Magic 1278 in Melbourne and Magic 882 in Brisbane team up with 2CH Sydney to offer its audience ‘The songs you know and love’.
From Monday 9 November, Magic 1278 and Magic 882 will broadcast networked content including presenters John Blackman and Jane Holmes at Breakfast (6am to 10am), Dave Ferguson from 10am to 2pm and Donna Lynch in the Evenings from 8pm to midnight. There will be a further announcement on a new presenter to join the Magic team in Afternoons and the Weekend lineup for all the songs you know and love.
In addition to 2CH in Sydney, these changes will allow MRN to offer advertisers a true network approach to music for the important 40+ demographic in the Melbourne and Brisbane markets.
“We have completed substantial audience research and strategic work for our Magic stations in Melbourne and Brisbane. Our audience continually tells us that the right presenters are important and providing their choice of music is the primary requirement. We believe that these changes will give our listeners the best of both,” MRN Chief Operating Officer Adam Lang said.
“It is also important for MRN to offer an attractive audience to both agency and direct advertisers and the new ‘Magic Network’ alongside 2CH will help achieve this goal and be a strong complement to our strong national Talk These changes have resulted in some redundancies including presenters, as well as some programming and administrative staff.
“It is an unfortunate consequence of these changes that some roles will be made redundant. This is a critical requirement toward bringing each station greater commercial appeal for our audience and clients. It does not reflect in any way on our hard working team members who have been made redundant. I would like to thank all of our Magic staff for their professionalism and dedication to our audience,” Lang said.
See our earlier coverage of Magic 882 (formerly 4BH) here.
Macquarie Radio Network is required to sell 2CH as a condition of its merger with Fairfax Radio, due to a requirement in the Broadcasting Act that prevents a company owning more than two licences in a city
MRN now owns 2GB, 2UE and 2CH in Sydney and has already flagged that it intends to sell 2CH. The company is conducting a process to identify potential buyers before the end of March 2016 deadline for the sale.
The sale process of 2CH needs to be closely monitored by ACMA, given that there have already been suggestions that Macquarie might sell it to the Council of Churches for $1 and then continue to run it as part of the "Magic" network.
The "two stations in one capital city" policy has already been well and truly flouted by the Australian Radio Network with their ownership of WSFM, KIIS and The Edge in Sydney. Any defence that The Edge is a regional licence is laughable. When was the last time they had anything meaningful to do with outer western Sydney, let alone Katoomba, where that licence vests?
Listen to the station any time, and it's clearly operating as a Sydney station aimed at the youth market.
Macquarie should be forced to sell 2CH to the highest bidder and have no ongoing management rights as a condition of that sale, and that process provides an ideal opportunity for ACMA to tidy up the situation with The Edge.