Vega: We reckon we can do better with no breakfast presenter at all than with our current lot

Personally I think this has legs, as who needs jokes at 7.00am in the morning.

Why don’t they just give their listeners an iPod shuffle each?

I wish more stations would do this! I just want the music and news, not all that dopey banter.

I love it! Every single station has some annoying presenter telling bad jokes in the morning. Sometimes people just want something to listen to in their cars or getting ready for work. I wish there was a vega in brisbane 🙁

When Vega launched it was targeting a niche for Gen X and boomers who were fed up with the traditional mindless morning FM format. With Wendy Harmer and Angela Catterns for a few brief months they succeeded in developing something unique in FM radio. An entertaining brteakfast show based on intelligent, adult and humorous engagement with the audience. Not surprisigly it flopped. A real shame as given time I’m sure it would have found and audience a loyal audience.

A “presenter-less” breakfast show will make a nice change from all the personality-less “personalities” stations insist on over-paying!

Interesting. The problem I feel with many radio shows is not only do they have too much talking, but those doing the talking are clearly trying reeeaaallllly hard to be funny, which of course largely guarantees they are not. The larger the number of presenters, the worse this seems to be.

Once you add up the time spent talking, plus all the ads, news, weather traffic and station promos, actual minutage spent on music is simply too low for many listeners. Having no DJ, or perhaps just one would be a beneficial development for many stations.

I like it. It’s certainly going to be a different offer than their competitors and Vega gets to save dollars by not paying over inflated salaries to personalities. In these days where clients are becoming more and more concerned about the company they keep, and the unpredictability of some radio talent, it’s not a bad strategy to consider at all.

Thats a pity… I like Mikey Robins. He was funnier before he lost all that weight, though..

As long as they keep their news going I’ll still be listening!

Good they have been going “Presenter personality-less” for long enough

This is the kind of breakfast-time radio show I’ve always thought would be great. Who needs banal chatter of “personalities”. Music and news is all I want from my radio.

This is great news, Sydney breakfast radio is rubbish. Morning after morning we are subjected to listening to meaningless talk about radio hosts and their lives, who cares. Finally a radio station that will just play music in the mornings.

Well done Vega.

Nice one Vega – got to be worth a try and will certainly differentiate them. Will the dump button be used here for crap songs though?

If it means not having to hear Mikey Robins and his stifled humor every morning, here ye, here ye.
All I have to do now is successfully avoid Good News Week and I should be safe.

It is a shame when all former JJJ DJ’s go to the dark side, then loose their edge.
And Nova, leave DJ royalty, Robbie Buck alone – he is very content at Aunty.

Fantastic news ! I just hope this trend starts to spread into other areas. I simply can’t understand why various shows and stations need “personalities” to host and introduce shows. Just give us the content !

This is such a brilliant idea. I cannot believe it has taken this long. I used to listen to Atlantic 252 for this very reason.

Now take the $thousands you are saving…and use that to promote the new cocnept and you will see a rating increase..guaranteed.

Soon we will see the end to the banal, self opinionated, racist, sexist morning radio shows

Now if Only someone can do the same to Breakfast television.

I hear MIX Fm starts with a new breakfast team on Tuesday

I think it’s a shame – Tony Bec and Mikey are a funny and relaxed start to the day. I will miss them.

Is this a buggles remix ‘music killed the radio star’?

What a wonderful way to spin “we’re broke and we can’t afford real talent”.

Hallelujah! At last someone has seen the LIGHT!!

Great! Now Tony or Mikey are available, they can go back to the ABC where they belong (and are appreciated, no, loved) and get that supercilious Adam Spencer off the breakfast show. Oh and by they way, who was the great thinker that pulled Rob Buck off Triple J to do nights on 702 when Rod Quinn, the most sublime mind on radio, was begging (and deserved and was perfect for)) for the job. Does anyone understand what I’m talking about since there is no really advertising?

On second thoughts, let’s just get back Angela Catterns to 702 Breakfast and we can all start the day off right.

Well done Vega! In the mean time – have you guys seen the latest Sandilands viral? http://bit.ly/PVCR5

This is absolutely the wrong way to go. Radio simply cannot compete with Ipods and similar with a music only mix. The ONLY thing that will allow radio to compete is compelling personality, story arcs, and building an emotional connection with the audience. This is a turn in the wrong direction BIG time.
The only solution for radio is to develop talent, the music only option just won’t work like it did prior to this decade. Music research is seriously flawed, and they will just serve up the same overplayed hits (oooh Katrina and the Waves is testing this week!) that pop up on every 70s, 80s & 90s radio station across the country.
Sad.

DUMB, DUMB AND DOUBLE DUMB VEGA

VEGA HAD THE CHANCE TO BE THE NEW 2SM OF THE 00′ WITH THE BOOMERS WHO HAVE ALL THE MONEY AND THEY LET THE BOOMERS AND THEMSELVES DOWN.
I FOR ONE WILL NOT BE RECOMMENDING MY CLIENTS TO ADVERTISE ON VEGA UNDER HTIS NEW CONCEPT. THE BREAKFAST CREW IS THE LINCH PIN TO THE WHOLE SUCCESS OF ANY AUSTRALIAN RADIO STATIONS FUTURE. DUMB. DUMB AND BLOODY STUPID. YOUR MORNING CREW DID A FANTASTIC JOB. VEGA DID A POOR JOB OF MARKETING IT TO GROW THEIR AUDIENCE. MIX GAVE YOU THEIR AUDIENCE ON A PLATTER AND YOU DID NOT CEASE THE OPPORTUNITY. SHAME REALLY.

Presenters are not the issue, it’s audience penetration that has always been the challenge for Vega in Sydney and Melbourne. In my humble opinion, the simple reason why these stations have failed is because their marketing has not connected with the target audiences and I have told them that. Their format is fine and their presenters probably are too, but a commercial radio station needs an audience to buy its advertisers’ products. I can’t see how doing away with presenters will drive listeners to Vega.

Finally! Hopefully a Melbourne station will copy. I was hoping digital radio would finally bring us a station with the only bits I’m intersted in; music, news and traffic!

SUGGESTION: ARN NETWORK SHOULD HIRE THE VEGA CREW FOR MIXFM.

THAT WAY THE AUDIENCE AT VEGA HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO. WE DO LOVE TONY, MIKEY AND BEC.

BRILLIANT….PROBLEM SOLVED AND VEGA CAN TURN OFF THEIR STATION AND SAVE EVEN MORE MONEY. THERE ARE TOO MANY STATIONS IN SYDNEY ANYWAY.

The radio guys are fantastic at programming music but they do not have the knowledge or experience in how to put comic teams together. My friends and I who have owned live comedy venues can’t believe how far off the mark they are. They put together teams that will never ever work and they don’t even ask the top live comedy managers. Radio heads suffer from not knowing what they know and not knowing what they don’t know.

Vega Melbourne is hopeless too and will be boned – here’s why

Vega Melbourne – Dicko nice character and can work with two other team members
Chrissie Swan – regular woman and that’s hopeless because they need a person who can sound like a regular woman but can structure stories (like ex Neighbours writer Kate Langbroek on Nova)
Dave Oneil – Supernice guy but he’s a one trick pony and they need a strong anchor who has an acting background so he can do character voices and strong comedy (Ed Cavilly comes from a theatre sports background and that’s why he’s doing well on Nova Melbourne and has a funny TV show too)

DMG people , please please please get some live comedy and acting advisors because you’re so talented in other ways but you just have no experience in that area which is why Multi Million dollar stations are run on a hit and miss basis for teams which is ridiculous

Very simple. Won’t work.

@Frank Lee – haven’t you figured it out yet – when radio wants your opinion… they’ll give it to you!

vega had it right some time ago when they were using Mal Lees, ex club veg. He was the only one with heritage, sense of humor & knew his music and sydney..its not to late vega!

After 12 months away from radio (after 30 years in it) the picture is becoming clearer.
$261mililion just to buy 2 radio licences…the maths is not that hard (However I would suggest the repayments are). Like most new school stations, they are buggered. The market has changed, the listeners have become users, management is thinking like a consumer of goods instead of a producer & supporter of talent and the poor old talent is left answering to PD’s who have renamed themselves “content managers”….
Guys don’t take it too hard. Look on the bright side, you can wake up after the sun comes up, you are all talented, so work will come to you and most importantly, you are no longer “content”.

Re. Howard Carter’s comment, yes, Mal Lees is a real catch for a station.

But no, Vega can’t have him back, he’s sounding fantastic on Gold Coast commercial radio station, Hot Tomato. Does a local drive show with a good co-host, Luke Bradnam (the smarter twin).

1 Aussie dollar bought much less than 40 pence when DMG started their race to the top of the interest debt pile in 2001, now that the UK’s in trouble, Pound’s devalued to 1AUD=50+ pence, that’s gotta be a trouble for the parent company bottom line for starters.

As for the comment #34 about comment #32 and probably #29, unfortunately you’re right and radio’s the poorer for it. Once upon a time when media choices were limited to conventional forms, ignoring educated opinion from the public could be got away with, not so now.

Breakfast jocks, duos and trios will quake in their boots if the next survey shows that this idea registers on the ratings richter scale. It will be interesting to see if this actually works. Personally, FM breakfast radio is dull. Honestly, join them all together and it’s a medley. They all use the same prep material and it’s ALL been done before. I just want to hear a good mix of music, not a high rotation playlist… oh, if I want that, maybe I should sick to my iPod.

Vega never did what it said it was going to when it took on Angela Catterns. At that time it was meant to be a real mix of music and talk. It was just all music. If they had stuck to what they originally intended which was a genuine talk/music mix and gave it time it would have been really good. As someone mentioned – if you want music with no talk put your songs on an ipod and listen at home or in your car.

This isn’t complicated. Talk radio is gaining share. Music radio is struggling. iPods and iPhones are common. CDs are cheap. Internet radio in the car isn’t far away.

Good music and good talk will win the day. Look at Radio 2 in the UK. Intelligent humour. Single presenters who talk to their audience not to each other. People who are radio presenters and good at it, not comedians, but have a sense of humour and relate to their audience.

So here’s a novel idea – a single presenter, 1-2 minute voice breaks, no jock-speak. Sound refreshing?

Look at radio2, 16% share across the UK!!! 16% share and 26% reach in a very crowded market. Stands out like the dogs bollocks to me!

..and another thing. Kidd says “Listeners love the music on Vega.” Well 370,000 people love it perhaps, but their cume audience is similar to 2UE, but 2UE has twice the share. So talk radio listeners are listening twice as long – so they love their talk more than Vega listeners love their music.

And their music mix is clearly an acquired taste – here are the audience cumes:
2DAY 966
NOVA 862
702 669
2GB 637
MIX 588
WSFM 529
MMM 482
2JJJ 470
2UE 381
Vega 373
2CH 289

So what they’re saying is, we’ve got a small audience and our focus is more of the same.

What they’ve done is looked at their share outside breakfast, seen its higher and thought lets do that at breakfast too. That won’t lift their cume and is unlikely to increase their share too much – people can only listen to music radio for so many hours a day.

Believe me, cume and share will, at best, stay the same. WS and 702 will scoop up the breakfast audience.

“Content Directors”, what a crock. Not a single one of these people has any idea how to develop a cast, build the emotional connection and give listeners some compelling that makes the WANT to tune in every day. Music is a commodity these days, just like Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate or RAM. Cume will drop big time, and there will be no lead in to the rest of the day.

DMG did this for years when it owned a swag of regional stations all round australia. Pre recorded and automation interspersed with boring back announcing. How boring.

Regardless of what you think of Vega and their music, the fact that they are offering an alternative to the mindless crap that comes from almost every other station in the market, show’s that they have seen something in their research that the others haven’t.

As Amazed pointed out, music radio is competing with iPods and iPhones. I am one of those who owns an iPhone and I work in the radio industry. I am usually heading to work as most breakfast shows start, and I spend most of my listening time outside of work listening to US radio stations, because there is very little on offer (on radio, in Melbourne) in regard to what I want out of a radio station.

As for comments about music being a commodity, this may be true. However, if you look at the figures outside of breakfast, those with below average breakfast results quite often have share rises in other dayparts. So offering more of what they do across the day, in the breakfast slot as an alternative to the traditional “Breakfast Show”, may actually help them.

It’s not saying much to point out that share can rise throughout the day despite a crap brekky show. It almost HAS to rise if brekky is sub par.
The point here is, brekky is the very best place to begin building a compelling reason for listeners to tune in. This is where the relationship begins and where a station HAS to get sticky. Without it, there is nothing to make listeners passionate about a radio station.
Without passionate listeners, radio stations are just generic jukeboxes in a sea of the same.

I wish they’d do a presenter-less 2UE talkback show in the morning.

That’d rock. No Alan Jones or Lawsy, just a bunch of old senile farts calling in about whatever they want and dribbling shit for 5 minutes.

to all the people who said they needed more time…they have had over 2 years. When Angela catterns did her last ABC show, listeners called in and said they’ll miss her. The vega team at the time should have been deeply worried about that statement as they were hoping she would bring her listeners with her. Unfortunately it didn’t happen.

David Kidd has done the right thing and i think the station whilst due to its format will never be a #1 will still do alright

Finally! Now is the perfect time to complete your stable Vega – Rob Duckworth.
He would be the ideal breakfast host – experienced, knowledgable, personable & funny. Not too in your face, and your core audience would be familiar with him immediately. Don’t let a talent like this slip away – get him NOW.

Worth a thought!

Dear Leethal

What stations in the USA would your recommend to a Vega listener?

I feel the balance we have on offer is dull and boring in Sydney.

They were sacked becuase they were getting paid a pretty penny and the ratings didn’t warrant it , , they had to 3 people , just put one guy on with a sense of humour play some songs , and see how that goes

Ross,

Here are a few of my favourites…

WXRV – Boston – http://asx.abacast.com/wxrv.asx

WFIV – Louden – mms://nick11.surfernetwork.com/wkvl

WQKL – Ann Arbor – mms://live.cumulusstreaming.com/WQKL-FM

WXRT – Chicago – http://provisioning.streamthew.....TFMAAC.pls

KMTT – Seattle – http://provisioning.streamthew.....KMTTFM.pls

Sort of VEGAish, but they give me the music diversity that I so crave.

Check this link out. There is a heap of stuff hear, in any format you so desire.

http://www.thestreamcenter.com/search.asp?name=

Swings and round-a-bouts guys.. its all cyclic… they’ll give that a crack for a while – others will follow… then personality radio will come back and we go ’round again.

Didn’t 2SM 15 years ago play Musak and rate 5%? may work saves money, I hope Tony and Mike turn up somewhere.
Having said all that there is now no need to buy a camapign on the station as their audience is easily reached on other stations

This is devastating news! I loved starting my day on an always happy note with Tony ,Bec and Mikey. So much more interesting to listen to and laugh along with in the car on the way to work instead of the same old repetitive music. If you want to listen to music all the time without the humour interspersed then put on a cd. I will miss you guys.

I for one like the idear of straight music shift in breakfast. having said that, time calls between every song was a bit annoying.

I think it is great to have an FM station that is not full of mindless attempts at comedy with purile phone ins from people who want their 5 minutes of “fame”. A bloke called Peter Kaye was on air doing breakky at 4BH in the early 70s and he had the perfect mix of great music, he could be funny without overplaying his hand and there was a bit of useful info. I haven’t yet heard anyone better at this type of show.
That’s what we need here on the Sunny Coast too! Go for it vega. I hope the Sydney audience is intelligent enough to handle it.

I will miss Tony and Bec. Missed news that they were “gone” tho. Didnt know what was going on when they were missing this last week. Cant say i’m impressed with the new fellow. What i cant stand is the GIANT GASP between the phrasing of the FEMALE reading the traffic report.
I hope if there is music only they dont play each track more than once every couple of weeks, it is tiresome to hear the same ones every day or two, there must be thousands and thousands to choose from!

The announcer this morning is not a good ad for the new format. Set up phone calls and dodgy “off-siders” … sounds like radio back in the 80’s. Am I supposed to be feeling nostalgic? Not…I did follow Angela Catterns from 702…..will now head back and retry them.

I’m enjoying more music and less talking. I was about to change radio stations but will now stick with Vega.

I’m very disapointed. Tony, Bec & Mickey were fun of a morning. I’ll miss them, and have stopped listening to VEGA – will swap to another station.

Love Tony and Mikey but couldn’t stand the ads. Enjoy the sleep in lads.

Only liked Vega for them, not the music. Too old school for me. Haved turned to TripleM – the Grill Team is not too bad. Quite funny.

Love the new strategy!

I remember when I hosted a network radio breakfast show on Christmas Day in New Zealand in the good ‘ole days. No ads, didn’t matter who the jock was beccause your pre-recorded the entire shift in 10 minutes. Saves a bundle of money. More music too! Love the music on Vega!

They could always follow 2GB, the No 1 station in Sydney. They’ve ditched everyone they’ve tried in the 7pm-8pm slot and have now settled with paid advertisers having an hour on air with the evening producer as the host. Plus there’s a different show on every night, now that’s consistency in programing!

O my – HOW BORING is it in the mornings without Tony, Bec and Mikey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please come back guys but go to another radio station which will appreciate you. You make a great team.

I love the new format. I was getting really tired of the all the talk. I’m not missing them at all.

I came to Vega to listen to Angela, Bec, Tony and Mikey … and now with the change in format, I’m leaving Vega. I agree with Ross, it wasn’t the Breakfast Team that was the problem, it was Vega’s marketing. And now they’ve lost the market they were trying to build. Intelligent people don’t want to listen to the 80’s format, heavy music and boring morning DJ. We’ll just put our iPODS on and switch to another station for news.