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Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

The majority of its acquisitions last year (May 2020)

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IS
Inspector Sands

It's also worth noting that 96.2 from Oldham is mono only as Bauer don't have a line feed to the transmitter, instead using a DAB receiver to relay the content with is at 80k mono from the Manchester mux.

I know a line can take a while to get installed, but surely these days with a fairly decent internet connection it's fairly easy to get a decent quality IP stream set up.

Surely it's just a case of getting the audio to an Arqiva location
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 25 February 2021 4:57pm
CH
chinamug
Bauer takeover of the Irish stations has yet to be approved.

Minister Catherine Martin was on RTE Radio One this morning and said the takeover would go through “the usual regulatory processes” involving the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

These are direct quotes doing the rounds on Irish Media at the moment.

“If it’s cleared by that it comes to my desk for review from a media plurality perspective. That is the role that I have in terms of protecting the plurality of Irish media,” she said.

“Any media companies involved in mergers have to seek clearance from the minister on the grounds for assessment that it won’t damage media diversity. There’s a statutory process in place where we’ll assess submissions on those grounds, it would be inappropriate for me to comment any further.”

Now Bauer know what they're doing and they're fairly aware that Irish is a very different Radio Market to the UK. I beilive all the stations they've purchased have a 20% news and current affairs quota to fill and that's very likely to remain.

In fact any company changing the way local stations operate in Ireland do so at their peril. Talk is king on most of them. Usually the two biggest shows are Breakfast and then the 2 or 3 hour talk show that tends to go out after 9.

Some local stations like Radio Kerry appear to have more than half their Daytime shedule focused on Talk.

The one exception to all this would be Newstalk, It's almost all talk (the hint is in the name!) but it also has lost 10's of millions down the years, it was the other stations in the Communicorp Group that kept it on the air. Communicorp would actually have been far more profitable if they never had that station. But it was a vainty project for the owner of Communicorp Denis O Brien who at one stage viewed himself as a Media Mougel. (He probably still does!)

It's the one station I would expect major changes with at some point in the future. My guess is that they would become more sports focused.
BBI45 and Hatton Cross gave kudos
JO
Jon
I think if one of these networks did become Greatest Hits Radio, all of its programming would remain being made in Ireland.
RD
rdd Founding member
I can’t see the sale not being approved tbh. Bauer aren’t a big player in the Irish market at present.

Newstalk already do have a heavy sports focus in the evenings and weekends with Off the Ball. This has a spin off new media brand “OTB” but I’m not sure what sort of audience the streaming only stuff gets. It’s still a great achievement for a show everyone said was done for when the Second Captains left (eight years ago now).
LL
London Lite Founding member
In the Dublin market, Newstalk is the 2nd most listened to station after RTÉ Radio 1, I doubt it's going anywhere. Today FM is the underperforming station of Bauer's new acquisitions.
CH
chinamug
In the Dublin market, Newstalk is the 2nd most listened to station after RTÉ Radio 1, I doubt it's going anywhere. Today FM is the underperforming station of Bauer's new acquisitions.


That may be the case but if you take Newstalk and Today FM across the country, they're tied at 11% listenership. (RTE1 is the leader at 24%, the locals have 55%!) They have National reach after all, that's what makes them attractive.

On the 15-34 age group Today FM is roughly 10% and Newstalk is about 5% (If my memory is correct) The big problem with Newstalk is that it's never made money, in fact it's lost millions and millions. On the other hand Today FM has been a cashcow.

Denis O Brien has Loans outstanding to his Company of over 100 million, that's after years of multi Million losses at Newstalk.

Now I don't think if the group is sold that Newstalk will close but changes would have to be made, to at least have it break even. Denis O Brien had other agendas and having Newstalk was useful (if expensive) for a long time.

A lot of Radioheads are also asking questions about the reported number for the sale. It's understood to be 100 million but many are questioning that as it seems to be a huge amount over the market rate.

Many will be happy to see Denis O Brien out of media circles in Ireland. Irish Times journalists are currently banned from Newstalk (or were the last time I checked) That and many other issues left a bitter taste.
JA
james-2001
BBI45 posted:
Even most BBC local stations never mentioned their AM frequencies in their dying days (are there any still broadcasting on MW? I know ours closed down after taking it off unannounced briefly to see if anyone noticed or complained- and hardly anyone did).

I know I used to be able to get the BBC Three Counties MW signal here which always suprised me, being a very weak signal from a transmitter the best part of 100 miles away.

Given that I've got nothing better to do, I decided to visit Frequency Finder to see which are still on AM. It turns out there are quite a few:

729kHz - BBC Essex
738kHz - BBC Hereford and Worcester
756kHZ- BBC Radio Cumbria
765kHz - BBC Essex
774kHz - BBC Radio Bradford / BBC Radio Leeds
801kHz - BBC Radio Devon
837kHz - BBC Radio Cumbria
855kHz - BBC Radio Lancashire
873kHz - BBC Radio Norfolk
990kHz - BBC Radio Devon
1026kHz - BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
1026kHz - BBC Radio Jersey
1035kHz - BBC Radio Sheffield
1116kHz - BBC Radio Derby (BBC Asian Network 7pm-1am)
1116kHz - BBC Radio Guernsey
1413kHz - BBC Radio Gloucestershire
1503kHz - BBC Radio Stoke
1566kHz - BBC Somerset
1584kHz - BBC Hereford and Worcester


I wonder how many people even listen to these MW simulcasts any more. There surely can't be many people who have radios who can't pick up FM (I don't remember ever seeing one in my lifetime which didn't, even ones which date from the 70s- the nearest I can think of is one my great aunt was using into the 00s which only tuned up to 104, not 108, dating from before the FM band was fully expanded) and I can't see why people would choose to listen on MW rather than FM when there's a choice. All I can really think of is people who live outside the FM coverage area, as MW signals travel further, but even then there's other ways to listen now. After all, it's already 30-odd years since the ILR and Radio 1-3 MW simulcasts were shut down with the reasoning that most people can get them on FM.

They're clearly keeping them on air for some reason, even in these cash strapped times.
Last edited by james-2001 on 26 February 2021 10:03am - 2 times in total
MA
Markymark

I wonder how many people even listen to these MW simulcasts any more. There surely can't be many people who have radios who can't pick up FM (I don't remember ever seeing one in my lifetime which didn't, even ones which date from the 70s- the nearest I can think of is one my great aunt was using into the 00s which only tuned up to 104, not 108, dating from before the FM band was fully expanded) and I can't see why people would choose to listen on MW rather than FM when there's a choice. All I can really think of is people who live outside the FM coverage area, as MW signals travel further, but even then there's other ways to listen now. After all, it's already 30-odd years since the ILR and Radio 1-3 MW simulcasts were shut down with the reasoning that most people can get them on FM.

They're clearly keeping them on air for some reason, even in these cash strapped times.


Back until the mid 80s, the reasons given for people's reluctance to use FM were because you needed to extend the telescopic aerial out, (and often position it horizontally) and it sounded (to some) as rather 'thin'. Modern portable FM radios are far more sensitive now, and 99% of all FM transmitters transmit a significant vertical component. The issue of the thin sound has been well and truly solved these days Rolling Eyes

Personally, I don't know what all the fuss was about. We were an FM only household from several years before I was even born !
The only time I routinely heard AM was in the car.
Last edited by Markymark on 26 February 2021 10:37am
PA
Parker
I remember talking to the IBA engineer who was assessing the reception need of Viking Radio in Hull. He deliberately placed himself in a dip on the wolds and was talking to the engineer at high Hunsley. ' no thats not enough, need more..., turn it up.' Viking ended up with over 10,000 watts in the end. It was very useful because when they tied up with Hallam and Pennine both stations could rebroadcast from taking Vikings transmission which saved the lines for other uses. Usually sending adverts back and forth.
RD
rdd Founding member

Personally, I don't know what all the fuss was about. We were an FM only household from several years before I was even born !
The only time I routinely heard AM was in the car.


When I was a kid we’d often deliberately choose the MW version of RTÉ Radio 1 when travelling precisely because it was on the same frequency nationwide, and it avoided having to retune on FM every 45 minutes or so as we crossed the country.
IS
Inspector Sands

Back until the mid 80s, the reasons given for people's reluctance to use FM were because you needed to extend the telescopic aerial out, (and often position it horizontally) and it sounded (to some) as rather 'thin'. Modern portable FM radios are far more sensitive now, and 99% of all FM transmitters transmit a significant vertical component. The issue of the thin sound has been well and truly solved these days Rolling Eyes

Personally, I don't know what all the fuss was about. We were an FM only household from several years before I was even born !
The only time I routinely heard AM was in the car.

I still listen to MW occasionally, usually when I'm in the car and there's something important going on for which I need 5Live. I think it was the last lockdown announcement which was made at the time I left work, so the easiest way to hear it was just to press MW. I was certainly quite a regular listener up until the early 2000s, most of the stations I listened to regularly in the 90s - LBC, Talk Radio and 5 Live were only in MW

I agree about the sound quality, there's something nice about AM, very warm and rich, and also easier to hear speech, especially in a car. Not many places you can hear decent AM these days though, so much interference
MA
Markymark
I remember talking to the IBA engineer who was assessing the reception need of Viking Radio in Hull. He deliberately placed himself in a dip on the wolds and was talking to the engineer at high Hunsley. ' no thats not enough, need more..., turn it up.' Viking ended up with over 10,000 watts in the end. It was very useful because when they tied up with Hallam and Pennine both stations could rebroadcast from taking Vikings transmission which saved the lines for other uses. Usually sending adverts back and forth.


Both Viking and BBC Humberside from HH went for miles and miles. Back in the 70s, before Radio 210 appeared on 97.0 down here in North Hampshire, I used to regularly listen to BBC Humberside (then on 96.9) whenever there was even a hint of a lift in settled weather

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