value and are all small businesses with no prospect of significant growth.
Macquarie’s idea of getting sales in Brisbane has always been amiss since late 2013 when the wheels began to fall off 4BC with a slew of experienced staff retiring, resigning or being shown the door by Sydney based execs.
Since that time, the turnover rate for sales staff has been extraordinarily high and so has the client turnover. As the clients they sign find such advertising doesn’t suit them, they don’t renew; the process then repeats itself.
Put it this way, most in commercial radio like to be, to use the UE line, ‘at or near the top’. No more is that true than in the performance based are of sales. What those in commercial radio don’t like to see are stations poorly managed with bottom of the board results and likely turmoil of job losses, industry contraction and so on.
It’s certain that when figures are released of the metro by metro performance of sales in markets, Brisbane is below where it should be due to the underperformance of MSR and 4BC.
It’s not good for radio in general and whilst their stations are the lowest two rating commercial stations in Brisbane, other sales teams would be aware of what damage this client turnover and dissatisfaction is doing to the image of radio sales in general.
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i would have thought with them scrambling for content today would have seen some coverage of wrestlemania but i heard nothing.
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Wrestlemania is no more sport than an episode of Home and Away.
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Tuned in for a few minutes this morning and they were discussing wrestling and if it’s an actual sport or just entertainment
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John Stanley would love it, he prides himself on being a cynic.