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Team Rock Radio Ceases Broadcasting |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 433
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Team Rock Radio Ceases Broadcasting
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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#2 |
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 307
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Quote:
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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#3 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 279
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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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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 307
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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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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 363
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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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#6 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: England
Posts: 147
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Quote:
Wasn't John Myers involved in this at some point?
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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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Nailsworth, Gloucestershire
Posts: 10,402
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Quote:
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? 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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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 13,572
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Quote:
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. Quote:
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 Then to go digital radio without paying ads might have been a step to far?
Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/articl...rKFd9zG8Fst.99 |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 433
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Quote:
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? |
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#10 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 2,228
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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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#11 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 252
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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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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Glasgow
Posts: 1,545
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Quote:
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. 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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#13 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 2,919
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Quote:
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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#14 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 73
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Quote:
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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