Very interesting thought.
Doubtful Crocmedia are interested in the cap ex required to refurbish the Chittaway Bay TX site. Plenty of work required there.
If it was refurbished to last another 20 years or so, full power would provide a great coverage area with the earth mat essentially salt water for so far around.
Any of the Joe Satana acquisitions flipped to SEN yet?
Still waiting!
SEN will need a new TX site and equipment on the Gold Coast, the quality and coverage of the AM 1620 from the Burleigh golf club is rubbish.
Big loss for 3AW. Who is going to host Sportsday with Gerard Healy next year?
They certainly continue to beef up their sport line-ups for their various outputs.
I think we need to lobby the pollies to amend the Broadcasting Act to include “microcasting” - for those seeking to target less than narrowcasting to niche audiences. Curling FM is coming soon…(apologies to any Canucks on MediaSpy!)
The Summer Slam – Fully Loaded Softball
God, I thought The Big Bash was an awful name for a sporting competition. This is something else.
What next for Crocmedia? Chess championships?
Does’nt look good for 3MP Coming Back from the Dead.
Ten Pin Championships: Live from a Zone Bowling somewhere in suburbia.
Sorry, couldn’t resist having my turn! 
Looks like this info has been updated during the past week on the ACMA radio register.
Most of the former licences transferred across to Croc Media up until late in September 2019.
I’m assuming these dates were the original expiry dates of the respective licences.
Yes it’s there.
I’ve only just now looked at the site via Google Earth for the very first time.
Who owns the broadcast mast?
Licences vs equipment, infrastructure, land etc isn’t necessarily one of the same.
I’m assuming the in-hut transmitter equipment & many of low cost 1611-1700 tx antennas, feeders owned by Rete Italia previously & the rest leased?
Didn’t realise 3 masts there still at Chittaway Point. Yes should be a fantastic site for coverage along the coast with salt water around.
What does that mean for the licences from October onwards? I hope they’re planning on improving their state-focused content now that they have a nationwide expansion and not just Adelaide. SEN SA is just 3 local shows during the weekdays - the rest of the weekday content is a lot of “best of” repeats in between the Melbourne shows that they feel like relaying into Adelaide. Weekends are the major gripe I have though - because 5AA has the Crocmedia AFL broadcasts for the time being they can’t have them on 1629 so all there is left is an SANFL match and everlasting “best of” replays. Not the best way to build your audience outside Melbourne.
Embarrassingly, two more local shifts than broadcast band licence 4BC and three more than 2UE, 4BH and 3EE who have no local shifts.
Happy to be corrected if wrong.
But I suspect the purchases of the licences would have been a transfer of title, thus original licence expiry dates remain unchanged & after this month the licences would be renewed for usual 12 month period under SEN/CrocMedia ownership.
I haven’t seen any press releases yet from SEN re the purchase of the Rete Italia licences.
I guess SEN/CM management, program development team & technical teams are hard at work with their development plans.
SEN SA aired AFL games during the home & away season - it was generally 1 - 2 game/s per round which 5AA didn’t broadcast
Cheers for that good to know that they knew it was there as an overflow frequency
Non-SA teams though. Guessing 5AA has the exclusive rights to all Crows and Power games.
Not sure who owns the site, SCA did hold onto it for a while after 2GO went FM, but I don’t know if they sold it to Rete Italia at some stage or not, if not then Broadcast Australia will likely own it now?
The actual land the site is on, is/was public space & anyone could wander around the site/masts (fences around the bases so you couldn’t touch or climb unless you went over the fence first), this may have changed during the last few years, I’m guessing it’s been about 8 - 10 years now since I last wandered around there?
Yes there’s three masts there as it’s quite a directional pattern back into Gosford, but it actually (in it’s day) served Newcastle quite well too, many people used to listen to 2GO on 801 as it was like a local signal & programming was a point of difference from 2KO Newcastle, unlike now.
Rete Italia always said that site was to serve Gosford/Newcastle, but it never did serve Newcastle well or at all after 2GO left, because I don’t think any other users after 2GO left it, had the setup right & probably didn’t run the modulation on the TX’s anywhere near 100% thus lack of output power & reduced coverage.
There was a period of time 5 - 10 years back when copper thieves got in & cut the earthing on 2 of the masts, effectively rendering them useless, so it was a 1 mast omni-directional site that had lost it’s directional pattern & power boost through phasing of the masts, & I don’t know if that ever got repaired or if it’s still a 1 mast operation?
From last week … Crocmedia’s ticketing business in under investigation for allegedly selling AFL tickets at inflated prices which is in breach of Victoria’s ticket scalping laws.