Media

Channel 9's Excess Baggage is reportedly facing the axe, or demotion to digital channel Go!, within a week. Now I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but EB has presented itself as a textbook example of how to get the creation, marketing and programming of a show terribly, terribly wrong.

The concept probably looked good on paper. The idea was to do to weight-loss programs what Nine had successfully done to the Apprentice format -- spice it up with the addition of once-were and wannabe celebrities. (Genuine celebrities, of course, don't need to go on reality shows.)

The broader plan was for Excess Baggage to be the first of a series of programs, including Big Brother, The Block and a new season of Celebrity Apprentice, that would be "stripped" at 7pm, thus claiming that timeslot and gluing viewers to the station throughout the primetime schedule.

But the problems for Baggage began before it was even screened.

Mistake No. 1: Nine over-egged the show, running an extended "sneak peek" so often that even people well-disposed towards the program would have felt that they'd already seen it. For the rest of us, it just confirmed negative sentiments.

Mistake No. 2: Programming it against the similar, but already well established, The Biggest Loser, thus only ever being able to divide a finite potential audience. Crucially, TBL is a program that viewers don't hate, so why should they jump ship? (Also, as the Seven juggernaut Home And Away is also female-skewed, it placed three shows targetting a similar audience in the same timeslot. Nine should have gone the other way.)

Mistake No. 3: Removing the wildly popular US sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, from the 7pm slot, which it had made its own over the summer. Big Bang repeats were regularly trouncing first-run episodes of other shows on other channels. Nine was on a good thing, and should have stuck to it.

Mistake No. 4: Debuting Excess Baggage in a week when they knew it would be interrupted by the cricket. Of course, Ten cleverly forced Nine's hand there, by launching its 2012 schedule early. I guess that's more a misfortune than a mistake.

Mistake No. 5: Flogging it to death. One night last week, the show ran for 90 minutes. Viewers balk at committing that amount of time to a movie, let alone an untested new show.

Commercial Radio Australia has announced changes to the way radio ratings will be gathered and compiled this year.

According to a CAR media release, "The radio industry will start a trial of online data collection for the radio ratings, closely followed by the introduction of a world-first application for tablets and mobile phones, which will allow people to input their listening habits via these devices."

The release said the "innovative approaches" were implemented as a result of recommendations put forward by the its research committee which "has been investigating best practice for listenership audience measurement in a changing digital environment".

“Australian radio has one of the most robust listenership measurement systems in the world but that doesn’t stop us investigating ways to improve it further,” CRA chief executive Joan Warner said. “It also should be remembered that one of radio’s major strengths, its mobility and reach into all situations, conversely provides one of the major challenges for radio audience measurement.”

“Research company, Ipsos, will commence a trial of online data collection in March which will be a supplementary measure to the existing diary system, This will be followed by a world first development of an m.site/application which will allow people to fill in ratings information on tablet devices and mobile phones, which the industry believes will be a unique step forward and one that we are sure will be welcomed by the advertising industry.”

Ms Warner said the first phase of online data collection would begin in Sydney, with a group of 300 people able to enter their radio listening habits online.

The CRA release said the current tender for the radio ratings, held by Neilsen, would expire at the end of next year, and tenders would be called later this year for 2014, "with proposals for online and mobile applications to supplement the paper diaries, to be part of the process".

Comment: I have long said Australia needs a new means of compiling radio ratings. Perhaps this a step in the right direction but it appears to be flawed because it still requires people to fill in their own data. Only when technology can passively record exactly what people are listening to* -- rather than what they say they are or were listening to -- and the survey includes all their listening options -- including community stations and others not currently included in the survey -- can it truly claim any accuracy and authority. This is what advertisers should be pushing for. BD

* In her release, Ms Warner noted that CRA was monitoring developments in this field but "no other electronic device has proved to be reliable enough in terms of data collection to warrant further testing".

Dear Weather Bureau,

First of all, I would like to genuinely and sincerely thank you for all your hard work in times of disaster, when your skill, your radars and your other technology have warned us of weather emergencies. Without doubt, you have saved countless lives over the years, and you have prevented a great deal of property damage by warning people of violent weather events. Along with many others, I truly value that aspect of your work.

However, isn't it about time you acknowledged that all your training, and your technology, simply does not equip you to predict anything other than an imminent threat?

I know I am not alone in saying that I am sick of seeing "seven-day forecasts" on the TV news, online and in newspapers, that are wildly inaccurate.

Please, can somebody from the Bureau of Meteorology make a clear statement that, by and large, the weather is unpredictable.

ABC Radio has its first permanent home in Brisbane in five years. 612ABC's top-rating breakfast host Spencer Howson (pictured, above, on the ABC webcam) was the first voice to be heard from the new South Bank studios this morning, when his guests included Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk (below).

Along with other ABC employees, 612, Radio National, News Radio and Triple J staff abandoned the broadcaster's long-time Coronation Drive, Toowong site after the discovery of a "cancer cluster". The local radio staff have spent the past five years in temporary premises at Lissner Street in Toowong, while other ABC employees have been working from different sites in Toowong and on Mt Coot-tha.

You can listen to 612, and see images from the webcam, here.

Update: Howson also welcomed to the new studio veteran ABC announcer Russ Tyson (below, right), and his colleagues Phil Smith, Tim Cox and Kelly Higgins-Devine.

I have been involved in a discussion on Twitter on how much longer free-to-air television will be a force in Australia. I ventured that FTA stations would be in trouble within 10 years if they fail to change their primary emphasis from being distributors of shows produced elsewhere to creating their own content.

Two other people disagreed -- not to my proposition, but to the timing. One said it might not be as soon as 10 years, another said it would be more like 5-8 years when we see the first FTA station fold.

Now, of course, all the FTA networks will deny they are in trouble, but they most certainly are. The fact of the matter is that they don't have a collective monopoly any more; viewers can already access the content they want in many ways other than sitting down in front of a TV set at a designated time.

To use a current example, sure you can get plenty of The Big Bang Theory on Channel Nine and its sister station Go! If you're a fan, though, you can pay for a Foxtel subscription and get even more of it on the Comedy Channel.

Of course, both the FTA and pay-TV options rely on you watching whichever episode they decide to screen when they decide to broadcast it. You can time-shift it to watch later, or maybe stream it on the network's catch-up site, but you can't see it right now. However, if you're a BBT tragic, and you're prepared to take the legal risk, you can download the episodes you want to see when you want to see them. Say you missed a particular episode from series 1, or you want to show your best friend an ep you think they'd enjoy, well it's out there for the picking.

While Hollywood rightly wants to stem the tide of illegal downloading, the genie is already out of the lamp. They can't prosecute everybody who shares torrents, so the only real solution available to content creators is to enable people to download what they want, when they want it - and to make them pay for it.

And, when that happens, as it surely will, the FTA networks (and, to a lesser extent, pay TV) will have lost their biggest earner. Producers will either sell their content directly or through a model similar to iTunes or Amazon's Kindle book store. No role for the TV networks there.

For a short time -- be it five or 10 or 15 years -- FTA will continue play a role in introducing new shows to audiences, but that function will eventually be taken over completely by social media (in whatever form or forms it will take in the future) and other means of peer-to-peer recommendation.

Bottom line: the direct distribution of TV shows will bypass the existing networks, so to survive they will have to ramp-up the production of original content -- be it news, drama, comedy series, reality shows or whatever.

The only way for them to survive will be to sell this original content, or make it available via an advertiser-supported model, on demand.

The webcam at the 612 ABC Brisbane's temporary studio in Lissner Street, Toowong, has captured images of its own demise. This series of snapshots appears to culminate with a worker reaching towards the camera to take it down:

612 ABC staff, who have been at Lissner Street for five years, are moving into the new purpose-built State ABC headquarters in South Bank this week.

First to air from the new permanent studio overlooking the Brisbane River will be breakfast host Spencer Howson on Friday morning. Howson will broadcast from the ABC's Sunshine Coast studios on Wednesday morning, and take Australia Day off.

This post is brought to you by the television networks who insist on calling repeats "encores".

An encore is a short repeated item or an additional item at the end of a performance. When you just screen something again, it's a repeat.

Oh, and while we're at it:

1) There are no degrees of uniqueness, the word "unique" is unique. Something that is "almost unique" is rare or unusual. If it's unique it's one of a kind. It cannot be "very unique".

2) "Refute" is not a synonym for "deny". If you refute a claim, you prove it to be untrue, you don't just contradict it.

3) If somebody has drowned or has been electrocuted, they are dead. There are no exceptions to this rule.

4) Alternative and alternate don't mean the same thing.

Why are these things important? Because it dilutes our language if we misuse words with specific meanings, and our ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with each other suffers in the process.

We all slip up occasionally but when it comes to the examples above, too many people in the media are repeat offenders. Or, in their language, they like to provide encores of their ignorance.

While there's been a lot of talk about the sacking of Nova 106.9's Camilla Severi and further controversy surrounding 2Day's Kyle and Jackie O show, the new kid on the breakfast radio block hasn't had a lot of coverage.

Francis Leach has confirmed on Twitter that his new brekkie show on ABC Grandstand Digital (you'll need to have a DAB+ receiver or use internet streaming to listen) will run Friday to Monday from 6am to 10am AEDT.

It starts on February 3.

While I'm well in favour of variety on radio, and I wish Francis and his team good luck, I do have one modest proposal: that instead of a sport report every hour after the news, there's an arts and entertainment report. Surely this is well in keeping with the ABC charter -- and I'd be happy to lend a hand in creating it!

Taking something that isn't yours is illegal. We all know that; we learn it from a very young age. But not one of us isn't guilty of theft in some form or another, be it by accidentally taking home a pen that belongs to your employer or downloading a movie or television program from the internet.

It's the latter case that's been causing a stir recently, in the context of American "anti-piracy" legislation.

But why do people download content from the internet when they know it's illegal? I have no doubt that for many people it's simply because they can, and they figure that there's no point in paying for something you can get for free.

But what if you went to a shop and there was no checkout counter, or no staff to take your money? Would you do? Return the goods to the shelf, or take them anyway, reasoning that you had tried to pay for them but couldn't?

When I lived in Thailand, there were certain western TV programs I wanted to watch but simply could not obtain by any legal, paid means. Sure I could buy any movie I wanted from the stalls operating openly along Sukhumvit and Silom roads -- including titles that hadn't even screened at cinemas yet -- but they were all pirated anyway. So while I would have paid, none of my money would have gone to the creators of the product.

My other option would have been to download shows from the internet -- cutting out the middle man. That's something I would have gladly paid to do, just as I have gladly paid for songs over iTunes. But there was, and still is, no legal means of me doing so, in Thailand or in many other countries -- largley because of the deals the content makers have made with broadcasters and exhibitors.

I could have easily rationalised any act of 'piracy', especially since most of the shows I wanted to see are screened in Australia on the ABC, which is funded by the Australian taxpayer -- and that's a group that's included me for a very long time.

My point is that this is not a black-and-white issue. The only real first step to eradicating or minimising piracy is to make paid content available globally, directly and on-demand to those who want it.

It's always easy to be wise after the event, and I guess there's been a lot of learned discussion inside and outside Nova 106.9 about the events that led to the sacking of Camilla Severi from the station's breakfast program earlier this week.

One of the reasons given in the past few days is that Nova's audience did not warm to Severi. Interestingly, Nova knew that would be the case back in August after they'd poached her from rival station B105.

How do I know they knew? Because I took a snapshot of the comments stream Nova was publishing on its own website back then (see beow).

I wondered at the time why Nova published all this negativity, and I wondered then -- as I do now -- how come Nova didn't know that Severi was not a good fit for their audience before they poached her. This could have been discovered by doing some simple research among their listeners about attitudes to various on-air personalities.

Those into conspiracy theories might suggest, as somebody did on Twitter, that hiring Severi was not designed to help Nova but to hurt B105. But if that's the case, why was she on air for the second half of last year and why, as late as last week, was she being promoted as being one of Nova's 2012 breakfast team? And who intervened to stop her going to air on Monday?

It's a very unfortunate set of circumstances for Nova, and especially so for Severi, whose only "crime" was that she was, apparently, the wrong person for that particular job all along.

Just eight days ago, I predicted that the Brisbane radio sackings were not over and that another breakfast team would be shown the door.

Yesterday, Camilla Severi did not appear on the re-tooled Nova 106.9 breakfast show, and I was the first to report speculation that she was leaving the station. Today, her departure has been confirmed, and the station was quick to change the branding for the show (see above).

Severi will apparently fill another role with the DMG network, although exactly what that is has not been announced. Her departure, in the first week of the all-important ratings survey period, presumably creates an opening at Nova (it seems unlikley that they would stick with an all-male line-up).

Many pundits will have plenty to say on who will (or should) get that job. Already, 612ABC pot-stirrer Spencer Howson is putting forward the names of Lisa Kingsberry (from ABC Mt Isa), Natalie Bochenski (4BC news), Katie Clift (96.5FM) and Kat Davidson (sometime ABC announcer/producer, standup comic and wife of B105's Stav Davidson, which would make things really interesting.)

I'll throw in the possibility of a return by Meshel Laurie (perhaps on landline from Melbourne, where she hosts the national Nova drive show, maybe on a "guest" basis for, say, the 7-8am morning prime time until a permanent replacement is found), thus completing the return of the successful original Nova 106.9 line-up.

The question at hand now is: What happened that caused this parting of the ways and undid a strategy that began in the middle of last year when Nova lured Severi away from rival B105?

Without knowing the details, I feel sorry for Severi, given that her amazing career trajectory, from Big Brother "turkey-slapping" victim to radio star, to subject of a bidding war between networks, all happened at such a relatively fast pace and a young age. I hope she can and does bounce back from this.

Rival radio industry sources have suggested Severi had some personal "issues", which I'm not going to speculate on. Perhaps more to the point is that the stakes are high, and no station can afford to start the year with anything but their strongest team committed to winning at all costs.

Update Camilla Severi is reportedly leaving the Nova 106.9 breakfast show by "mutual decision" but will remain with the Nova network in a new role to be announced in coming weeks.

The station issued this statement this morning: "Nova 106.9 and Camilla Severi have made the mutual decision to move her out of the breakfast show.". (Courier-Mail report here.)

There were fireworks on the first weekday of the official 2012 radio ratings survey yesterday.

As reported exclusively here, Camilla Severi was a no-show at Brisbane's Nova 106.9 (I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that, there's been no response from Nova either in Brisbane or from HQ).

Meanwhile, Queensland's Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser (@AndrewFraserMP) took to Twitter to lash 612ABC's mornings announcer Steve Austin over what he dubbed "conspiracy theories" aired regarding the State Government's involvement with a sand-mining company. Fraser also quit his spot on 612ABC's weekly political panel.

And Sydney's 2Day FM Kyle and Jackie O breakfast show briefly had a new sponsor, until public pressure forced them to pull out within 24 hours. Early in the day, weight-loss company Jenny Craig was saying it "doesn't judge" people, including the controversy-proned Kyle Sandilands.

However, the company changed its tune after its Facebook page was bombarded with protests about Sandilands, who late last year called a journalist who reported on poor reaction to his TV special a "fat slag".

Complainants also pointed out to Jenny Craig's US-based parent company that Sandilands had previously made a comment linking former JC ambassador Magda Szubanski to a concentration-camp victim.

I knew Australian radio would be interesting this year, but I didn't realise things would get off to such a fiery start.

As my Australian radio predictions published on this blog in recent days have proven so popular, here's a bonus media prediction for 2012:

+ More than one person will be fired, or very seriously reprimanded, for something written on social media. The public broadcasters will need to be the most vigilant in this respect -- because they are, as they are constantly reminded, spending taxpayers' money, and somebody is always waiting for them to slip up -- but some people in the commercial media may also find themselves overstepping a mark they weren't even aware was there. Users of inappropriate language and bad-taste jokers beware. My advice: don't say anything on Twitter you wouldn't say on air or in newsprint. Even if the opinions are yours, your employer will almost certainly be monitoring the content.

Is Brisbane just a branch office, or is there serious money to be made here with the right kind of investment?

That's a question many businesses have been asking over the years, and the media is no exception. Sadly, we've lost a few players in the market over the past decade or two, especially when it comes to newspapers (down from three Brisbane dailies and two Sunday papers in the mid-1980s to one of each now) and our television stations are producing less and less local content (with, it must be said, some notable exceptions, but it's still a far cry from the 1960s and 70s, when Brisbane TV screened local variety shows, panel games, children's shows and current affairs programs).

So what about radio? Will it remain a bastion of localism, or will networking continue to encroach on precious airtime in the cause of cutting costs? Sadly, the early signs for 2012 are not good for those who like it live and local.

The local graveyard shift is pretty much a thing of the past. Overnight shows are either networked or voice-tracked: i.e. the talking bits are pre-recorded during the day and the program is compiled and broadcast by a computer. Even at 612ABC, the local announcer goes home at 10pm, meaning that, when you add in the networked current-affairs content, more than a third of total weekday airtime is broadcast from interstate. On weekends, only the breakfast show and news come from Brisbane. With one or two exceptions -- notably 4BC -- commercial radio stations in the River City pretty much turn out the lights at 6 or 7pm.

The good news is that, when it is local, it's competitive -- and no more so in 2011, when five stations were battling it out for overall ratings supremacy. It's a far cry from the 1980s when first FM104/ Triple M and then B105 were the bolters, and every other station was an also-ran. Competition is strong, and that can only be good news for listeners.

With all that in mind, here are my predictions for Brisbane radio in 2012, first my six best guesses, then predictions by network:

1. The axings are not over; everybody is on notice.

2. Another breakfast team to be shown the door by the end of the year.

3. Expect some lightning raids from southern bosses implementing strategies that might please the accountants but not benefit Brisbane audiences.

4. The likelihood of at least one station changing hands.

5. Crowding at the top of the ratings ladder will continue, but one station will make a break from the pack by year's end.

6. There will be far too much talk about babies on stations that ought to be pitched elsewhere.

ABC

612 ABC breakfast host Spencer Howson to continue to do well in the numbers game. As the commercials try to poach each other's younger audiences, he'll be king of the 50-pluses. Howson will remain No. 1 in breakfast at least until the commercial stations sort themselves out.

All eyes will be on Steve Austin, who has just reclaimed the morning current-affairs slot. Ratings should be healthy, especially in the lead-up to and aftermath of the state election.

Tim Cox, although largely unknown to Brisbane audiences, should be able to maintain, and perhaps build, Aunty's audience in drive, while Kelly Higgins-Devine will bring some new energy to the problematic afternoon shift (common wisdom is that people suffer "talk fatigue" after lunch and either switch off or switch over to music stations). Rebecca Levingston (pictured) is likely to bring a different approach to evenings, but I don't think anybody will expect her to better the huge ratings Austin has built up in the timeslot over many years.

Radio National fans will be very vocal if the line-up changes this year don't pan out well, but Triple J, which has been known to out-rate some of the commercial stations in Brisbane, seems set for another big year. If the programmers get the music mix right, it will continue to be the station of choice for younger listeners who don't like intrusive advertising, being treated as idiots or being taken for granted (yes, I'm looking at you, commercial FM).

Austereo (B105 and Triple M)

Southern Cross-Austereo spends up big to maintain its audience, but it's no longer the sure-fire cashcow it used to be. For the all-important female market, B105 faces strong challenges from Nova 106.9 and 97.3FM (which aims a little older).

The focus will be on whether the addition of Abby Coleman has sufficiently freshened-up the breakfast show or whether further surgery is needed. The one-time new kids on the block, Jason "Labby" Hawkins and Stav Davidson, will have to work hard to keep their show

Triple M pretty much has the blokes to itself, but there aren't as many advertising dollars in that market. As it proved with its axing of The Cage last year, Austereo is no longer shy about making dramatic moves, even mid-race, and maybe one or two more changes are just around the corner.

Australian Radio Network (4KQ and 97.3FM)

In my books, the biggest threat to the resurgent 97.3FM (co-owned by DMG) comes not from the other stations, but from within.

ARN has already shown disturbing signs of tinkering with the local formula that has made 97.3FM more successful than its sister Mix stations in Sydney and Melbourne. The breakfast team of Terry Hansen, Robin Bailey and Bob Gallagher (pictured above) is very competitive.

Memo to HQ: it ain't broke, and heavy handed interference won't fix it, especially if SC Austereo decides to pitch B105 older and go after your audience.

Meanwhile, 4KQ needs to keep an eye on what 4BH does music-wise. There are at least two distinct audiences there, because not everybody over 40 likes the same music. And, despite the focus on youth at the commercial FM market, there's money to be made from people who actually listen to, and act on, advertising.

Fairfax Radio (4BC and 4BH)

The product is pretty good, but the audience isn't there in the numbers Fairfax would like like. Still, 4BC consistently wins awards for advertising sales and is a very sound business (no joke intended). The challenge will be to find a way to break through the single-digit barrier.

As I've said before, there is no reason why commercial talk can't do as well in Brisbane as it does elsewhere. The big question will be whether to stick with the current line-up and try to build, or to try something new and risk alienating new listeners. That decision will most likley be made at HQ, not in Brisbane.

I think we'll see on-air changes, but I'm not convinced it will be for the better -- unless they find the elusive "Brisbane Alan Jones", whoever that may be.

4BH operates efficiently and complements its sister station by playing music for those "oldies" who don't like talk radio. They both face a challenge from 612ABC for audience, but not for advertisers' dollars, so the real "enemy" is 4KQ. (See above.)

DMG (Nova 106.9)

Nova is in a take-no-prisoners battle with 97.3FM and B105 for the younger female audience. There are actually two audiences -- late teens and twenty-somethings, and the late-twenties and thirties -- but the lines seem to have been blurred lately as each station struggles for every listener it can get.

The return of orignal anchor Kip Wightman (pictured above) to the breakfast show may mean some extra oomph, but the music mix -- which has become much more like the Austereo offering in recent years (thus benefitting Triple J, which is the destination of choice for new-music lovers) -- will be critical.

The new national drive show, featuring former Brisbane breakfasters Meshel Laurie, Marty Sheargold and Tim Blackwell, will come under close scrutiny. It's doing OK in Brisbane, but hasn't kicked-in yet in Sydney and Melbourne, and success there is crucial.

Photos: ABC, ARN

PS: My more general Australian radio predictions are here.

By popular demand, here are my predictions for Australian radio in 2012. There'll be some Brisbane-specific predictions in a future post. (Update: they're here.)

1) The drift away from old media will continue, with tradional radio audiences exploring online alternatives.

2) As a consequence of this, 2012 will be the year that advertisers start to wise up. Times are tough for business, especially in retail, and nobody can afford to throw around advertising dollars unless they know their ads are going to hit the mark. The demand will grow for better audience research and if the networks and Commercial Radio Australia aren't prepared to provide it, then the dollars will go elsewhere (mostly online). Sticking with the current diary system for ratings suits broadcasters because it is fluffy, but when websites can tell you exactly how many left-handed, red-haired, 29-year-old females earning $60K or more are tuning in at 7.38am, then a book that's filled in at the last minute by people with faulty memories, an extremely low care factor, and a tendency to write down the name of the station that did the most marketing during the survey period rather than the one they were actually listening to, looks pretty shabby.

3) More on-air changes mid-stream. Shows that don't work will be yanked quickly, just as they are on television.

4) Lots of backroom changes, with further consolodation of managerial power at HQ (not necessarily a good thing for the "local" medium) and mergers of sales teams.

5) A make-or-break year for Fairfax Radio. The big problem is 2UE in Sydney, which is struggling to remain in the talkback race against the mighty 2GB. You haven't got a network if you're not competitive in the nation's biggest market. When the sale of its radio assets was abandoned last year, Fairfax said it wanted to create synergies with its newspaper and online businesses. But how to share resources between "soft left" papers pitched at a wealthy demographic and a right-leaning radio station pitched at the lowest common denominator? If the answer isn't found, former suitor John Singleton could end up with the bargain of the century.

6) An increasing awareness that digital radio is not the panacea for free-to-air radio's ills. While many of the multichannels are offering great content, not too many people are listening. There has been some movement towards getting digital radio receivers into cars, but that's problematic because digital currently only works in metro areas. An in-car 3G- or 4G-enabled internet device that could pick up radio from around the world, as well as receive video and other data, send emails, do social networking and make phone calls, would wipe the floor with DAB+. And it's not too far away now.

7) As a result of tough times in the commercial sphere, more questions will be asked about the ABC. If, as seems probable, the Federal Coalition comes to power this year or next, Aunty will be under pressure to explain and curtail its spending on radio services and its expansion into new media, especially where it is perceived to be competing with commercial operators. This has already happened to the BBC, which has been forced to abandon or reduce some of its services.

8) Even more networking. It's cheaper, but not necessarily smarter. One big thing radio has going for it is the fact that it can dance to the local beat.

9) As a consequence of this, local audiences and advertising could begin to drift away, in the first instance to the slicker community stations (whose true listening figures the commercial networks will continue to conspire to conceal) and eventually, perhaps exclusively, online.

10) The importance of star power will begin to wane in every format except talk or older-skewed music stations. Somewhere, some bean counter is already weighing up the savings to be made from jettisoning big-name, big-bucks stars against the potential loss in revenue from ratings declines. Another bright spark in the programming (sorry, content) department of the youth-oriented stations will realise that, mostly, it's all about the music. If they play the songs the kids want to hear, they will survive.