The Australian Traffic Network were good but have gradually gotten lazy, from my observations. Repeatedly reporting the same broken down car that is not on the thru lanes is useless information. Continuing to report an accident well after it has cleared is misleading and could cause listeners to go a longer route when they didn’t need to. Appearing to rely on the live traffic on Google Maps isn’t advisable because what appears to be short delays often don’t exist. And assuming that traffic jams are consistent every day of the week could show a lack of knowledge of the area.
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As will I! I hope Caroline will continue on AW in some form. She’s great. He used to have some segments when Mike till Midnight was on (with Mike bradey). She’s has a wicked sense of humour
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Putting the quality of the ATN product to one side, I don’t see this as a smart sales move.
2GB has always had model where clients can buy a five second pre-roll credit before ATN traffic reports, regardless of the sponsorship credit embedded in the ATN spot. There has also been the opportunity to buy a 30 second spot at the top of any commercial breaks after traffic reports. This seems to be the model they are adopting for the future.
How well these are monetised is highly dependent on sales management at any given time, (ie whether they allow credits to be used as “value adds”), a bad habit that has befallen may a station over the years.
On top of that, I would have thought the dollars generated by their agreement with ATN would be pretty substantial, and the termination of that agreement will take a very large chunk out of revenue, putting them even further behind the eight ball until such times as their new Traffic “model” can deliver.
Perhaps in these difficult economic times, Nine Radio was looking for bigger coin from ATN as an easy fix, and ATN, with challenges of their own, said no.
I may be missing something here, and Richard Hunwick may well be a sales gun, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me right at the moment.
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Without hearing their current ATN-less on-air product (which may well invalidate my point), I’d say that Nine potentially gain another 2 five/ten-second credits in each traffic report, which isn’t much but over, say, 3-4 updates an hour, 13 hours a day across eight stations, that’s a decent number of credits.
Then again, can Nine actually sell them or just more freebies?
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Noticed that Nine Radio are starting to advertise for Traffic Reporters in Sydney, Brisbane and presume Melbourne. I really do wonder if this is going to work for them. What are they going to do…Just listen to ATN and repeat the same information themselves, look at google or whatever. Just seems crazy to me.
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Reckon it’s great the new owners are focussing on integrating the sound of the station with sales. ATN has always felt a bit out of place on a station like 3AW.
Really interested to hear who the new voices of traffic are in all three cities.
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Wouldn’t surprise me if some of the ATN reporters jump ship to Nine.
If they’re not advertising for positions in Perth I’d dare say traffic would be read down the line from Melbourne which ATN do on weekends (or were doing as of a few years ago)
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Perhaps some will apply, but are they worth hiring? Nine wants to raise the standard so they have a more compelling product to monetise, so they need better than most currently employed by US owned ATN.
And will we start to see/hear these new traffic reporters on Today each morning too?
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You’d hope so if the model is successful, however GTN have the infrastructure already for the crosses from the air.
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Nine Television retains their deal with ATN, so not as yet
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My thought was that this might be the case, and the afternoon news? (Potentially 6PM too?)
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Ben Fordham is nowhere near as funny as Alan Jones.
And Ben does not make sense. This morning he informed me that “foreigners own 10% of Australia’s water”. Say what? He then claimed that this means our “farmers are being bashed and robbed”
Alan was great at explaining issues to his audience. I am sure Ben was talking about environmental allotments of water to farmers…but the average punter has little idea of what he is rambling on about.
And I miss Stephanie as much as I miss Madam Zenda.
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Trying to emulate Jones and his rantings but comes up well short and is nothing more than a tryhard copycat 
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Well we won’t know how 2GB breakfast is rating in the post-Jones era until (at the very earliest) September, but I’m certainly expecting either Robbie Buck & Wendy Harmer or Kyle & Jackie O to be Sydney’s new #1 breakfast radio show ahead of Ben Fordham!
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It disappoints me Sydney doesn’t have a breakfast show similar in style to 3AW’s but perhaps with a little more news chat. I don’t know why Sydney has to wake up to ranty and shouty content when it only serves to raise the blood pressure in morning traffic.
Fairly sure I heard the F bomb dropped on AW this morning by a caller ringing in about bad movies that are a good watch.
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Must be something in the water.
Thursday: Deb Knight is off sick. Peta Credlin and Clinton Maynard are presenting afternoons on 2GB and 4BC
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According to Radioinfo, the reason why Deborah Knight was absent today was because she had been tested for COVID-19 after developing symptoms, which came back negative.
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Is this the first time Peta has filled in for 2GB?
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