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Grubby Bauer at it again.
chemical2009b
Posts: 5,250 Forum Member
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When I say they're at it again what I mean is that they've now centralised their Scottish FM playlists with the exception of MFR and Radio Borders, I like to compare and contrast the individual playlists :mad:
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Or, to ask a realistic question, how many ordinary listeners to Clyde, Forth, Tay, Northsound or Westsound will either realise or care?
I have to listen to one of these stations at work and frankly am glad I don't work with sharp objects, it's pretty awful but the masses lap it up. Bizarre.
Because they are both full service ILRs aimed at the broad populations, unlike the others which are all CHR FMers with an AM counterpart.
The move makes sense. The days of these stations needing individual nuances to reflect local music tastes and talent. In the age of Rhianna and Calvin, no one will notice or care. Why bother with all that extra work?
That show certainly isn't on Northsound 1 anyway.
These charts are........and have always been......a fallacy. In the days of the Scottish Top 40 of old, it was literally a case of the head of music at Clyde sitting writing out the chart as he pleased on a Friday afternoon after his lunch.
I would hazzard a guess that most of these local charts are/were done the same way. Actually gathering sales data is a time consuming and costly excercise that would not gain a single listener.
Years ago I once challengeed Gary Burgess (then PC at then QFM) about this and he told me that it was done 'with a touch of casual empiricism'. I liked that phrase.
You won't suddenly be hearing Hugh Keevins from the Radio Clyde studios in Clydebank on the 12.30pm sport bulletin on MFR in Inverness ever.
So Bauer can't simply merge the AM and FM network and close the AM station downs, and then merge all the FM stations together.
The audiences would be up in arms if there was just one scottish studios (presumably the current clyde 1 studio plus the Radio Clyde news desk) airing mainly top 40's and 1990's and 2000's material, with a few classic hits squeezed in plus a couple of specialist shows such as disco, country and western or the 60's show at the weekend to make up for the AM networks closed down. That would be completely unacceptable.
LOL, no one suggested anything of the sort!
They will care in the Max Am area if there is suddenly a chance they may lose the Dick Barrie or Graham Jackson show to a network show from Clydebank. They give important local club news relevant to the music they play.
Radio Borders gives important local community news i.e. Borders Action, as well as daily farming news and the vet corner.
These areas cannot afford to lose their local shows to networking. It would be a big blow particularly to the borders if it were to happen. But Bauer it seems in Scotland anyway still see the value of local programming. Or at least know how important it is to the listeners so they will not just suddenly merge stations together and then close some stations down.
The audiences would be up in arms if there was any possibility of Magic 1152 (Glasgow) or Magic 1548 (Edinburgh) as they know the likelihood of eventually seeing their AM starion disappear would be very high.
It is a genuine fear that many people have even if nothing of the sort actually happens
But the listeners will not do nothing to stop it happening if it is Bauer`s intention to do so.
But Bauer have not snapped.
Why? Magic replaced the AM stations in Northern England 15 years ago and they haven't disappeared. And those AM stations in Scotland you mention already share a large proportion of the output already - on weekdays they only have a local breakfast show.
The Bauer Scotland AM'ers began networking two years ago, where have you been?!
One more step to Magic Scotland.
So are London and Swindon or Nottingham and Kent. All of them share AM stations now.
The main thing in favour of the Scots AMers is that they're still pulling in decent audiences (at least in percentage terms). Most of the English ones were already down in the low single figures reach before being killed.. so there wasn't much to lose.
That's over the last (30?) days, if the playlist sharing only started yesterday it will take a month for the results to adjust.