How are they making enough money to cover the cost of the electricity bill for the transmitter and the quarterly digital radio access fees? The true cost of advertising on those two stations would have to be less than a cup of coffee per 30 seconds. 
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I think it should be a licence condition that all commercial stations MUST participate in every agreed metro ratings survey.
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I reckon they’ll roll out Magic again at least in Melbourne and Brisbane. They’ll probably still stuff that up in Brisbane though. 4BH rated well in Brisbane when it had a more contemporary easy listening format (a lot like Smooth FM today) in the mid to late 2000’s. Problem was the muppets at Macquarie started to take the Melbourne music format when they re-branded to Magic. All that did was create a far inferior version of 4KQ and ratings of course suffered.
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I agree that Magic or something very similar is likely to find its way back to 882 Brisbane and 1278 Melbourne sooner or later. The situation for 954 in Sydney is probably complicated a bit by 2CH. It wouldn’t totally surprise me if there’s wording in the sale agreement for 2CH to the effect that Macquarie can’t rebrand any of its Sydney stations to one that is broadly the same as 2CH for x years. Certainly similar restrictions have applied where companies have been forced to sell stations in the UK in circumstances like these and I could equally see that applying in this case.
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For TLS in the new year I would do the following
- Change name to lifestyle radio.
- Allow the breakfast show to talk new stories. Relax the rules. Local breakfast show would be great too but wont happen.
- Have more music shows or segments where they look at the history or a band or era. Play more music without it being a full-time music station.
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strong text new fill ins Jo Stanley, Anthony Lehman, Meshel Laurie, David Schawarz, Mark Allen & Red Symons those will bring more Melbourne Listeners to Talking LIfestyle add Mark Guyyer , Sophie Monk & Osher Gunsberg to add even mire Melbournje Listeners as well as Listeners in Sydney & Brisbane to talkiung Lifestyle 1278AM, Talking Lifestyke 954AM & Talkiung LIfestyke 882AM
Throw in Red Symonds and Hamish & Andy and you’ve got a real winner 
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I don’t know what I just read on post #406.
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Agree with some of that. What you describe is sounding quite a bit like BBC Radio 2.
Personally I wwouldn’t call it Lifestyle though. I’d either go back to Magic or think up something new.
That’s quite a mouthful with all those Talking Lifestyles. Just my opinion but the name is part of the problem. It just screams inane chatter or TV infomercial to most people.
For what I would do with TLS I will stay with my suggestions back in June (#291). As to what I think will happen, here’s my crystal ball gazing for 2018:
- as suggested above, in the next few months, the name will change to Lifestyle Radio. This will be accompanied by a very low dollar launch (some ads in Fairfax papers and websites). Net result no more than a 0.2 gain in the ratings…which will then slide back down in Melbourne and Brisbane.
- in despair (say April to June), Magic 1278 and Magic 882 will be resurrected with a similar low key launch. The two stations will be fully networked with one play list to cut costs.
- In Brisbane, this will rate a 2 - 3 market share, whereas Macquarie will be expecting a return to the 4BH levels of 5 - 6… (which I actually think is a reasonable target, for an “easy mix” station with no Smooth FM - but requires local content, a playlist tailored for Brisbane’s market…and marketing dollars!)
- In Melbourne, they will have a similar target (again not unreasonable given that 5-6 was achieved in 2014 by Magic 1278, although it should be noted that the switch to networking in 2015 quite astonishingly coincided with a drop in their ratings to 3-4). Macquarie will be even more disappointed with I think a 1 - 2 market share. Unfortunately, the listeners that have switched to Smooth are unlikely to return and the marketing dollars of Smooth will beat “the all new” Magic 1278 hands down…
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They have some decent talent there, the breakfast team is good, Ed Phillips, Webster to a lesser degree and Jono Coleman are all good value. They could easily reformat it to have less reliance on ads, and have more personality talk. I like the Radio 2 idea (something I’ve thought they should do at the ABC).
If they did it properly across SYD>MEL>BRIS I think it could work well. You could have Grubby and Dee Dee do a regular shift, give Jono Coleman a better timeslot and let him talk more about entertainment, music and have guests. Let Webster do more newsy content in the morning with chats with newsmakers, have Ed Phillips do more of the lifestyle content they do now in the afternoons. They could also sprinkle in some music occasionally (think WSFM/Gold style selections).
It wouldn’t cost a bomb but it’d be far more listenable.
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May sound overly bold/stupid, but could they try moving all MRN sports coverage onto this station?
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I agree.
Still in Sydney there is still the bitterness with Ray Hadley with what happened in the 90, early 00s. I always remember with the interview he did on 2ue for the 90th anniversity some of it came out. It was silly how 2ue lost the rights to call football. Nrl for some reason felt having exclusive rights for 2gb was a good thing. Yet 2ue did outrate 2gb without the game. Once they got into trouble watching it on tv and calling. 2ue in my view went down a bit (as a league show) and started to be variety show than a rugby league show.
Where in the 80s it was on 2ue, 2bl, 2ky, 2gb and 2sm. It was a different era less tv coverage. But arl / nswrl from what I could tell never restricted its radio coverage to competition until after the dawn of pay tv.
Anyway i think its like arl or nrl going to 2dayfm. I dont think it will happen in the short-term (TLS getting rugby league again). And I think its a bit of a revenge factor there, the nrl should have never stop 2ue from calling games. Big companies do this, its like the google pixel having exclusive deals with telstra. In my view they are better to be like apple and have plans for all major carriers.
I do like how today, on Pay TV they allow foxtel to bring games which use to only be the channel nine game . Compared to the old days, I hated it how on a friday nights there use to be a radio blackout for NRL as the match was on nine. It was delayed for 1 hour too. It happen recently with world cup. The rugby league world cup got greedy and we got no radio coverage. The big bash is another situation of just being one radio station to provide coverage. The abc use to cover shield cricket more and the big bash, now I dont think they have the rights.A little off topic 
.
Back on topic, I am curious why 4bc and 3aw still have cricket but TLS in Sydney. It might be a legacy thing.
I think it was mentioned above - the deal was only done with Fairfax Radio of which 2GB was not a part of, hence, GB cannot Call the cricket.
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Thanks. I wonder if it is on a contract. For example I think Alan Jones could today broadcast on TLS breakfast but they wont make that move as his style of show is not part of the format. So when Triple M get the rights to ARL they are not allowed to put it on 2dayfm? Or is it contract with the parent company or with the radio station? So say IF triple M was sold to EON the rights would go with them? Is this on a typical contract? Or conversely can the AFL say we want you to broadcast only on Triple M and nothing on 2Day FM.
What I am saying is with 3AW and 4BC bring the cricket is this is just a legacy thing or would it be a breach of contract if TLC brought the cricket in Brissy and Melbourne.
IMO cricket on MML stations is a waste.
It’s a deal which was done by Fairfax in the days before the Macquarie merger as a tool to offer a point of difference and compete - based on the News Talk format.
Now with Talking Lifestyle, the whole agreement is a mess. Same goes with the CrocMedia AFL calls. Completely off-brand for TL.
I agree with the above comments of dropping the word “Talking” from the brand and transition the station into a lifestyle & music format. Surely we’d all agree that more shows like George & Paul and Saturday Night Live is what the station needs to replicate in all dayparts.
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You know that talking lifestyle is in despair when their own sister station 2GB is advertising programs on 954 lifestyle… If you want it and you need talking crapstyle.
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Bit strange. Was listening to the cricket. It is now off air. They have “normal programming” on NTS as well as talking lifestyle. It’s not streaming in the cricket app too. Strange. I know England are flogging us but why only broadcast half a game. You would think it would be on NTS.
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No big bash on NTS tonight as well. Disappointing. Give the radio rights back the ABC.