Can’t compare slims van or the popemobile to lawsies Bentley.
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Good on them for doing it, a nice show of respect and acknowledgement of his time at the network.
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Should the SRN replace the talk format across its network with classic hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s, using the FUN log, now that Gold and Heart / Heart Hits have expanded into the 5 metros?
It would give a classic hits option on FM in Bathurst, Taree, Gold Coast and Noosa.
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I’d love to see it happen, but it probably won’t
Better still they can get 2RE to create the logs, they play some great music during their local weekday afternoon shifts.
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FUN does a pretty good job in a very competitive market, it would work well across NSW/QLD.
It would also do well in Sydney on 1269/ DAB.
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I’d love to hear the FUN logs on SRN/2SM especially, outside of breakfast and mornings.
Maybe SRN/2SM could do what 4BC tried by introducing a few songs into their talk shows. And run pure classic hits at night and across the weekend.
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Run the FUN log full-time to give regional listeners a classic hits and AC combo, similar to what ARN, SCA (Rock and AC) and Capital do.
Get 2SM back into the ratings and watch the share and advertising revenue go up.
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I think this could possibly work in the regions , but do you think there’s a market for another classic hits format in Sydney, especially on AM?
And if they did that , would you stick to 60s-80s to make sure there is a point of difference between other stations that play 90s and 00’s.
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I completely agree here. With 2UE dominating the Classic hits Sydney AM market, that’s why I suggested having stronger talk announcers on 2SM, especially breakfast & mornings with lesser music in those shifts.
If they just increased the music inclusion ratio on 2SM, that’d be a better point of difference than just 24/7 regional talkback announcers.
… I know it’d definitely help shifts like Barry Hill and Tracey Mac …
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In my opinion Sydney radio is in need of better quality talkback rather than more music.
2UE, SEN and Sky sports rate next to nothing, they’re niche radio appealing to small audiences in a major city.
Because of this 2GB don’t need to do much, let’s face it 30 years ago a lineup of Mark Levy, Michael McLaren and Clinton Maynard would be summer radio or non ratings period at best, not their A team.
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With the right leadership, yes, that is true.
The best era was just prior to the 2GB/2UE merger when 2UE were skewing younger and different to 2GB.
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Even that period after Jones and Hadley moved to 2GB you had a point of difference on 2UE. John Laws was still on, John Stanley, George and Paul amongst others. It was a genuine alternative.
These days it’s 2GB or the ABC, I don’t particularly like either and wish there was something a bit different.
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I think live talkback seems to be a cost thing why other stations don’t do it. It is much lower risk to have just music and in the case of SEN they can get ad revenue from sports coverage. Plus high profile stars or controversial topics could expose the station to legal issues especially with social media these days. Although 2sm is hanging in there spending zero on advertising and doing the bare minimum. Remember this?
There doesn’t seem to the next generation of radio talkback stars coming though. There might be on the interwebs.
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That was one great advertising campaign.
Couldn’t agree more about the lack of talent coming through which is a real shame.
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Probably also because there are no regional talkback show host announcers anymore for metro stations to recruit (apart maybe from the ones at 2HD who host the SRN regional ones).
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I subjected myself to a bit of 2LF (via 105.3 Cootamundra) today. Simply awful talkback, worse than your average ‘shooting the bull’ conversation at the pub. And of course there was a major malfunction in the automation, with dead air being heard where the ads should be. Of course, some would say that’s an improvement on the ads, but not great if you’re paying good money to be heard on the wireless.
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It’d be an interesting exercise to look at whether the FM stations make more money for the network than the AM ones do.
Using Newcastle as an example, NEW FM rates 11.2 vs 4.8 for 2HD. So more than double thus should be pulling in more ad revenue. And that’s where NEW has more competition in its space than 2HD does. And the NEW FM style product is probably cheaper to make.
Whilst in most cases the SRN combo is the only game in town, I can’t help but think they’d get a lot more listeners with Classic Hits AM and go more Hot AC on FM. Like you say @dxnerd i can’t imagine too many regional listeners tolerating that kind of talk daily. Probably explains why no one conplains the poor audio quality at Temora for example, because no one listens.
The only outlier is 2SM, where there is more cometition in the Classic Hits space. That can be the only thing stopping it.
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Talk back needs intelligent, sharp, powerful presentation not dopey suckers that have an agenda.
Talk radio can be good but I can’t see any thing in 2sm srn other than real estate
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They miss adds all the time, so unprofessional. Dead air music all over 2el is tragic and has been since its start.
Agree, talkback works on 2GB because they’re prepared to put the $$$ into the product to make it sound decent. SRN doesn’t seem to be willing to do that, at least not to the same extent.
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