5 September 2008

Canberra radio station comes out of closet

| smoothcat
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Its sooooo nice to see Canberra’s gay radio station – 2CA – finally coming out of the closet. Reminds me of my own coming out as an awkward pimply-faced lad of 14 – I’ll never forget the look on mum’s face when I brought my boyfriend home for the first time!!!

It started a few months ago when I noticed 2CA playing all my favourite music. Then they sacked the straight DJs – both the girl and then the bloke who were on in the afternoons (good riddance). And they put a photo of a DJ with a limp wrist on their web site as a signal to us. And now they’re promoting my favourite musical Priscilla. And the other night my life partner heard the song Glad to be Gay from Tom Robinson’s classic Cabaret 79 album.

Good on you, 2CA. It takes lots of guts to come out but its just so lovely to have you with us as a dearly loved part of Canberra’s gay community.

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The Public Watchdog10:22 pm 14 Sep 08

Do you know, how I know 2CA are gay?

Because they like Coldplay.

BerraBoy68: Duratone in Philip.

JB – Research? sure. When you get paid to, or have a personal interest in the outcome, absolutely.

As for Canberra Radio stations it can be nice to listen too but as I’m not in the industry I don’t care that much ‘who’s on top’. Personally, I still like coming home, throwing the old LP’s on the record player and listening to my choice of music (sadly, very 70’s and 80’s).

Actually, noting the audience here, does anybody know if/where I can get replacement needles for the record player?

I’d suggest niche-marketing on a gay basis would still be lowering ratings below 6.7 percent (although, of course, there are advantages commercially to niche marketing as vendors have a tighter knowledge of their demographic, which may have a greater disposable income…)

Having said that – the only gay-only radio station I know in Australia is Joy FM in Melbourne, which starts with a much bigger population base than Canberra, and, as far as I know, doesn’t run on a commercial basis (it’s under a community radio license, IIRC)…

As the lowest rating commercial station in the ACT at 6.7 it would seem primed for niche broadcasting.

Hope you do a bit more research on your billion dollar negotiations.

JB – Thanks, with several successful ‘hundred million dollar’ negotiations (and even one successful billion+ dollar) negotiation for my employer under my belt (I loved working in Defence)I think I’ve got my business acumen sorted out;) I’m not an expert on ‘radio ratings of the ACT’ and I was of the understanding that 2CA had fairly good market share already and was doing well – obviously not!

It’s not something I’m interested in but I understand that a couple of ‘gay only’ holiday resorts in Australia have done quite well.

SimpleShane773:33 pm 07 Sep 08

2CA Rocks!

I don’t care if they’re dj’s are gay or otherwise.

I thing I like about them is that they play music for adults.

I’m so over the heavy rock and hip hop shit on 106 and 104 plus the dj’s who only talk about themselves. that lisa girl on 106 is the worst.

2CA is cool again and i’m hearing the station more and more all over the place.

I’d say the person who started this post is more likely to be someone from another station who doesn’t like it that 2CA is sounding all right.

Remind me when Backstreet Boys and Savage garden played GOOD stuff, miz??

2CA fills the gaping niche left by MIX when they decided to go all ‘uneasy listening’.

I like it because it’s AM stereo so the sound is good, they only play the GOOD stuff, but drawn from the entire time frame, eg you might hear Everly brothers, Axiom, JOK and Simon and Garfunkel through to Cold Chisel, Elton, Backstreet Boys, MIke and the Mechanics, Savage Garden, The Corrs and Daniel Powter over an hour or two.

Hey … cool discussion. I’ve recently arrived from Canada, where I spent many years in media consulting, and it all makes sense to me. We had a similar thing happen in Ontario.

If the size of the gay population here is bigger than the station’s market share, becoming a niche station can be a sound business decision.

Being an FM listener, I haven’t heard 2CA, but I imagine they won’t be advertising their gay status publicly to start with. They can’t afford to, it could scare off redneck advertisers and listeners.

Stations like this tend to stay covertly gay for a while, dropping more and more hints over time, testing the market reaction, and relaunching themselves only when they feel safe.

Anyways, I wouldn’t be surprised if the original post was written by 2CA themselves to check for negative reaction before the official announcement.

It wasn’t very successfully sarcastic.

Music favoured by actively gay people tends to be pretty good, usually. 2CA play some really awful music.

grunge_hippy9:46 am 06 Sep 08

people need to remove the pole from their arses just long enough to embrace the concept of SARACASM.

*blinks*

..wow.

i’m guessing someone’s very bored, and lonely on a friday night to think of this…

BerraBoy68 said :

After all, why would a business (and that’s what it is) that could have broad community appeal target a minority market?

Maybe its because the Gay Community have a higher disposable income than the general population. If you can establish yourself in this market than it can attract good advertising income.

I dunno, it’d kinda help if the “humorously intended” posts were, um, actually funny?

(full disclosure here – I present Q-Radio on 2XX FM on a rotating cycle every couple of weeks – what makes it a gay program, for mine, is the discussion bits – community announcements, news, opinions – more than the musical playlist, which varies all over the map from Nirvana to the Andi and George Band to Aimee Mann to They Might be Giants to The Mountain Goats depending on how I’m feeling on a particular day)

free market in a free society the question is more about want than need.

I doubt the gay community is in agreement about the need for a gay radio station and I suspect they’d like it to be FM if they did.

Having said that I think you might be missing the humourous intent of this post.

Does the gay community need a radio station? Pathetic. So, has the struggle to be accepted by the mainstream community (which is fairly wide stream) come to turning a radio station gay? What makes them gay? A DJ? Pet Shop Boys or Bros on repeat?

I was sick of FM rubbish and went back to the golden oldies on 2CA and 2CC and now this “it’s tough to come out” bollocks. It’s a business not a person. Who cares? If the DJs were dwarf throwing tattooed endomorphs with wigs would that make the news or catch your “feel good and identify with a minority field day” or justify the music they play?

Only problem with your theory is that the 2ca ads are still aimed at pensioners … when I hear an ad aimed at the luvvies, I’ll believe you … I listen to 2ca occasionally, when the whining RN presenters start talking about their own kids or irrelevant detail about their own lives or, like the morning presenter, interrupt the interviewees constantly with little details about themselves!

BerraBoy68 said :

If this is true it’d be a coincidence only, I think. After all, why would a business (and that’s what it is) that could have broad community appeal target a minority market?

Nothing against homosexuals but it just wouldn’t make good business sense (unless of course their listening audience is already so small that catering for a specific minority will actually boost their numbers).

Why would any business seek out a niche? Back to business school for you.

A business with a smaller market share than any given target niche might well choose to give up on the mainstream.

Why would RiotACT give up on the global internet market to concentrate on just the ACT? Same reason it would make sense for a struggling radio station to target a sub-culture.

hmmm i have never listened to this station so my comments may not be acurate but have they actually stated ‘were gay’

If this is true it’d be a coincidence only, I think. After all, why would a business (and that’s what it is) that could have broad community appeal target a minority market?

Nothing against homosexuals but it just wouldn’t make good business sense (unless of course their listening audience is already so small that catering for a specific minority will actually boost their numbers).

I don’t think they’ve come out and stated they’re gay. It’s more like they’re flirting with the concept – bi-curious, if you will.

What’s TRB? Is it like LRB?

I was in a shop that plays 2CA this week and it sounded the same to me. Awful songs. There’s no way they’d be playing ANYTHING by TRB, let alone Glad to be Gah.

Best playlist in town! I’m a convert.

Holden Caulfield10:41 pm 05 Sep 08

Do you mean gay or ghey?

I think I speak for everyone here when I say thank you for clearing that up for us.

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