As Nine Entertainment Co flexes its muscles on its radio assets, the chairman of the soon-to-be delisted Macquarie Media Russell Tate continues to deliver pink slips to people in the radio division.
Last week it was Macquarie Media CEO Adam Lang who was told his services were no longer required.
Yesterday it was the announcers and staff of the Macquarie Radio Sports business who were told that the game was up. All sports all the time, but not much longer.
Just three days in fact – all sport talk programs, which account for much of the time across the weekday and weekends, will case at 11pm Friday.
Sports broadcasting on radio is at the crossroads. While Crocmedia’s SEN Sports Radio appears to be thriving, the Macquarie Sports Broadcasting experiment has come to a grinding halt just 18 months after launching. In that time there was no glimmer that the shows were reaching an audience. The highest rating for the Sydney station in that time was just 1.1% with a low of 0.5% earlier this year. In the supposed sporting capital of Australia, the highest Melbourne share in that time was 0.4%. The breakfast show in that city, relayed out of Sydney, has been on 0.1% for most of this year.
Sydney’s other sports radio station, Sky Sports Radio, is without a breakfast show after the recent departure of Terry Kennedy.
Announcers at Macquarie Sports Radio have been having some fun on air after the decision to axe the brand was revealed yesterday. The Ox and Marko drive show yesterday hosted (a previously planned) segment about the correct way to sack people.
Macquarie Sports Radio breakfast with Jimmy, Piggy and Levy
Meanwhile the breakfast show with Mark “Piggy” Riddell and Mark Levy bounced on air this morning, claiming they were on their final farewell tour.
The drive show hosts were famously sacked from SEN in 2017. They both said yesterday they were showed some respect this time by Russell Tate and that Macquarie would be looking after them.
In a short statement yesterday, Russell Tate said:
“Macquarie Media Limited today announced that development of its Macquarie Sports Radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will be paused and reviewed over the summer months and that the current schedule of sport talk programs will cease as of 11pm, Friday 1 November.
“Over the coming months, Macquarie Sports Radio will continue live sport broadcasts including all scheduled Test Match, BBL, One-Day Internationals & International T20 Cricket matches as well as its English Premier League coverage. The stations will draw an increased amount of content from local and international partners, including Macquarie Media’s News Talk stations and Nine, and will continue to access Macquarie National News services for constantly updated sporting news.”
There has been some speculation that Nine could be soon simulcasting some of its programs like the Today show.
Other sources have said Crocmedia could be running the numbers about using the frequencies to expand into the Sydney and Brisbane markets. It already broadcasts a separate signal into South Australia for the Adelaide market.
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Top Photos: Marko and The Ox