The issue of one of imbalance of power - the incumbent broadcasters hold too much power in the current arrangement, they’ve stopped the expansion of services in underserved markets, they’ve contributed to the selection of an inferior digital radio format, they’ve actively campaigned for changes to content rules that allows them to run ‘hub and spoke’ radio services up and down the country.
One of the key differences though between radio and this analogy is that there is competition for the space - a Westfield has the ability to test the market at lease renewal to see whether there is a better deal to be had, whereas broadcasting licences are only ever tested at issue, renewals are effectively a financial transaction no different to paying your phone bill.
Sean Flan Flanagan returned to Gold Coast breakfast radio this morning this time on 92.5 MMM after leaving Hot Tomato breakfast. His plans to start a media company were derailed by the COVID crisis.
Agreed. I also wanted to point out that I’m not wanting to take any delight in seeing anyone go belly up, but merely pointing out the power inballance against other sectors. As per travel, just look at Virgin airlines, it’s literally just crawling on life support! As far as radio though, this below quote puts it right on the money…
bacco007, I knew what Iwas trying to say was a bit rough and ready, but you’ve hit it right on the knocker. My analogy is a regional station that has most, if not all of it’s programming content from major city hub stations, meaning that the regional has no local content.
As per my analogy of a store that’s empty; a person in the local town can’t go to their local store, because they are no goods or products on the shelves, where in this case the person doesn’t hear anything local on their locally licensed radio station, because the content is coming from another city / area. So exactly what is the meaning of a local license if the station has no local content?
Again Networking can be effective if it’s done correctly, as in the case of Katoomba’s / Penrith’s 2KA back in the late 80s early 90s. For example if we take the news, on the hour, the first three to four minutes was a national syndicated bulletin from 2UE, then the next three minutes was local news read by Lindsey Bennett (she did mornings, can’t remember who did arvos)
As for general programming, the station went live and local during the day, and would go full out network from midnight to 5:30. My last few days of hearing 2KA / ONE FM during February March 1993, contained overnight syndicated programming from 2UE; an adult contemporary format with Tim GIlbert / Greg Diamond / and occasionally Tony Hartney.
The article also mentions current presenter Ash Pollard (who appears on The All New Monty: Guys and Gals, premiering on Seven next Sunday) will soon go on maternity leave.
They would have known Ash would be going on Mat Leave. The sensible thing would have been to wait a few weeks and announce it as Gawndy and Maz.straight up.
The Hit Network today announced a series of producer appointments for its new statewide, community breakfast shows that were announced earlier this month.
After listening to Triple M CQ this week, Ive have notice that the Triple M regional have changed their rock playlist. They have gone back to a more less variety and repetitive rock playlist. I loved the rock variety playlist they had before, where I could listen all day. Now I get sick of listening Triple M after a 1 or 2 hours.
Looking at the playlists on Radioapp, the regional Ms are now taking the same log as that of Newcastle & the Gold Coast, rather than that of Brisbane & Adelaide.
