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Team Rock Radio Ceases Broadcasting


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Old 19-12-2016, 20:19
Radio_Geek
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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/busines...r-team-9486316

Sad news. I do hope that the guys over at Rock Radio Glasgow lend them support of some sort.
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Old 20-12-2016, 02:40
989
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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/busines...r-team-9486316

Sad news. I do hope that the guys over at Rock Radio Glasgow lend them support of some sort.
I heard from Andy Scott of The Sweet last night that all the Classic Rock stable of magazines have ceased publishing too
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Old 20-12-2016, 18:23
CocaCola
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How on earth did an online radio station, which hasn't had presenters on air for months, employ 80 people???

A Just Giving page has been setup to raise money for the staff out of a job.
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Old 20-12-2016, 18:44
989
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Those 80 people didn't just run a radio station. Team Rock was also the company that published Classic Rock magazine and it's sister publications. All their magazines closed as well putting all those people who produced the magazines and radio station out of work so close to Christmas
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Old 20-12-2016, 20:09
gardensleeper
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Very sad.

Would the magazines have survived if it hadn't been for the money pumped into the radio venture, or were they marginal beforehand?

Either way, the last few years have been tough for most print media. It was always going to be risky to tie it up with a digital radio startup.

Wasn't John Myers involved in this at some point?
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Old 20-12-2016, 21:26
Tee Hee
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Wasn't John Myers involved in this at some point?
John Myers was the Chairman of the company from April 2013 and left the company 5 months ago.

As of March 2015 their accounts show that it cost them £15.5 million to bring in £6.7 million resulting in a net loss of £8.8 million - twice the loss they made in 2014. Eye-watering!

Curiously, their accounts for year ending March 2015 (published on Christmas Eve 2015) includes a 'restatement' of their Balance Sheet to incorporate loans and the conversion of loans to equity which were received in October 2015 - six month after the March 2015 year end - and half way through their next financial year! Hmmm.

Interesting, loan financing included £650,000 from Scottish Enterprise (promised over 3 years) which appears to have been to keep Team Rock in Scotland on the back of which would come 40+ jobs in Scotland.
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Old 21-12-2016, 14:07
Glawster2002
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Very sad.

Would the magazines have survived if it hadn't been for the money pumped into the radio venture, or were they marginal beforehand?

Either way, the last few years have been tough for most print media. It was always going to be risky to tie it up with a digital radio startup.

Wasn't John Myers involved in this at some point?
I subscribe to both Classic rock and Prog, two of the titles affected.

The Prog community is a small one and I know through friends many of the people who worked on Prog.

I have been told that both Classic Rock and Prog were profitable and the financial difficulties arose from other parts of the company, not the print media.

At present it is believed the next edition of Prog magazine is still scheduled for 11th January and it is likely the magazines will continue, either with new owners or through an alternative path, because they have a strong and loyal sales base and are profitable.

Of course this could change, but at the moment things do sound as reasonably positive as they can be.
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Old 21-12-2016, 15:13
hanssolo
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How on earth did an online radio station, which hasn't had presenters on air for months, employ 80 people???

A Just Giving page has been setup to raise money for the staff out of a job.
According to Campaignlive back in 2012 about 30 worked on the magazines, which then were in profit. Then buy Real Radio XS but did not happen.
The Global/GMG Radio deal is now subject to a competition investigation but it is expected that TeamRock is likely to buy the former rock stations, now known as Real Radio XS, once that process is complete
Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/articl...rKFd9zG8Fst.99
Then to go digital radio without paying ads might have been a step to far?
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Old 21-12-2016, 15:42
Radio_Geek
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According to Campaignlive back in 2012 about 30 worked on the magazines, which then were in profit. Then buy Real Radio XS but did not happen.

Then to go digital radio without paying ads might have been a step to far?
They have Rock Radio Glasgow and the former presenters who are friends with Team Rock. I wouldn't be surprised if somehow presenters ended up on the TA weekend schedule. The money, unfortunately, might have been the reason why they came off the national DAB 18 months ago.
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Old 21-12-2016, 17:26
simon243
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So 73 people have been royally screwed over a week before Christmas thanks to a vanity project that had no viable business case.

I shall repost what I wrote at the time in 2013, as sadly it appears to have been pretty accurate.

I'm afraid the sceptical side of me sees this as a vanity project with two aims - (1) satisfying its founders' tastes for obscure dad rock that (probably for a good reason) isn't played anywhere else, and (2) providing employment for their mates at GMG who are, sadly, losing their jobs under the Global takeover. I assume they've only bought the profitable magazines to prop up what will inevitably be a heavily loss-making radio station.

There's nothing wrong with vanity projects as long as you have backers with deep pockets who are prepared to keep losing money to fund them. But as Malcolm Bluemel's learned with Planet Rock, you can only keep losing money for so long and sooner or later Team Rock will realise that their newly acquired magazines won't be able to fund the radio station for ever.

There simply isn't the demand from advertisers for so many male-oriented music stations in the UK. We will shortly have Absolute, Absolute Classic Rock, the Absolute decades stations, Kerrang, Q Radio, Planet Rock, Real XS, Xfm and Team Rock all playing rock, "indie" or male-leaning pop of some form or another, and all competing for an audience that's notoriously hard to monetise.

The harsh reality is not all can survive. It'll be interesting to see which do.
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Old 21-12-2016, 19:43
Eitshal
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It's an example of everything that's wrong with this country. I don't suppose the likes of "Team", last seen tweeting an article out of something called "Country Squire" magazine, will be worrying much about where the next bill payment is coming from. These people always have the luxury of moving on to a leadership role in their next project scot-free while those left behind in their wake have to pick up the pieces.

As simon243 said, this was a vanity project by a group of middle-aged men with a bit of money in their pockets. It never made a penny in profit, it spent millions, and it has now collapsed. The mags were likely a sound business - it's all the vanity "rock lifestyle brand" stuff and the ad-free radio station that sunk it.
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Old 22-12-2016, 10:25
Craig Kelly
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So 73 people have been royally screwed over a week before Christmas thanks to a vanity project that had no viable business case.

I shall repost what I wrote at the time in 2013, as sadly it appears to have been pretty accurate.

I'm afraid the sceptical side of me sees this as a vanity project with two aims - (1) satisfying its founders' tastes for obscure dad rock that (probably for a good reason) isn't played anywhere else, and (2) providing employment for their mates at GMG who are, sadly, losing their jobs under the Global takeover. I assume they've only bought the profitable magazines to prop up what will inevitably be a heavily loss-making radio station.

There's nothing wrong with vanity projects as long as you have backers with deep pockets who are prepared to keep losing money to fund them. But as Malcolm Bluemel's learned with Planet Rock, you can only keep losing money for so long and sooner or later Team Rock will realise that their newly acquired magazines won't be able to fund the radio station for ever.

There simply isn't the demand from advertisers for so many male-oriented music stations in the UK. We will shortly have Absolute, Absolute Classic Rock, the Absolute decades stations, Kerrang, Q Radio, Planet Rock, Real XS, Xfm and Team Rock all playing rock, "indie" or male-leaning pop of some form or another, and all competing for an audience that's notoriously hard to monetise.

The harsh reality is not all can survive. It'll be interesting to see which do.
Ofcom awarded Rockscot Limited the 96.3 FM Glasgow/West Scotland commercial licence in October and it is due to launch as "96.3 Rock Radio" in the spring 2017, probably around March-April 2017.

I wonder if the Team Rock developments will have any affect on 96.3 Rock Radio, which when run by GMG and then Global and latterly as 96.3 Xfm, never made a profit.

96.3 Rock Radio will be competing for an audience that's notoriously hard to monetise as stated by poster Simon. Time will tell!
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Old 22-12-2016, 12:31
Radiogram
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How on earth did an online radio station, which hasn't had presenters on air for months, employ 80 people???

A Just Giving page has been setup to raise money for the staff out of a job.
Nice to see that £65K has been raised for them so far. Having been made redundant this year I know how they feel and at least I had a nice pay off to rely on.
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Old 28-12-2016, 18:31
MattTheMan
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Nice to see that £65K has been raised for them so far. Having been made redundant this year I know how they feel and at least I had a nice pay off to rely on.
Sadly that money wont go far among so many people. I wonder if the people who left the company earlier in the year got a pay off too?
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