Why is this posted here? Nothing to do with Pacific Star! Talking Sport will quickly go the same way as Eon Sports. Please enjoy it while it lasts Jason. SEN is a superior product and always will be.
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it will take some time for MacQaurie Sports Radio to be bedded into Melbourne jag3146 they will build a following over time live sport will then come to MSR
Wrong. MSR will die before live sport comes to it of sufficient quality. SEN barely survives with what it has.
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If any Radio Station is going ti die this time is SEN not even Footy can save them now
Jason please go barrack for stupid Macquarie Radio somewhere else not on Pacific Star discussion board. Just wait and see what happens. Your barracking for AW etc goes way back years when we used to disagree on Jockās Journal etc. SEN will survive and hopefully so will Classic Rock, their sister station, under whatever guise. If you want to influence your beloved Macquarie maybe enquire as to why they waste their digital allocation. At least Pacific Star provides a couple of music stations not like the crap provided by Macquarie.
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Some thoughts on the upcoming SEN v MSR battle:
- SEN has the Hutchy factor. Whilst he isnāt on air talent, he is still a fairly polarising figure. This flows through to who is available for on air talent. Whether this flows through to the audience is probably an impact at the margins.
- Most media rights are multi year agreements, this means Macquarie (if it wants to bid against Crocmedia/PSN) will need to wait several years for rights to become available. No live sports, will be a limiting factor for MSR.
- Looking at the historic survey 3 ratings, SEN has typically achieved a 4.0 market share with the start of the AFL season. The drive ratings are the best performing at 5.0 market share. This makes sense in that most local sport has news breaking during the day not overnight. Whilst overnight sport ( eg EPL, NBA) can have major news, this is niche news for niche sports - not necessarily the deal maker for your average Melburnian interested in how bad the traffic will be on the Monash on the way to work. ABC Grandstand DAB+ has a cumulative share of 47k, same as Talking Lifestyle which reports a rating of a 0.5 market share (I am using cum as a proxy for ratings, even though this is not necessarily so) - so assuming other listeners are tuned in to 3MMM and 3AW, the maximum market share for sports radio is probably a 5.0 market share - with a 3.5 in the morning.
- Except for the niche sports, most major sports listeners are interested in info about their team(s) primarily. This creates a challenge for networked sports stations and hence MSR to adopt full networking. The decision to adopt local brekky and drive for MSR is, in my opinion, a good call to address this.
Overall expectation:
- MSR competing against SEN does little to grow the overall pie, so to the extent that MSR generates ratings it will come from SEN (and to a lesser extent ABC Grandstand).
- MSR brekky will draw a crowd of 1.0, with SEN drawing 2.5. SEN has stronger personalities.
- MSR drive will draw a crowd of 3.5 with SEN drawing 1.5. I think sports listeners will prefer the old SEN team to the new SEN team. In my opinion, whilst āthe new SEN teamā of KB and Dr Turf are entertaining they feel/sound āoldā compared to Mark Allen and the Ox. Personally, I prefer the combination of Francis Leach and David Schwarz.
- Overall, that means two stations at 2.5 share for SEN and 2.0 share for MSR. Basically not viable for each - except SEN will earn revenue to cross subsidise from all its syndication activities, and MSR will have cross subsidy from 3AW and the other MSR stations. In other words, I think the market is only big enough for one station - two stations mean both lose. Anyway, good luck to both of them, until 1278 starts playing some unforgettable songsā¦
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Iāve noticed.recently theyāre playing more music during the week. Must have rum out of Norman May dissecting every session of play Badman was a part of.
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SEN wouldāve sensed something was on the cards for the TL network hence all their recent revamps and merger.
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SEN didnāt have any live sport to begin with IIRC?
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Before they got the AFL rights, I seem to remember they broadcast VFL. So live sports, just not mainstream enough.
The first live sports I recall they had were Basketball (Tigers) and A-League (Victory) coming about a year into existence. Basically for the first year it was studio based talkback/interviews.
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Mark Fine and Russell Gilbert did Weekend Afternoons in Year 1 of SEN in 2004. A studio based program with No live sport.
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Firstly, well done - better than my memory!
Would I be right to say that Year 1 with the no sport along with the SEN Adelaide experiment was part of the original SEN setup with a sub-licence from Pacific Start Network (PNW). The live sport (Tigers, Victory and later VFL) then presumably came after SENās financial difficulties and PNW terminated the sub-licensing arrangement and brought SEN in-house??? ā¦maybe this belongs better in the radio history thread!
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Got a suggestion for Pacific Star, revert back to 3MP (something Iāve been against in the past) and start a music format similar to what Magic used to be. Move Classic Rock Radio to digital in place of KOOOL, AFAIK Aussie has more listeners (I donāt want to lose my CRR). 
Donāt let 3MP just sit there, spend a little bit of money advertising it. They can still use it for their overflow sport. This is to make sure they have a head start when MSR goes belly up and Macquarie revert back to Magic in six months. By then MP could have gained all the old Magic listeners back from wherever theyāve gone.
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Agree, 3MP should go back to easy listening now thereās not much competition in that market.
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Great suggestions, worth contacting Hutchy and Jay Mueller for feedback.
Remember that some of the Magic audience went to Smooth because it was better suited to them anyway. So any music change to 3MP must target easy listening beyond Smoothās universe.
Given Smoothās success, I donāt think they could expect a flood of listeners back to AM easy listening.
At the moment it still feels very much like one of the automated digital stations, which just makes it feel like itās temporary - like when Vega became Classic Rock - just a generic stop off format for a station that they donāt know what to do with.
I think they should ditch the name and come up with something that gives them a little bit more flexibility in the music format - so they can throw more variety into the format and target a wider audience that might be turned off by the name - but not drastically change it. Be something close to Cruise/4KQ - thereās enough room there I think given how modern Gold is moving its format.
Live announcers is another one - keep the amount of talk low - but have someone in the studio - make it feel like live and local radio, be better than a music library on shuffle.
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They shouldnāt go after that audience, thereās plenty wanting music beyond Smooth.
Because it is, Cathy Thomas organised it in quick time with scant resources. It lacks radioās immediacy, just a webstream with ads and occasional irrelevant news.
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And I love it. 
Canāt take the Classic Rock away from an old man!
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Hereās one. 3MP.
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