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GAS Idea Hits the Right Note GAS managing director Rodney Lowe says the idea for GAS Music was sparked by the increasing stream of young musicians who would come into his Park Street studios with demo CDs, who never had a hope of getting a foot in the door because they were unknown. GAS has always had one full-time composer, Andy Evans, who's now got a record deal. The five new ones are working part-time on contract, while the Music division is in its infancy. "GAS Music is a new way of introducing new young music writers to an agency, without the agency having to commit," Rodney says. The way GAS Music works is that the agency provides a brief for the music, and then the 5 composers at GAS all submit a rough track. The agency then chooses one, or maybe two that it likes and the composers complete the work. "It allows us to give four or five totally different angles for their music, because often the client is unsure of where they should be heading," Rodney says. The agency pays a fee upfront for the submissions, but they essentially get five for the price of one and only pay full price at the end, when they've chosen what they want. "Also for us, it's about getting music for commercials from people who can get involved in the whole process including sound effects and voiceovers - they're not just doing a music track they're doing a track that works with everything else." Rodney says GAS has already won three or four large contracts even though the music division has really only been up and running about a month. Check out the new GAS website for more. From
Muzak to Digital Mastery Satellite Music Australia's Greg Solomon says one of the main reasons he and brother Rick decided to build their THX studio when they moved into new studios in Pyrmont two years ago, was the pending arrival of digital television. Last week's decision (13.11.2002) by the ACCC to allow Foxtel and Optus to share pay TV programming, also includes a promise by the pay TV operators to speed up their digital offerings, further vindicating SMA's investment. "It's disappointing the roll-out has been slow, but the way forward does seem a bit clearer now," Greg says. "The quicker the digitisation, the more opportunities there will be for everyone. "When we were planning new studios 9, 10 and 7 had been forced to go digital, and our feeling was that if I was Mr Toyota or Mr Visa making my new 30 second TVC I really would be crazy not to surround sound wrap it," Greg says. "For example, if you're watching McLeod's Daughters on TV which is broadcast in surround sound, once you jump to the ad break there is a noticeable difference between the sound qualities.
Greg says several agencies are now using the THX studio for their clients, and they're also getting a lot more mastering work. "We've just recently mastered the Silverchair DVD, the Kasey Chambers DVD. We're getting quite a lot of other inquiries where people will produce their 12, 24 tracks whatever it may be in a studio that is designed to take a band and then they'll come in here and create their final 5.1 master." He says he's sure other THX facilities will soon emerge in Australia, but warns it's a hard commitment to make, in terms of time and money. "To get the THX authorisation is very, very exacting. We were fortunate in that we were building our entire building from ground up. Had we had an existing studio and wished to convert it it's nearly an impossibility to meet the THX environment specifications. "For example we had to build a 6 inch cement structure box
that we then had to build two separate rooms into - each with a 20 ml air
gap - entirely floating the floor, ceiling
and walls so it's actually three rooms within the room. We understand
it's now the third quietest room in the country." ... "the Millers Storage for Music in this country"... The Solomon brothers have also been keeping an eye on the digital future as they compiled music for their 36 channels - and stored it all in a .wav format digital library. "We have now, without doubt the largest digital library in the southern hemisphere," Greg says. "The concept being that as the digital front takes over and people want to do so many more things with music it needs to come from somewhere. "At the moment the limitations really are only the licencing issues and as we head further into the 21st century I see people coming up with licencing solutions. Then, if I'm a jazz nut for example, I'm not really interested in whether it's a Sony or a Warner or an EMI - I just want to see all the jazz. "Hence we've built our entire library in .wav so if you need it in MP3 or REAL or any compression method, we can pack, wrap and ship it to any platform. So what we've tried to do I suppose is to become the Millers Storage for Music in the country." www.sma.net.au Two New CRA Positions The position of chair and vice-chair of the CRA board remain with DMG and RG Capital members - the two networks that comprise the Regional Radio Bureau sales representation partnership. The full board membership is as follows: New Members: 80 Year Old Aunty Trumps Younger Rivals In Sydney the ABC's metro station 702 had a stunning performance, jumping from 7th position to third - a direct swap with Southern Cross' 2UE which fell from three to 7. Star performers for Aunty were Richard Glover's drive program which went up 2.5%, Sally Loane in mornings up 1.8% and Angela Catterns' breakfast up 1.6%. 2UE's biggest drop was Steve Price's breakfast down 1.7% and John Laws dropped 1.2% in mornings. 2GB failed to take over the number one spot from 2DAY as 2DAY added an extra 1.2% in audience overall and 2GB shed half a point. 2GB shed audience in key shifts, with Alan Jones' breakfast and Ray Hadley's morning both dropping 0.2 of a point. Melbourne metro ratings' leader 3AW lost 2 points and dropped two places to third position, allowing second and third placed FOX and ABC 774 to move up a place to first and second position respectively. AW's big losses were in afternoons (down 3.3), mornings (down 2.2) and breakfast (down 1.3.) NOVA 100 gained 1.6 points overall to edge into fourth place. In Adelaide, the big improver for Aunty was Triple J, gaining two points to move into fifth spot overall. The leader SAFM shed 2.6% but is still number one by nearly seven points over second placed 5AA. MIX gained 2.1 points to overtake 5MMM and move into third place. Brisbane listeners must be turning off their radios instead of just switching over. Although positions stayed the same: B105, FM104 (MMM) 97.3 and 4BC in the top four positions, there were more listeners lost overall than were picked up. Despite staying number one, B105 lost 2.6 points, dropping 4.7% in afternoons, 4 points in mornings and 3.2% in drive. In Perth, the leader MIX is still dropping points, but holding number one position. 92.9, (up 0.5) 96FM (up 0.4) and ABC 720 (up 1.5) are consistently narrowing the gap. The 10 point lead MIX enjoyed in survey #5 this year, is now 5.6% and closing.
"Don't call me a
politician," Michele Finey says, "I'm a community advocate."
She's recently changed her work roster at GAS so she can spend more time
on the campaign trail, trying to convince residents in the beachside
suburb of Williamstown in south-west Melbourne, that having the Premier as
their local member isn't such a good thing.
If only we'd thought to ask what the stars suggest for the election outcome!
Oops Did We Speak Too Soon? Studios in Melbourne and Sydney were particularly vibrant last month, with studios getting plenty of traffic and phones ringing in the background. One Sydney contact declared happily that "business is back." But now, we're not so sure. Most studios seemed to think there was a glimmer of hope last month, but no-one's sure what happened to the faint light at the end of the tunnel. "It was back and now it's gone," said one Sydney creative. According to a studio manager in the same city, "It's coming back but we're not chockers every day." In Melbourne one studio said November was shaping up to be 'happily chaotic' with several large campaigns running, but a producer elsewhere declared that "it's not as busy as you'd expect." However, most seemed to think that business is at least on par with last November or busier. "It's hard to tell yet, I think we have more forward bookings this year than last year" according to one leading studio. This was echoed in a studio on the other side of town with "We're getting more calls - the phones are busier and it feels like the activity has lifted." One studio was emphatic that this November would definitely be better than last year. "Last year was f*****. It's definitely picked up." Based on the false start in October, no-one was keen to predict what December might bring, although several studios said they were hoping for a last minute retail rush. News Says Ad Growth Still Slow News Corporation's better than expected first quarter earnings were attributed in part, to improving advertising conditions. Although the Financial Review had a front page headline describing 'Murdoch Bullish on Advertising Outlook' careful reading of the News Corp statement showed advertising growth in Australia was only 2%. The rest of the 11% increase in first quarter operating income for the Australian newspaper group was attributed to higher circulation and lower newsprint costs. In his statement to shareholders, Rupert said, "Overall advertising revenue increased 2% primarily from strength in the residential property and retail advertising markets, which was partially offset by a decline in national display advertising." News Corps 2% increase in advertising revenue exactly matches the growth figures from Nielsen Media Research. Asia Pacific Managing Director Forrest Didier said the 2% growth in Australian advertising spending in the 2002 third quarter, lags the overall growth in the economy, which is forecast to exceed 3%. Forrest says he expects advertising spending in Australia to remain flat until late next year. This is in stark contrast to New Zealand, which reported a 10% growth rate in advertising spending in the third quarter, due largely to the America's Cup sailing event and the government's efforts to revive the domestic economy. Who
Owns What in the DMG - RG Cap Swap The Sunshine Coast licence at Nambour was only recently auctioned by the Australian Broadcasting Authority and was picked up by the Unitel Media Group for $8.2million. DMG Radio has now bought the company - for $8.2 million. Mmmmh. DMG was successful in an earlier ABA auction, buying the new Gosford commercial licence for $13.5 million in April. DMG is going to sell half of that licence to RG Capital for $6.75million, and will buy RG Capital's SEA FM at Gosford. That will give DMG one and a half new stations in Gosford and one new station in Nambour. The flipside of the DMG acquisitions is that DMG will sell its two Bendigo stations 3BO and STAR FM, to RG Capital. The agreements will complete and take effect on or around December 31st this year subject to ABA approvals and due diligence. Meantime,
DMG continues to roll out its new NOVA brand with Perth station NOVA 937
due to launch at 3pm on Thursday December 5th. Test
transmissions began at the weekend (November 16th) from the new
station at the corner of Hay St and Rokeby Rd Subiaco.
AudioNET® Bits... Looking Forward to a Manic, Merry Christmas? The most useful new feature already getting rave reviews from radio stations and studios is the AudioNET NotifierT. The AudioNET NotifierT is a program that sits at the bottom right of your computer screen, next to the clock. It has three main purposes: 1. It takes you directly to the AudioNET® site, without having to log in every time 2. If you're a studio sending audio, it allows you to monitor the status of all your current deliveries. The Notifier will also pop up on screen or turn red when all stations have downloaded. 3. If you're a radio station receiving audio, the Notifier changes colour when you have new audio to download. Traffic managers can click on the Notifier to check key numbers, without having to retrieve their notification e-mail, or log-in to AudioNET. (Yes, we realise that 'Notifier' isn't really a sexy name - but it does what it says, and we'd rather spend time inventing these great gadgets than naming them!) If you have not already received a copy of the AudioNET NotifierT and would like to give it a go just e-mail us and we'll send it to your AudioNET InboxT. Here are some other AudioNET® tips to make your life easier when things gets hectic: If you're SENDING AUDIO: -Use the holding pen facility. Engineers can upload the finished spots to your holding pen, and move straight on to their next job. Then someone else can put together the list of stations and Forward on the audio. As audio in your Holding Pen is technically on the AudioNET ServerT the Forward to stations is instant. -Offer to send the material instructions with the audio, to avoid hassles at the radio station end. AudioNET® lets you send material instructions for free. This means busy traffic managers won't have to go chasing material instructions when the audio comes in, and production will be able to download the commercials straight away. (Many stations have a policy that prevents production from 'carting' any commercials until they have material instructions from traffic.) -If you use AudioNET® to deliver and the client or agency changes something after the horse has bolted, you can easily cancel and re-send. AudioNET® automatically sends cancellation alerts to the traffic managers and production/carting people, so neither you nor the agency have to spend time making unnecessary phone calls. You can see which stations have already downloaded the offending audio so you have the option to contact only those stations if you want to follow-up on the cancellation notice. REMEMBER - when you deliver with AudioNET®, you're communicating directly with the KEY PEOPLE in the radio station...NOT JUST DUMPING SPOTS IN A BOX! If you're RECEIVING AUDIO: -If you have several spots to download, you can actually right click and hit 'save as' on several spots and they will all download. You don't have to wait until the first one finishes and then click the second one and so on. If you want help with any of these features, please call us, or e-mail us.
If you have any suggestions about improvements to AudioNET, we would like to hear from you at feedback@dbmsystems.com.au or call Dave or Verity on 03 9687 9055.
"In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird... Now
the world is weird
and people take prozac to make it normal." -
anonymous
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Killer Bits: November 2002
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