Discuss matters relating to the following Nine Radio talk stations.
2GB 873 Sydney
3AW 693 Melbourne
4BC 1116 Brisbane
6PR 882 Perth
3AW are of course airing the Cricket on analogue.
No traffic reports yesterday, afternoon only, that’s normal for a public holiday.
Kate Stephenson & Justin Smith (filling in for Ross & John) on Breakfast, Tony Jones (filling-in for Neil Mitchell) on morning program, Darren James (filling-in for Denis Walter) on afternoons & Nick McCallum (filling-in for Tom Elliott) on drive.
Only normal day this week will be Thursday (NYE). No Cricket but prior to Friday’s public holiday.
So they weren’t broadcasting the cricket?
As far as I can gather, 3AW had the cricket running on 693AM (and NTS Digital) while normal programing aired on the station’s digital channel.
Not sure if they’re doing it again this year but 2UE have previously run the cricket on both 954AM and the digital channel as well as NTS.
A highlights video taken from the studio webcam of John Gibbs last Sports Today show on 2UE on the 27th November 2015 has been posted on YouTube by Mauricio the show’s Panel Op view here.
At least he bowed out gracefully and I hope he gets a gig somewhere else soon!
Happened to tune into AW overnight & heard Simon Owens (from Nightline was it)?
Interesting that Alan Pearsall is still on holidays?
No, Alan Pearsall is not on holiday, he’s doing overnights during the week over summer
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Yes 2UE are airing the cricket on both 954 and digital, no separate programming on digital. Online listening, certainly outside Australia and probably within Australia too, is unavailable whilst cricket is on, presumably due to rights issues
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Maybe 2UE doesn’t have the ratings to justify separate programing on digital? And yeah, 2UE’s streaming domestically is just running a short loop advising viewers to go to cricket.com.au if they want to hear the coverage.
In any case, I’m somewhat surprised that the cricket hasn’t been moved over to 2GB!
Perhaps with the presumably imminent relaunch of 2UE, they will take the opportunity to rationalise their sports coverage and have it all on one station. At the moment it’s a bit of a muddle with Continuous Call on 2GB and cricket on 2UE. I understand that 2UE’s Sports Today is ending shortly as part of the relaunch, so perhaps that suggests all sports coverage will be on 2GB going forward.
On another 2UE matter, does anyone know if Mike Jeffreys is still at the station? When the summer schedule was announced, it said that Mike would still be presenting nights over the summer. However, he seemed to disappear suddenly shortly before Christmas and I notice that all mention of him has gone from the 2UE website, whereas other presenters like Stuart Bocking and John and Garry who are on holiday at the moment still appear on the website.
Update to my previous post. Mike Jeffreys is back on air tonight at 2UE. Strangely though the 2UE website is saying that Luke Bona is currently on air! There is still no mention at all of Mike on the website, including the shows page.
I do find that the 4BC website and increasingly the 2UE website are quite unreliable when it comes to program information and who is on when. Hopefully more reliable/accurate websites are a high priority on the to do list for Macquarie this year.
The relaunch of 2UE would be a good time to re-brand 2GB and potentially 3AW/4BC/6PR to have the same branding, which would be a great time to launch new websites aswell.
I tuned into Magic on a long drive today to try and catch the news and I noticed that the news presenter was different to the broadcast on 3AW and SEN at the same time.
I always thought the Macquarie news for each hour was presented by the same newsreader across 3AW/Magic/SEN/Light and others. Has this changed?
2CH have been doing this for a while now but only during the day I think.
I’ve recently been listening to a bit of 3MP in the car (DAB+), noticed a differnt news to AW there too despite being Macquarie.
I believe there are two different bulletins produced out of 3AW.
The first airs on 3AW, and is carried by LightFM, SEN and a number of regional stations - 3NE in Wangaratta and One FM in Shepparton, for example.
The second airs on a number of regional stations, including 3BA in Bendigo and EdgeFM in Wangaratta. The second is distinguishable due to a different presentation style: not only is it shorter but drops the more formalised “News time: 5 past ”, for example.
I would assume that Magic and 3MP is taking the second, unless Magic’s bulletin is also being carried in Brisbane.
The shorter news bulletin is actually being produced in Sydney. It’s the prefeed national news bulletin which is recorded and goes out on the satellite at ten minutes to the hour from 4:50am - 9:50pm on weekdays and 5:50am - 5:50pm on weekends. It used to be produced by 2UE but got moved to the 2GB newsroom when the 2UE newsroom shut down, just as Macquarie’s “National Rural News” was also moved from 2UE to 2GB (although I believe 3AW produce their own Victorian version of that news as well, unlike the national prefeed).
From what I’ve been able to observe, 2CH take the national prefeed news from 9am each day until the last available bulletin and then revert to the live and longer 2GB bulletin overnight and through breakfast the next day. I’ve only checked in on the Magic stations occasionally, but it sounds like they’re doing roughly the same thing.
Interestingly, in the months leading up to 2UE’s newsroom being shut down, 2GB were producing their own two minute pre-recorded news for 2CH only outside of breakfast and overnights, and flicked them over to the three minute prefeed when 2UE’s newsroom was shut down. Prior to this, I don’t think the prefeed bulletin was carried on any capital city station, with it just being taken by regionals. I seem to recall a few years back in Deniliquin, for example, that Classic Rock would take it after 9am on weekdays, and 2QN would take it through the afternoon music programming (they both took live 3AW news in the hours of the day before this).
Apart from being shorter and less capital-city-centric, the prefeed has the advantage for regional stations of being pre-recorded so they can automate the process of recording it off the satellite and let the automation play it near the top of the hour, without somebody actually having to time out properly. It is interesting that despite it not being a live bulletin, 2CH and the Magics seem to deliberately time out to the top of the hour for news anyway.
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That would make sense Samuel as there is a separate sales info PDF for Rural News Victoria on the Macquarie Media Syndication website.
Thanks for clarifying Samuel!
I would guess it’s to give the impression of it being a live bulletin.
Just a random note - Race 1 at Albion Park trots in Brisbane tomorrow night is labelled the “Sports Today on 4BC Pace”. Has someone in Macquarie/Fairfax marketing not bothered to check in on event sponsor-ships lately? We haven’t had Sports Today on-air for quite a while now.