McDonalds and Woolworths are not always the same. They change for different markets. McCafe was made for Australia and gazpacho is served in Maccas in Spain. McDonalds in India does not offer beef. Woolworths change their fresh food offering depending on the ethnic makeup of the local suburbs. Woolies in Eastlakes (Sydney) was selling durian for $9 a kilo last week. Woolworths and Coles offer kosher food supplies in stores where there is demand.
Radio is different to supermarkets or soft drink. Strong local brands are important - especially in a world with internet radio.
SCA understands how important Fox is to Melbourne. SCA donât understand how important NX is to Newcastle. Why? As the people who changed all the regional callsigns live in Melbourne or Sydney.
Mind you these are not the first regional stations to be lose long standing and valuable branding. I remember when 2WL was rebranded as Wave FM in Wollongong. And it was to never be No.1 in the Illawarra again.
In many of the markets where ACE radio owns stations, they currently only have 4 media voices, which is the minimum required number in regional commercial radio markets under ACMAâs Media Diversity rules, so itâs not possible for SCA to acquire them. The only ACE market where SCA could potentially acquire them & still meet the required minimum number of media voices is Warrnambool, as they have a local daily newspaper to prop up the number of voices.
Other markets where SCA could buy radio stations & still meet the Media Diversity rules, if the opportunity is there, includes (with current owners of stations in brackets):
Definitely agree with this. In the UK, the push is toward local brands that complement national brands - Bauerâs City Network is the best example of this. Sure, there is networked content, but thereâs also flexibility to adjust programming in each market - this video from Next Radio 2016 uses the example of a station in the north of Scotland including a bilingual English/Gaelic chart show.
You donât get that with Spotify, or Pandora, or a jukebox.
I would think that itâs been made clear time and time again that the audience would prefer quality content (from anywhere) over whatâs usually sub-standard local content.
While local content sounds great in theory, the reality is that it is often very poorly executed by talent who arenât particularly good at what they do. Some of the best rating shifts in regional radio are for networked content - audiences, particularly in the younger demo are actually demanding content that goes beyond the limits of their small community. The few jocks who are good enough to deliver this locally often move on to bigger and better things very quickly.
The forum gives SCA a lot of grief for the amount of networked content on the air, but on the whole their ratings in competitive markets show that this is what audiences want (at least compared to what else is in the market).
On the other hand, Grant Broadcasters gets a lot of praise here for their âlocalâ content - but the reality is that while the majority of their daytime content is station specific, a lot of it is voice tracked by announcers whoâs main job is on another station, sometimes several licence areas away. I would argue that this is even worse than networked content since it lacks the personality and urgency of live content, distracts the talent from their primary job and deceives the audience into thinking that the announcer is local. Thereâs one announcer in particular who has a daily shift of both stations in one town and uses a different name on each station! The ratings also show that this type of content does not resonate with listeners.
Mix 106.3 has been taking the Sunday Barbie from Triple M for some time now. During last nights show there was a promo for the holiday daytime show on Triple M, but that show is not on Mix 106.3, Iâm fairly sure.
Interesting to hear that some of the best shifts in terms of ratings for regional radio are the networked content, that properly explains why most of the shifts on regional Hit FM stations outside of breakfast is networked.
Non-networked station and shows also rate well. Hot Tomato on the Gold Coast is up against 2 SCA stations - Sea Hit 90.9 and Gold 92.5
Hot Tomato is the No. 1 station in that market. Hamish and Andy on Hit rate 17.5 and Hot Tomato rate a 15 in Drive. The Tomato is competitive.
Hot Tomato are also No.1 with 10 - 17 year olds, 40 - 54 year olds and the breakfast, morning and afternoon shifts. I reckon Hot Tomato are glad that Sea is becoming a little more like its Brisbane sister station - Hit105. It makes Hot Tomato a more uniquely Gold Coast and Hit 90.9 a little more generic, a little more Home Brand, a little more same same.
It is so possible to beat SCA stations in regional markets. A certain quite warm red fruit proves this in southern Queensland.
Itâs a similar story with 7HO FM in Hobart, where it outrates Heart 107.3 (now Triple M) & is the #2 commercial station behind Hit 100.9. Of the commercial stations, it is #2 in breakfast, afternoon, drive & evenings, and is #1 in mornings. It is also outright #1 in the 40-54s.
Probably the reason they have shifted younger / hotter recently in the summer months. If majority of their Triple M stations are falling behind their competitors in the different markets.
Central Coast is another example where recent ratings had 2GO at No 3 - behind Star and Sea FM.
I donât agree with networking announcers unless itâs necessary, but access to that quality content when required, in my opinion the SCA regionals should do whatâs best for the respective markets, for example Gold FM should focus on music, works best for their market, KO should cover more sport, where other markets may take more shows to fill time if needed, whatever it takes to provide what the listeners want at a quality standard. Triple M can provide that for these stations where required or if the station choose not to then thatâs fine but they need to take this approach for both music and content. KO needs to broaden the playlist to have more 70âs music and more Classic Rock, Gold may want something different and 4TO different again.
On another note I heard âStarboyâ 3 times between 10 and 5 at work today on HIT, and that was dial flicking.
I venture to say that a lot of the programming that isnât nationally known yet networked from the hub (i.e. not H&A) is according to local people actually a local voice. Figuring that they donât know that they arenât local, SCA can promote the live and local angle even if most of it isnât. (Does that actually make sense?)
I think you need at least one local daypart announcer, just so they can get out into the town on the occasional OB, SCA Newcastle has a stack of casuals at the moment, (dare say though and personally donât blame them) they wouldnât want to go to regional locations, but offer a good deal get them out with the people, promoting the the station and promoting the local businesses that provide that important revenue. A wise GM told me, get out to the opening of an envelope. I like what SCA do but one thing I really donât like is the networking of dayparts where a local alternative could be done so much better. I understand budgets but at least 1 local day announcer really is needed.
