What's New
BY Sarah Patterson April 17, 2024
What's New April 8, 2019
“Scarcity is our friend”: Grant Blackley on selling DAB with FM
SCA’s decision to sell its DAB stations to advertisers along with its FM frequencies has been a buzz topic so far this year, and CEO Grant Blackley expanded on his network’s plans in a speech at Radiodays Europe.
He began by outlining SCA’s two key priorities: reach and localism.
SCA now have a healthy share of the DAB market, and broadcast their Hit and Triple M brands, which are known and trusted, unlike other radio groups who opted for niche, B2B and lesser known brands.
On SCA choosing not to sell DAB capacity seperately from FM, Grant said: “scarcity is our friend, if we were to flood the market, we would depress the market”.
He also spoke about smaller stations and niche audiences. “They’re not niche, they’re just small. Agencies aren’t equipped to deal with small things”.
Remaining on message, Grant moved on to podcasting, claiming that SCA is dominant over competitors like Nova, by choosing their podcast partner as PodcastOne, over other providers.
The SCA boss explained that SCA is aiming to own 50% of the Australian podcast market which would roughly be a $55m share.
Grant did admit that SCA are taking a risk with their DAB and podcasting strategy.
“We certainly won’t die wondering,” he summed up.
Check out the highlights reel of Radiodays Europe 2019, below:
Why pitch DAB instead of the 2Day and Triple M FM networks ? Thats where the money lies.
SCA is dominant over competitors like Nova ! Funny as that’s not the case last time I looked at metro ratings, revenue and profit. Oh SCA have more podcasts got it. Beautiful.
I think he’s been misinformed.
Outside of the car…where else are people going to have a digital radio?
While he’s out talking about DAB everyday his competitors are putting their efforts in streaming (which is where audio is obviously going)
Localism?
Grant, I challenge you to head into one of your regional markets and tell me just how local it sounds.
Bundling up Digital with FM is a strong short term sales tactic given SCA Sydney stations ratings have virtually collapsed.
SCA is not local. Networking stations isn’t local. Come back down to earth man!!
I think “Rick” misread Nova as being a Nova station not Nova Entertainment which is the short term management refers to Nova Entertainment as. Nova Entertainment does not need to disclose its financials as it’s a private company he must be privileged to some extra information. It would be good for him to enlighten us all on profit keeping in mind 2 stations they are involved in Brisbane and Perth are only as 50% share holders. Rick could you enlighten us if you have that info or hold a corporate role.