Nine Radio (Music)

The podcasts of John & Garry were the whole show until early last month. Now you can only listen to segments of the show and it stinks IMO.

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Have you asked them why? Email the station or ring for the general manager.

An opinion piece by Brad Smart on Radioinfo about Magic changing to Talking Lifestyle: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/it’s-magic-–-just-watch-those-ratings-disappear

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Yep pretty true that.
The tragedy is these muppets at Macquarie aren’t smart enough to realise the Brisbane market doesn’t currently have Smooth FM except on digital. And Smooth is No. 1 or 2 in Sydney and Melbourne.

I know 4BH is on AM so unlikely to emulate that, but even so when 4BH did have a “smooth-like” format a few years ago it was rating 7 - 9% even on AM!

How dumb are these people? Or is it arrogance?

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More like stupidity!!

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We have to talk about Talking Lifestyle. And more broadly, Macquarie’s destruction of some proud radio stations in this country

The station that was the once-mighty 2UE is now rating 3.5%, and that’s not even the worst of them. 4BH was only a few years ago a station that was challenging 4KQ as the #1 AM music station, and it’s now barely breaking 1%.

And those ratings from Melbourne are just woeful. I know Magic never set the world on fire, but for a long time it complemented 3AW as an oldies music station to go alongside the older-skewing talk. Melbourne used to have two easy listening stations on AM, it now has none - no wonder Smooth does so well there

But where do Fairfax go from here? Do they persist and hope things magically turn around? Or do they pull the pin and go back to music? For Melbourne and Brisbane at least the latter would be straightforward, but given all programming decisions are made in Sydney, I guess they’ll need to find something for 2UE before that change is made

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I believe they need to abandon it in Brisbane and Melbourne. But instead of just blindly going back to Magic they need to look for the gaps in each. Both markets are different! Brisbane doesn’t have Smooth FM and Melbourne doesn’t have 4KQ.

It’s really a no-brainer.

Not sure about Sydney because they don’t have as obvious a gap. Maybe morph 2UE into a BBC Radio 2 format.

Isn’t it amazing what mis-management can do. First with Fairfax now with MMN.

Who else remembers when 2UE was pulling double digits in the ratings?

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Maybe 20 years ago you could say that the Sydney market might still have room for two music-centric stations on AM radio. But in 2017, unfortunately I’m not sure if there’s even the room for 2CH in the marketplace since that station rates pretty appallingly in all non-65+ demographics! The next decade or two will probably be very interesting for 1170AM Sydney, but that’s for another topic.

Perhaps 2UE might be better off playing music in some timeslots while retaining a lighter talk format (ie, something less news/sports-heavy than 2GB & ABC while retaining “popular” programs like breakfast and weekends), I’m not sure. Either way, the paid programing slots needs to go IMO!

I also agree that different approaches should be taken for 1278 Melbourne and 882 Brisbane. Better yet, perhaps MRN should consider selling off the Talking Lifestyle stations to focus on the flagship stations but that’s just a little bit of wishful thinking on my behalf!

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If 2ue/4bc/magic were rating very well and making lots of money maybe they would not have changed the format.

I guess they did not want 2ue to go music as they just got rid of 2ch. Also they dont want 2ue to compete with 2gb. It did kill off potential competition with commercial talkback in Sydney.

I think they should consider a vega style format lite talk music sport. I know George and Paul were frustrated the systems were down but were playing great music (happened on Saturday phones were down). 2gb have tech shows, car, finance shows let them do that.

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Personality radio with music like BBC Radio2 would do really well I think. People like George and Paul, or Grubby and Dee Dee. You could keep it national to keep costs low but use talent in all 3 cities.

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they have to do something. TLS is being beaten by newsradio for heavens sake.

they need to have a niche format thats not already on radio that costs stuff all.

i was thinking about a radio station targeted at tweens (similar to what radio disney used to do).

we have kinderling for the little ones but nothing after they grow out of this station.

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I can’t imagine Tweens rushing to listen to AM radio.

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These days, even FM and DAB+ radio (rather than listening to their favourite music on streaming/apps, etc.) is probably seen as being uncool by tweens. You’re not going to get them listening to a radio station on low fidelity, mono AM radio!

maybe, but they have to do something and take a risk.

I think the main reason why Macquarie bought 2UE was to protect 2GB.
So I can’t see them selling it to a potential competitor.

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I wonder how something like The Wave KTWV would go in Sydney. It’s R&B Smooth Jazz format isn’t very common anywhere and would possibly be OK on AM.

My vote:
2UE - BBC Radio 2 (DAB relay to Brisbane and Melbourne)
1278 - relaunch Magic or copy 4KQ
882 - relaunch 4BH or Easy 882 and copy Smooth

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I want.

Seriously, I’ve been driving a lot lately for work, and when JJJ,4 MMM and 4KQ are playing shit and 612 is off being boring, there is nothing to listen to. Once upon a time, 4BH would’ve been a safe bet. I’ve ended up listening to an FM community station out of Logan!

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You could’ve also had the option of tuning to The Breeze on 92.1, Rebel FM on 90.5 & River 94.9. :slight_smile:

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