It's pointless from the listeners point of view to have 2 stations from the same transmitter taking the same networked chart show, it happens in Merseyside with City96.7 and CityTalk, but I would point to that as an example of all that's wrong with radio today, it shouldn't be something the regulator actually allows.
State of radio today? LBC and Capital both broadcast the Network Chart in London for a while in the 80s. It's nothing new.
Perhaps Pirate might be the one to make the decision to drop the Big Top 40 once it's duplicated by Heart, but they might think why should we as we will lose out to the biggest show on the radio.
You do know radio stations get paid for taking it?
Pirate may well say "why should we be forced to drop the chart" but it's Global's show so, frankly, tough.
However that's not going to happen. It may not be in the listeners' interests for both Cornwall's commercial stations to carry the same chart but again - tough, because it's in Global's interests to have it on as many stations as possible as they want the maximum audience to sell to advertisers.
128kbps in AAC+ (HE AAC) isn't bad, the latest LAME codec for MP3 sounds very good even at 128kbps, still why are we even debating this, they're not using floppy discs, even if they shipped audio on USB flash drives, they could now send a whole ton through the post using say the lossless FLAC.
It's pointless from the listeners point of view to have 2 stations from the same transmitter taking the same networked chart show, it happens in Merseyside with City96.7 and CityTalk, but I would point to that as an example of all that's wrong with radio today, it shouldn't be something the regulator actually allows.
Perhaps Pirate might be the one to make the decision to drop the Big Top 40 once it's duplicated by Heart, but they might think why should we as we will lose out to the biggest show on the radio.
Locally Chester's Dee106.3 and Liverpool's Juice FM don't take it, what would be the point if they did.
Pirate seem to have quite an incredible amount of non-stop music, perhaps they could offer a spot for the floorfillers DJ, because they literally don't do anything on Saturday nights anyway!
Duplication of the chart is no big deal - its only on 3 hours a week anyway!
What irks me is the whole "Global"-isation of ILR. People of Cornwall responded to OFCOM about the Cornwall ILR2 licence and stated they wanted a local station not a Cornwall/Plymouth/Exeter Super-Region. So we got what we wanted for a few years, then it happened anyway.
People are NOT happy about this in Cornwall (except the local luddites who wouldn't know good local radio if it hit them face first at 125MPH).... but I digress...
You're point could be made about any local stations anywhere in the country that have become Heart or Touch or The Breeze, people won't care ultimately.
Anyway the people will have a choice of a fully local commercial, networked with local elements commercial music radio, BBC local radio, national radio and community areas in certain areas.
I'd argue the listening public will be better served now, if they really cared about the station being a full local service they will simply retune to Pirate FM.
I'm sure they will lose listeners to Pirate, but I'm sure Pirate will lose listeners to Heart.
I don't feel sorry for the listeners hear as I don't really feel they'll be losing anything, but it's the good broadcasters loosing their jobs.
I'd argue the listening public will be better served now, if they really cared about the station being a full local service they will simply retune to Pirate FM.
......Or in most cases, never retuned FROM Pirate in the first place!
The huge disparity between ratings forecasts in sucesful licence bids and actual ratings show how little you can trust such public surveys.
Such polling is as flawed as that of the 1992 general election.
So while Cornish listeners may have instinctivly claimed to the clipboard carriers that obviously they would prefer another local Cornish station rather than a regional one shared with Devon, when push comes to shove they-like anyone else-just want something good coming out the speakers, as they say.
I wonder if the move to buy Atlantic by Global was to pre-empt Celedor doing so. I'd imagine purchasing Palm, Exe and Plymouth along with Atlantic to create a Devon and Cornwall station must have been on their to do list.
If people want a quality radio station playing a great mix of music with big-name presenters, they have Heart, the byword for quality British commercial radio.
If they want super-local done well, they have Pirate, the byword for quality local radio in Cornwall.
That's what I call a bloody good choice, personally.
Duplication of the chart is no big deal - its only on 3 hours a week anyway!
What irks me is the whole "Global"-isation of ILR. People of Cornwall responded to OFCOM about the Cornwall ILR2 licence and stated they wanted a local station not a Cornwall/Plymouth/Exeter Super-Region. So we got what we wanted for a few years, then it happened anyway.
People are NOT happy about this in Cornwall (except the local luddites who wouldn't know good local radio if it hit them face first at 125MPH).... but I digress...
And if you think Cornwall can sustain two competing pop music commercial services, all being done locally, then you're sadly mistaken.
History will show that Pirate FM was the first legal commercial station for Cornwall, setting the live and local bar extremely high (at least in the daytimes) and promptly saw off the competition from Atlantic.
Could you perhaps define what made Atlantic so very distinctive and different from Pirate? And that's a genuine question.
People of Cornwall responded to OFCOM about the Cornwall ILR2 licence and stated they wanted a local station not a Cornwall/Plymouth/Exeter Super-Region.
They said they wanted it, but then never really listened when they got it. What's the more important statistic.
Atlantic FM started out very distinct from Pirate. Lots of speech. Today I don't really know what the difference is between them. Difficult to argue Heart won't increase listener choice.
They said they wanted it, but then never really listened when they got it. What's the more important statistic.
That's exactly the point. A 16% weekly reach and 3.6% market share tells you everything you need to know.
We are not talking about London or Manchester here where there is a competitive commercial radio market place and a lot of choice on FM. There is only one local commercial competitor unless you include the Heart/Gold overspill coverage in SE Cornwall.
If Heart has a lot of Cornwall news, info and what's-ons during the slick network programming I think Pirate could have a problem holding on to their audience share. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.
It's interesting to note that the station is launching on a bank holiday Monday, when a lot of people will be in the county for the weekend.
That's exactly the point. A 16% weekly reach and 3.6% market share tells you everything you need to know.
We are not talking about London or Manchester here where there is a competitive commercial radio market place and a lot of choice on FM. There is only one local commercial competitor unless you include the Heart/Gold overspill coverage in SE Cornwall.
If Heart has a lot of Cornwall news, info and what's-ons during the slick network programming I think Pirate could have a problem holding on to their audience share. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.
It's interesting to note that the station is launching on a bank holiday Monday, when a lot of people will be in the county for the weekend.
It will have local news - probably inserted at St Agnes. As far as anything else goes - forget it. You get some local-ish stuff on Breakfast and Drive but bear in mind those programmes stretch up as far as the M5 and a lot of the travel news is Plymouth, Exeter and the Torpoint Ferry. You can wave "Bye Bye" to the surf report that's for sure...
I tuned to Atlantic when it launched as it actually had better sound quality - less over-modding and cleaner. When I moved to Plymouth we had Plymouth Sound (Hit Mix network) and although I'm aware their style was similar to Heart their music was different and felt more local.
Heart came along and closed the local Plymouth version. Great. I tuned back to Atlantic where I could (in the car it's a bit hit and miss) but now it's being assimilated into the Heart behemoth. I'm gonna give Pirate FM a try again. Tuned in last year for a bit and the DJ was yelling all the time. Put me right off...:yawn:
There is a rumour abound that a rival radio group but in a matched undisclosed bid for Atlantic FM at the same time as Global, promising to keep the station locally run - however they refused. I wonder why? Maybe it's because a board member of Atlantic was also on the non exec board at Global?!? Hmmmmmmmm........ :rolleyes:
If Heart has a lot of Cornwall news, info and what's-ons during the slick network programming I think Pirate could have a problem holding on to their audience share. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.
It's interesting to note that the station is launching on a bank holiday Monday, when a lot of people will be in the county for the weekend.
Hit the nail on the head there mate!
Bear in mind how much of Cornwall's income is based on tourism.
What will now be Heart Cornwall will now be able to sell locally in the Summer, not on the basis of Atlantic's 3.6% local market share, but on the hundreds of thousands (if not more) of current Heart listeners elsewhere in the country who will now be assumed to be likely to be listening to the station when holidaying in Cornwall. Bear in mind how much a holiday in the area can involve very long car journeys from hotel/cottage to whatever tourist attraction.
This is where Pirate could really suffer. Not on local RAJAR but on locally sold ads aimed at (particularly Southern) English tourists.
My only surprise is they didn't rush it through for Easter Weekend! 'Hire Quinn to kill the shark' thinking going on here.
It will have local news - probably inserted at St Agnes. As far as anything else goes - forget it. You get some local-ish stuff on Breakfast and Drive but bear in mind those programmes stretch up as far as the M5 and a lot of the travel news is Plymouth, Exeter and the Torpoint Ferry. You can wave "Bye Bye" to the surf report that's for sure...
I tuned to Atlantic when it launched as it actually had better sound quality - less over-modding and cleaner. When I moved to Plymouth we had Plymouth Sound (Hit Mix network) and although I'm aware their style was similar to Heart their music was different and felt more local.
Heart came along and closed the local Plymouth version. Great. I tuned back to Atlantic where I could (in the car it's a bit hit and miss) but now it's being assimilated into the Heart behemoth. I'm gonna give Pirate FM a try again. Tuned in last year for a bit and the DJ was yelling all the time. Put me right off...:yawn:
There is a rumour abound that a rival radio group but in a matched undisclosed bid for Atlantic FM at the same time as Global, promising to keep the station locally run - however they refused. I wonder why? Maybe it's because a board member of Atlantic was also on the non exec board at Global?!? Hmmmmmmmm........ :rolleyes:
It's no secret UKRD wanted Atlantic. On paper they could run it very cheaply by moving it into Redruth. I'm not, however, convinced it would be a great victory for choice on the dial since the two have a decent amount of overlap musically (maybe that would change with both under the same parent) whereas here you have the very slick Heart against the very local Pirate.
Competition is good. It's what keeps standards high.
Not sure that Heart brings anything extra to Cornwall...anyone who wants to hear it can hear the virtually identical London version on sky 0111 0r freeview...and online....
Not sure that Heart brings anything extra to Cornwall...anyone who wants to hear it can hear the virtually identical London version on sky 0111 0r freeview...and online....
That's no good for 90%+ radio listening that is done in the car or on the works radio etc. :rolleyes:
At the moment listeners have the choice of two very similar services on FM both very professional sounding but not much to separate the two musically or in terms of content.
When Heart is on air, listeners will have the choice of the ultra local Pirate with a broader playlist, and the tighter more targeted music and bigger name presenters etc. Heart will still sound relatively local to most, and if it's not local enough you'll pop back over to Pirate and realise it isn't that much different to the service that Heart replaced.
How anyone can't see this is creating more choice for cornish business and listeners is beyond me.
As I said before the people who I feel sorry for are the Atlantic presenters, but no one else really loses out in the long term.
<snip>
There is a rumour abound that a rival radio group but in a matched undisclosed bid for Atlantic FM at the same time as Global, promising to keep the station locally run - however they refused. I wonder why? Maybe it's because a board member of Atlantic was also on the non exec board at Global?!? Hmmmmmmmm........ :rolleyes:
Richard Eyre? Not down on his active list of directorships
There is a rumour abound that a rival radio group but in a matched undisclosed bid for Atlantic FM at the same time as Global, promising to keep the station locally run - however they refused. I wonder why? Maybe it's because a board member of Atlantic was also on the non exec board at Global?!? Hmmmmmmmm........ :rolleyes:
Could that have been Celedor? Would UKRD be allowed to keep Atlantic as well?
Do you not think Global may have just offered more money for the licence than the other group?
It would make sense for UKRD to pick up Exe, Plymouth and Palm, maybe provide a separate Breakfast show and voice tracked the rest of the time, and call it Pirate FM Devon.
IIRC they bid for the Plymouth licence under the 'Pirate' name, in now seems like insanity they weren't awarded it considering what happened with the eventual winners.
Comments
However that's not going to happen. It may not be in the listeners' interests for both Cornwall's commercial stations to carry the same chart but again - tough, because it's in Global's interests to have it on as many stations as possible as they want the maximum audience to sell to advertisers.
I think it was the assertion that Heart's playlist was so small you'd get it on a floppy, which isn't very funny.
Mix 96 and Minster come to mind.
What irks me is the whole "Global"-isation of ILR. People of Cornwall responded to OFCOM about the Cornwall ILR2 licence and stated they wanted a local station not a Cornwall/Plymouth/Exeter Super-Region. So we got what we wanted for a few years, then it happened anyway.
People are NOT happy about this in Cornwall (except the local luddites who wouldn't know good local radio if it hit them face first at 125MPH).... but I digress...
Anyway the people will have a choice of a fully local commercial, networked with local elements commercial music radio, BBC local radio, national radio and community areas in certain areas.
I'd argue the listening public will be better served now, if they really cared about the station being a full local service they will simply retune to Pirate FM.
I'm sure they will lose listeners to Pirate, but I'm sure Pirate will lose listeners to Heart.
I don't feel sorry for the listeners hear as I don't really feel they'll be losing anything, but it's the good broadcasters loosing their jobs.
......Or in most cases, never retuned FROM Pirate in the first place!
The huge disparity between ratings forecasts in sucesful licence bids and actual ratings show how little you can trust such public surveys.
Such polling is as flawed as that of the 1992 general election.
So while Cornish listeners may have instinctivly claimed to the clipboard carriers that obviously they would prefer another local Cornish station rather than a regional one shared with Devon, when push comes to shove they-like anyone else-just want something good coming out the speakers, as they say.
http://www.atlantic.fm/
http://www.atlantic.fm/on-air/heart-is-coming/
If people want a quality radio station playing a great mix of music with big-name presenters, they have Heart, the byword for quality British commercial radio.
If they want super-local done well, they have Pirate, the byword for quality local radio in Cornwall.
That's what I call a bloody good choice, personally.
And if you think Cornwall can sustain two competing pop music commercial services, all being done locally, then you're sadly mistaken.
History will show that Pirate FM was the first legal commercial station for Cornwall, setting the live and local bar extremely high (at least in the daytimes) and promptly saw off the competition from Atlantic.
Could you perhaps define what made Atlantic so very distinctive and different from Pirate? And that's a genuine question.
They said they wanted it, but then never really listened when they got it. What's the more important statistic.
Atlantic FM started out very distinct from Pirate. Lots of speech. Today I don't really know what the difference is between them. Difficult to argue Heart won't increase listener choice.
That's exactly the point. A 16% weekly reach and 3.6% market share tells you everything you need to know.
We are not talking about London or Manchester here where there is a competitive commercial radio market place and a lot of choice on FM. There is only one local commercial competitor unless you include the Heart/Gold overspill coverage in SE Cornwall.
If Heart has a lot of Cornwall news, info and what's-ons during the slick network programming I think Pirate could have a problem holding on to their audience share. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.
It's interesting to note that the station is launching on a bank holiday Monday, when a lot of people will be in the county for the weekend.
It will have local news - probably inserted at St Agnes. As far as anything else goes - forget it. You get some local-ish stuff on Breakfast and Drive but bear in mind those programmes stretch up as far as the M5 and a lot of the travel news is Plymouth, Exeter and the Torpoint Ferry. You can wave "Bye Bye" to the surf report that's for sure...
I tuned to Atlantic when it launched as it actually had better sound quality - less over-modding and cleaner. When I moved to Plymouth we had Plymouth Sound (Hit Mix network) and although I'm aware their style was similar to Heart their music was different and felt more local.
Heart came along and closed the local Plymouth version. Great. I tuned back to Atlantic where I could (in the car it's a bit hit and miss) but now it's being assimilated into the Heart behemoth. I'm gonna give Pirate FM a try again. Tuned in last year for a bit and the DJ was yelling all the time. Put me right off...:yawn:
There is a rumour abound that a rival radio group but in a matched undisclosed bid for Atlantic FM at the same time as Global, promising to keep the station locally run - however they refused. I wonder why? Maybe it's because a board member of Atlantic was also on the non exec board at Global?!? Hmmmmmmmm........ :rolleyes:
Hit the nail on the head there mate!
Bear in mind how much of Cornwall's income is based on tourism.
What will now be Heart Cornwall will now be able to sell locally in the Summer, not on the basis of Atlantic's 3.6% local market share, but on the hundreds of thousands (if not more) of current Heart listeners elsewhere in the country who will now be assumed to be likely to be listening to the station when holidaying in Cornwall. Bear in mind how much a holiday in the area can involve very long car journeys from hotel/cottage to whatever tourist attraction.
This is where Pirate could really suffer. Not on local RAJAR but on locally sold ads aimed at (particularly Southern) English tourists.
My only surprise is they didn't rush it through for Easter Weekend! 'Hire Quinn to kill the shark' thinking going on here.
It's no secret UKRD wanted Atlantic. On paper they could run it very cheaply by moving it into Redruth. I'm not, however, convinced it would be a great victory for choice on the dial since the two have a decent amount of overlap musically (maybe that would change with both under the same parent) whereas here you have the very slick Heart against the very local Pirate.
Competition is good. It's what keeps standards high.
At the moment listeners have the choice of two very similar services on FM both very professional sounding but not much to separate the two musically or in terms of content.
When Heart is on air, listeners will have the choice of the ultra local Pirate with a broader playlist, and the tighter more targeted music and bigger name presenters etc. Heart will still sound relatively local to most, and if it's not local enough you'll pop back over to Pirate and realise it isn't that much different to the service that Heart replaced.
How anyone can't see this is creating more choice for cornish business and listeners is beyond me.
As I said before the people who I feel sorry for are the Atlantic presenters, but no one else really loses out in the long term.
Richard Eyre? Not down on his active list of directorships
http://company-director-check.co.uk/director/900521991
He resigned from Global Radio Limited in June 2008. At the time that company was called "GCap Media plc"
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/107558e7f9b7a7948451519ed8bf4efc/compdetails
Do you not think Global may have just offered more money for the licence than the other group?
IIRC they bid for the Plymouth licence under the 'Pirate' name, in now seems like insanity they weren't awarded it considering what happened with the eventual winners.