Killer Bits: September 2002

AudioNET deliveries on public holidays - Find out more in the AudioNET® Bits below...

Webster Ventures a RISK After Flint Parts Company [Updated 03.10.2002]

After 25 years as a recording studio icon in Melbourne, Flint Webster Studios are no more, following David Flint's decision to sell his half of the business to Roger Savage's Soundfirm.

David and son Caillin have set up their own studios Flints, based at Kew, and the new Phil Webster, Roger Savage joint venture in Bay Street has re-named as RISK Recording Studios.

Phil says he's very much looking forward to his new business partnership with Roger Savage at Soundfirm, because it formally renews a working relationship which is decades old.

"Back in the 60's I learned my craft from Roger at the Bill Armstrong Studios.  The connection to Soundfirm now is about pooling all our creative resources for the benefit of advertising agencies. For example, Kath Momsen is joining us from GAS later this month. She brings a wealth of talent in casting and studio management," Phil says.

                                                                "...new team for the future."

He says the new studios and new approach will build on the Flint Webster reputation for innovation, to continue to explore sounds and recording techniques that create a point of difference for their radio commercials and television and cinema soundtracks.

"There's a great team of people here - it's not just me. These young people, James, Dylan and Kit are our future and our industry's future. I guess my role is passing onto them all that I've learnt in my 37 years which adds to their own creative talents. And when we're all working together, that's what makes it special - the chemistry when you're together with clients, creating ideas or in the studios recording."

David Flint says selling his half of Flint Webster was the best thing that could have happened to him.  "I've managed to move on with some money and have the flexibility to go anywhere to produce."

Even though physically the move may seem fast - working at Flint Webster on Thursday and producing for Flints on Friday - it's been on the cards for a long time.

                                                                              "...no regrets."

"I always intended to go at the end of this year. And it's taken 18  months really. It's a massive job to unwind legally something that's been going for 25 years." 

The name Flint Webster Studios will disappear forever but David says he has many fond memories and no regrets.

Word of the changes has been spreading fast and David and son Caillin are already producing under the banner of Flints, trading through the business name of One's Company, which was registered when Flint Webster was set up.

"I've had so many nice phone calls.  We've had clients who've come with us and we've done jobs already.  We're not tied to any one studio for engineering and we can do everything else from our new home office including casting voices, doing dubs and dispatching spots."

                                                                   "...handing over the reins."

David does concede some mental adjustments are needed for the new working arrangements. "It's strange not going into work after 25 years of heading into Bay Street."

And he's not running the new business- that's Caillin's job. David says he's looking forward to exploring new work possibilities on top of producing - perhaps consulting to radio networks. And he's planning a holiday sometime soon, far away from Melbourne.

"It takes a lot out of you being at the top for 25 years."

If you're looking for David and Caillin their new phone number is 03 9853 5742.

Rowlands Seeks New Owner

Just as Flint and Webster were finalising their split, John Rowlands decided to put his studios up for sale.

John says the decision to put Rowlands on the market was sparked a few months ago, when someone made an offer for the business.

"It wasn't the right offer, so we said no, but it made me think," John says.

The past two years have been tough for the whole industry Australia wide, so he decided to take a positive step and put Rowlands on the market to test demand. "There's been a huge amount of interest already. We're determined to sell the studio as a going concern but we'll only sell it to someone we want to have it.  If we can't find the right buyer we will probably just run it remotely and promote one of the staff to manage it locally." John says any savvy business person willing to take advice and keep on the current staff could make a great investment - without needing any audio production knowledge.

"We're making money. And we've just completed a direct mail marketing exercise, with a CD-Rom showcasing our studios, facilities and staff to key advertising agencies. We're fully booked for the next two weeks. We've got no intentions of winding the business down - quite the reverse," John says.

"If Flint Webster closed in its original form and then we closed, it would be a travesty for our industry in Melbourne."

Beancounters Sound Gloomy on Radio Revenue Forecasts

PWC's predictions on media revenue from 2002 to 2006 do indicate that Australian media are rebounding from the global advertising recession and the Sydney Olympics aftermath of 2001.  In a nutshell here are the revenue estimates:

Radio industry: Radio advertising decreased in 2001 and is forecast to do so again in 2002. However, the industry is expected to achieve positive growth from 2003 and achieve a compound annual growth rate of 2.2 per cent to 2006. This is the lowest compound annual growth rate in advertising for any of the segments analysed in the Outlook.

PWC says the reasons for the low revenue growth have nothing to do with radio's popularity or importance, which remain strong.  Rather, the poor revenue predictions reflect the fact that while TV and print have introduced digital and interactive services to grow revenue streams, radio has a noticeable lack of revolutionary enhancements and therefore, limited ability to increase revenue.

Free-to-air television: PWC forecasts little growth during 2002, with 2003 marking the beginning of an advertising recovery that will lead to 3.3 per cent compound annual growth to 2006.  This follows a 9 per cent drop in advertising on free-to-air TV between 2000 and 2001.

Filmed entertainment industry: Filmed entertainment spending in Australia is expected to increase by 3.3 per cent compound annual rate to 2006.

Newspaper industry: The Australian newspaper market experienced an 8.6 per cent drop in 2001, largely due to an 8.0 per cent downturn in advertising spend. The Outlook forecasts a return to positive growth in 2003, with compound annual growth of 3.6 per cent to 2006.

If you're interested in how PWC came up with these predictions, the media release can be found here.  

Reports of Recession Exaggerated in Adelaide

Greg Clark's just finished installing a whole new computer set-up in his Adelaide studio: new 17" Apple Mac flat screen monitors, G4 processors,  3 x 80 Gig hard drives, new zip drives, fire wire drives, DVD burners and a USB tablet with a cordless pen.  It's his first major equipment upgrade since he opened his studios in 1998 and a sign that business is good.

"If there's an advertising recession, we haven't heard of it here," he says.

"The radio component is the part that's really grown in the business. There's been some offshoot from the TV things, perhaps a TV client might say they wouldn't mind doing a radio version of an ad, so away we go.but at the same time there have been some core agencies that use us for quite a bit of their radio work."

Greg started the studios when a colleague Danny Monaghan, took over Channel Ten's outsourced commercial production in Adelaide.  Danny offered Greg the audio work if Greg supplied the equipment and he jumped at the opportunity, returning to production after 20 years as an on-air radio announcer and TV presenter.  

"It has grown quite immeasurably.  It's just amazing how if you get out on your own and you do things at reasonable prices and you've got a bit of experience in this business you will be sought out," Greg says.

"We're pretty unashamedly retail and if you come into my studio there aren't a heap of awards hanging on walls. I'm not a big believer in winning lots of awards because I've seen awards won for commercial campaigns that absolutely ruined the client: the ads were good for winning awards but they didn't sell a jot.

"We have a pretty big spread of clients now.  There are some clients we only see once a year but we realise that's the budget they've got and that's the sort of client they are.  We've also got several large national accounts still very much in the retail sector, that we're pretty happy with and they're pretty happy with us.  And we do a lot of corporate here as well, it's not just commercial production."

                                    ...Overall Greg characterises his audio production as affordable...

"I think we make it possible for people who just don't have a lot of bread to get on the air.  The rate is set to be realistic and affordable.  It's not like we'd look at a client and say this guy is really struggling we'll do it for half price.  It's a set rate and it's a pretty damn fair rate considering the overheads that I currently have.  And it's recently gone up because when you spend $20,000 to upgrade everything you've got to  recoup that somehow."

In Adelaide, as in Sydney and Melbourne, Greg has seen the arrival of the studio-in-a-spare-room-at-home, but isn't too concerned about the impact on his business.

"If I can produce the quality of work and keep it lean, that has to be the future.  But  I love it.  I loved it when I was doing it in the 70's and I knew all along that this was what I would go back to one day."  

Is the Writing on the Wall for Golden Stylus?

Despite earlier declarations from Commercial Radio, there's unlikely to be any positive decision on the future of the Golden Stylus awards this year. A discussion document outlining the proposed monthly Golden Stylus Awards has met with lukewarm interest from the larger advertising agencies whose financial support would be crucial.

Killer Bits understands that smaller agencies and production studios have made it clear to Commercial Radio Australia there is value in maintaining radio specific advertising awards. However, the radio organisation is having difficulty finding a format attractive enough to lure major agency support, given the plethora of advertising awards already available in Australia and overseas for agencies to showcase their work.

Commercial Radio has sponsored several new categories at this year's AWARDS and Media Federation Awards in an attempt to forge closer links with advertising agencies, to try to get radio higher on agencies' spending priorities for their clients.

                                                          
Singo's station within sight of number one

A radio station in Newfoundland, Canada recently flipped from Country to Top 40. It's now called HITS FM. To coincide with the flip,  a station vehicle bears the new logo.  Of course, when the Van door slides open, the station takes on a new identity...

 

AudioNET® Bits ... From Vaughan Roberts - Chief AudioNET Programmer / Web Designer

It's been busy busy busy...in fact the last week of September was our biggest single week since we launched. Thanks to Frodi's Mill, GAS, Greg Clark Productions, Gusto Music, Rowlands, SMR Productions and Caillin and David Flints new enterprise One's Company, who delivered spots with AudioNET® on their first day of operation. 

Meanwhile, I've been busy out in the shed working through some of your feedback and suggestions, as a result we have another batch of AudioNET improvements to unleash...details in a moment.

But first, just in case you were wondering YES, IT'S BUSINESS AS USUAL ON MONDAY OCTOBER 8th^.   It's a public holiday in NSW, ACT and SA, but business as usual in VIC, WA, NT and TAS. Some radio stations in the affected states may be running a weekend format with skeleton staff. But as always AudioNET® will be running 24/7 with 24 hour support available by e-mailing support@dbmsystems.com.au

Package Details - if your a studio that sends multiple tracks in a single delivery you will now be able to see the download receipts of all the tracks in that 'Package' by clicking the 'Package' link on your Delivery Confirmations page. As a radio station that receives multiple tracks sent in a single delivery you will be able to see and download all the tracks at once by clicking the "Package Details' link in your Inbox.

Forwarding or Resending a Package - previously studios have had to forward or resend tracks individually, even if they were originally sent as a package. Now when you click the 'Forward' or 'Resend Track' link for a track in a package you'll have the option to send just that track, the whole package or any combination of tracks from that package.

AudioNET On-Line Invoice Filter - now you can instantly and accurately calculate the cost of a delivery or a serries of deliveries by Agency, Client or Product. 

More Radio Stations - Welcome aboard 2BH / Hill FM - Broken Hill, 2BS / BROCK - Bathurst, 2DU / Zoo FM - Dubbo, 2PK / ROCK FM - Parks, 2VM / NOW FM - Moree and 2WEB - Bourke who all had their first AudioNET® deliveries this month.

If you have radio stations that you regularly send to that don't appear on the AudioNET list of stations, simply call or e-mail us with the details and we'll get in contact and sign them up straight away.

Don't forget you can add your own AudioNET® receivers at anytime. Simply click on Add New Receivers and fill in the details of Who, Where and E-mail details, click the button and they receive a welcome e-mail from you with instructions and are added instantly to your receiver list. Personal receivers added by you, do not appear on the receiver lists of any other AudioNET® senders.

Your Bits

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.

AudioNET® thought for the day 

"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of lease  payments.." - Anonymous

 

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