RAMSAY Wrote:
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> I can't understand why someone like Brian May,
> David Gilmour, Ozzy etc doesn't buy this station
> to give something back to the fans that have given
> them everything. Losses of £3 million to them -
> it's like me losing a tenner!

Maybe, but when its contstantly losing 300,000 a year, no-one is going to hang on to it. The problem with Planet Rock is it isnt "mainstream enough" for the average listener. Lets look at the breakfast show from today - remember radio considers the breakfast show as the 'shop window to the station'. Id like to bet that the average general public will not know the ones ive put in bold. Its fine for rock enthusiasts but there are simply too many album/obscure tracks played at peak times to get Joe Average to continue to listen. The majority of the general public want familiarity on the radio especially at breakfast when they are getting ready for work/in the car etc. Too many unfamiliar songs and they will just stick a cd on. That has been proved by the success of Heart etc with their tightly controlled, short playlists. A station playing tracks like Aqualong in the breakfast show is never going to make serious money (especially in the UK radio market these days).

Wheel In The Sky - Journey
Behind Blue Eyes - Who
Dust Bowl - Joe Bonamassa
Just Like Paradise - David Lee Roth
Roll Away The Stone - Mott The Hoople
Lover Alot - Aerosmith
Seven Seas Of Rhye - Queen
Cold As Ice - Foreigner
The Pass - Rush
These Days - Foo Fighters
Skateaway - Dire Straits
Aqualung - Jethro Tull
Low Life In High Places - Thunder
The Needle And The Spoon - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Panama - Van Halen
High Voltage - AC/DC
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen
Shame Shame - Red White & Blues
Roadhouse Blues - Doors
Mama - Genesis
Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
Ready For Love - Bad Company
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Elected - Alice Cooper
Crazy On You - Heart
Confessor - Black Country Communion
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
Photograph - Def Leppard
I Surrender - Rainbow
Ghost - (Ian Astbury)Slash
Crossroads - Cream
Demon Head - Europe
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
Can't Slow Down - Foreigner
Young Blood - U.f.o

The other problem is DAB hasnt taken off as well as they hoped it would. A lot of the stations on DAB are worse sound quality than on FM. Take Kerrang! for example. Here in the West Midlands I can choose between FM or DAB. DAB is 64kbps in Mono! It was 128kbps stereo (i believe) when it launched but it got cut down to squeeze more stations onto the multiplex that it broadcasts on. It may sound ok on a small kitchen portable - but connect it to a hifi and compare the two. I guarantee you will be switching back to FM before the song has finished. I wouldnt be surprised if even the webstream is better quality than the DAB.

I honestly cant see Bluemel getting his money back for it! This quote on radiotoday says it all - from Johnny Meyers - a radio veteran rumoured to be interested as part of his TeamRock venture

"At that level of losses it’s hard to determine value – if any.”

Steve