WA’S new English-based radio player, Daily Mail Group (DMG), will forever change the way corporations deal with Perth radio.
WA’S new English-based radio player, Daily Mail Group (DMG), will forever change the way corporations deal with Perth radio.
Perth’s potential 1.5 million-strong radio audience is likely to be significantly diluted by the new FM music station and the expectation of nine more community stations to come.
Each new station call-sign chips away at the generous audiences enjoyed by the big three – 94.5, 92.9 and 96.1 – which are not likely to enjoy such high numbers again.
And corporations will have to refine and tailor their messages, as well as increase advertising across the radio spectrum to get the coverage they want.
But the vastly increased competition will eventually lower ad rates, especially at the lower end.
Local commercial radio no longer exists in any real sense.
WA has entered the main radio game, dominated by international and national chains.
Further media freeing-up is coming from the Howard Government, and media investment opportunities will come into play. It seems inevitable that fingers will be burnt.
Australia’s radio industry is buzzing with the apparently cheap $25 million price paid for Perth’s new licence, especially since Brisbane’s went for $80 million.
But, with the additional stations coming and WA having such a small listener and advertiser base (about $45 million in total), it is expected DMG will need many years to recoup the outlay – and that is before spending big on station set-up.
On the brighter side, there is the additional employment and higher pay competition is likely to create for some DJs, marketers and managers.
And, like any big shift in a market, it’s sure to be colourful, with the big boys running Australian radio always guaranteed a hot reception crossing the desert into WA.
The Valentine’s Day sale of the new FM licence was never going to be all love and kisses.
Last time Sydney-based Austereo’s buyers came to WA they encountered wily 70-something ex-New Yorker Jack Bendat. Only an eye-popping $100 million cheque from the Kirby family got them the keys to FM sister stations, 94.5 and 92.9.
Mr Bendat, whose family owns a string of American stations, knows all about the hidden extra value of outpost stations needed to make up a national radio network.
And when Southern Cross Broadcasting executives left their Melbourne bunker on a Perth station buying trip in 1994 to stalk talk station 6PR, the headline was: The Barbarians Are At The Gate.
SCB – now owner of a string of Australian radio and TV stations – had failed at tilts at licences in other markets.
Crossing the border, SCB created its own desert storm.
The barricades were manned by the generals of business, politics, community and 6PR’s management and presenters.
SCB’s offer for 6PR to the TAB, a Court Government body, met a management-staff counter bid and a publicly-declared parochial government broadcasting policy favouring locals.
In flew SCB’s (now retired) chairman and ex-Federal minister Peter Nixon and his managing director Tony Bell for the long, bitter battle in which SCB, with QC on deck, waved a threatening finger at the State Government.
If the Government shunned SCB, it would be an actionable breach of S.117 of the Federal Constitution: “a subject of the Queen shall not be discriminated against’’.
Imagine the undue difficulties that Kerry Stokes and Alan Bond would have encountered if the east put up the same barriers, SCB asserted.
The TAB had valued 6PR, home of shock jock Howard Sattler, at $3.7 million and, out of the blue on July 8 1994, came SCB’s $3.9 million offer.
The Government called for expressions of interest and got one from 6PR’s management/staff.
While SCB offered $4 million cash, $400,000 more than the local syndicate, the locals cleverly offered the Government three years of free non-political commercials worth $1 million plus tourism promos worth $480,000 a year.
The Government decided to call for tenders.
Then, a TAB board member visiting Melbourne, was alleged to have leaked tender details to SCB.
SCB’s upgraded offer included free government advertising – a whopping $6.95 million worth of free air time over five years for community groups, racing codes and the Eagles and the Dockers.
The Government itself was offered $120,000 worth of free commercials.
Now the bids were: SCB, cash of $4.68 million, $7 million of free advertising; locals, cash $4.25 million, $667,000 free ads and $195,000 to support TAB’s new racing station (total $5.1 million).
It is understood the (then) Government’s experts came out on the side of the local syndicate but SCB’s lucrative offer finally got the nod and the group took control on December 1 1994.
p See Media, page 15
Perth’s potential 1.5 million-strong radio audience is likely to be significantly diluted by the new FM music station and the expectation of nine more community stations to come.
Each new station call-sign chips away at the generous audiences enjoyed by the big three – 94.5, 92.9 and 96.1 – which are not likely to enjoy such high numbers again.
And corporations will have to refine and tailor their messages, as well as increase advertising across the radio spectrum to get the coverage they want.
But the vastly increased competition will eventually lower ad rates, especially at the lower end.
Local commercial radio no longer exists in any real sense.
WA has entered the main radio game, dominated by international and national chains.
Further media freeing-up is coming from the Howard Government, and media investment opportunities will come into play. It seems inevitable that fingers will be burnt.
Australia’s radio industry is buzzing with the apparently cheap $25 million price paid for Perth’s new licence, especially since Brisbane’s went for $80 million.
But, with the additional stations coming and WA having such a small listener and advertiser base (about $45 million in total), it is expected DMG will need many years to recoup the outlay – and that is before spending big on station set-up.
On the brighter side, there is the additional employment and higher pay competition is likely to create for some DJs, marketers and managers.
And, like any big shift in a market, it’s sure to be colourful, with the big boys running Australian radio always guaranteed a hot reception crossing the desert into WA.
The Valentine’s Day sale of the new FM licence was never going to be all love and kisses.
Last time Sydney-based Austereo’s buyers came to WA they encountered wily 70-something ex-New Yorker Jack Bendat. Only an eye-popping $100 million cheque from the Kirby family got them the keys to FM sister stations, 94.5 and 92.9.
Mr Bendat, whose family owns a string of American stations, knows all about the hidden extra value of outpost stations needed to make up a national radio network.
And when Southern Cross Broadcasting executives left their Melbourne bunker on a Perth station buying trip in 1994 to stalk talk station 6PR, the headline was: The Barbarians Are At The Gate.
SCB – now owner of a string of Australian radio and TV stations – had failed at tilts at licences in other markets.
Crossing the border, SCB created its own desert storm.
The barricades were manned by the generals of business, politics, community and 6PR’s management and presenters.
SCB’s offer for 6PR to the TAB, a Court Government body, met a management-staff counter bid and a publicly-declared parochial government broadcasting policy favouring locals.
In flew SCB’s (now retired) chairman and ex-Federal minister Peter Nixon and his managing director Tony Bell for the long, bitter battle in which SCB, with QC on deck, waved a threatening finger at the State Government.
If the Government shunned SCB, it would be an actionable breach of S.117 of the Federal Constitution: “a subject of the Queen shall not be discriminated against’’.
Imagine the undue difficulties that Kerry Stokes and Alan Bond would have encountered if the east put up the same barriers, SCB asserted.
The TAB had valued 6PR, home of shock jock Howard Sattler, at $3.7 million and, out of the blue on July 8 1994, came SCB’s $3.9 million offer.
The Government called for expressions of interest and got one from 6PR’s management/staff.
While SCB offered $4 million cash, $400,000 more than the local syndicate, the locals cleverly offered the Government three years of free non-political commercials worth $1 million plus tourism promos worth $480,000 a year.
The Government decided to call for tenders.
Then, a TAB board member visiting Melbourne, was alleged to have leaked tender details to SCB.
SCB’s upgraded offer included free government advertising – a whopping $6.95 million worth of free air time over five years for community groups, racing codes and the Eagles and the Dockers.
The Government itself was offered $120,000 worth of free commercials.
Now the bids were: SCB, cash of $4.68 million, $7 million of free advertising; locals, cash $4.25 million, $667,000 free ads and $195,000 to support TAB’s new racing station (total $5.1 million).
It is understood the (then) Government’s experts came out on the side of the local syndicate but SCB’s lucrative offer finally got the nod and the group took control on December 1 1994.
p See Media, page 15