Southern Cross Austereo (Regional)

That law completely sucks. What possible benefit is there to anyone in letting gambling conglomerates off the hook. Especially in regional areas where choice is limited enough. Typical though.

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Well now they have 7 hours or so of local content a day - it’s just broadcast from Townsville.

But it would have been an issue before. And would also be an issue for Atherton/Mareeba (from Cairns), Charters Towers (same as Mt Isa), Emerald (from Rockhampton/Gladstone), Kingaroy and Roma (both from Toowoomba).

I wonder if they might have found some loophole where content can be on local interest to two neighbouring areas.
The other option is they they may voice track a 3 hour shift in the morning using the same announcer. (Or 30 minutes for licence areas below 30,000 people).

I remember previously seeing that Roma’s local content was aired between 9am and 10am and was specifically produced (i.e. Voice tracked) for Roma from Toowoomba.

No, the local content rules also means that it is supposed to be locally presented as well.

I think the smaller markets like Roma, Charters Towers etc. are only required to produce 30 mins or 1 hour a day, not the 3 hours that the larger markets are.

No.
The ACMA states:

Therefore, content can be presented anywhere, provided it is specifically for the licence area.

Correct, as they have less than 30,000 people they only require 30 minutes of local content each day.

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their justification was that they are running those stations as a public service and operating them at a loss.

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Really? Wasn’t the breakfast show historically anchored in M’bo with an announcer in Bundy in the wooden house in the park? Didn’t RG Capital’s boffins refer to it as their own version of ‘The Cage’ b’fast that spanned Melbourne and Sydney.

You don’t have to be in the market with a studio to be local. The licence conditions refer only to local content.

Young FM b’fast was always done from the Albury hub in DMG’s days.

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Sounds like you might know more about the situation in the RG Captial days than me. I do however know that SCA are no longer in that building.
I also know that both the new breakfast hosts relocated to Townsville for the job - so the location choice is based on where they had a spare studio rather than anything else.

Really? Well why don’t they get a narrowcast licence on FM instead like they do everywhere else and sell the commercial licence to someone who will operate a proper broadcast service. They should be forced to. It’s hard to feel sorry for a mega profitable gambling business pleading poverty, and shame on our brave broadcasting authority to fall for it. ACMA surely is the weakest authority of its type in the developed world.

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In the event of internet being highly accessible in Australia all racing stations should be removed off air as soon as possible and the spectrum used for community radio or similar. In Australia gaming is far too accessible and these racing radio stations encourage gambling which hurts the community as a whole. The internet is an appropriate space instead of wasting precious spectrum.

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Only what was mentioned at the time. I no longer have a close interest in current Wide Bay matters, so your update that they have moved is good to know.

How often does the b’fast team do in market promotion? Wonder what the intra-state flying schedule is from Townsville to Bundy?

Townsville’s a great place to remote breakfast shows from, larger market/lifestyle, more support (you’d think) from surrounding staff, winning culture up there with Pricey, 4TO etc. Bundy on air staff wouldn’t see the in market reminders that Hitz and 4BU have a stranglehold on workplace radios and sales share.

They’ve only be doing the show for 3 weeks now, so too early to tell, but from what I can tell on Webjet they’d have to fly via Brisbane, making it at best a 4.5 hour journey, so I can’t see them making it down to Bundy that much. Their facebook page does show a fairly active street team with a number of staff so I’d guess that will be the majority of the on the ground promotion, plus they’d still be able to use the resources from Maryborough for OB’s (the same GM looks after both regions still).

I agree with the advantages of basing the on air team in Townsville. Apart form the obvious negatives from not being active in the local community (for both promotional and content purposes), being part of a bigger, better team does give a lot more opportunity for development of the team - it can be very easy for small teams in small markets to become a bit disconnected and lost, resulting in poor radio and talent that have very little career progression prospects (but obviously a good CD and GM would be able to counter that somewhat too).

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Triple M network taking the Dead Set Legends

Spot the error(s) here.
https://www.radioinfo.com.au/jobs/sca-shepparton-sea-fm-announcer

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Shepparton never even was a “Sea FM” so does SCA HR even know what their own stations are.

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Yep, the Shepparton station was Star FM before it became Hit Goulburn Valley.

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And before that, it was known as Sun FM, which was the original name of the station from its launch in 1990 until it rebranded to Star FM in 2006.

The Sun FM name was later used for the Mildura station that was formerly 3MA-FM from 2011 until it rebranded to Triple M in December 2016.

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I think it must of been a old Sea FM Cairns, Mackay or Rocky job ad and they have replaced one of those Queensland city names with Shepparton. :joy::joy::joy:

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Exactly - Triple M Goulburn Valley (which one presumes the listing is for) was formerly 3SR FM.

Edit: just checked - the radioinfo job title has changed to hit96.9, but the listing still refers to “Sea FM” and the “Greatest Hits” format

I’m currently in Hobart on a holiday & have noticed that Triple M (& presumably all of its other regional stations including 2GO, Gold FM & 4TO) are now doing Unflogged Fridays. They also mentioned that they’re doing an Unflogged Weekend this weekend.

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Been going on for a few weeks now