It’s Your Call: 2CC Talk Radio With Teeth!

That headline could just as easily have read “Newish Manager Doug Bell Puts His Stamp On 2CC”, but I think the first headline works better.

So what am I going on about? Well 2CC have new imaging which presents them as a “hard-hitting” news and current affairs station, apparently they “aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions” and 2CC is “talk radio with teeth”. The new imaging is putting heavy emphasis on local programming, with promos for Mike Jeffreys and Mike Welsh on high rotation.

The background music on the promos sounds a bit more serious than the old promos, but not serious enough to sound like a news bulletin, which is probably a good thing.

New Day Australia now has at least three ad break intros, all replacing the one ad break intro used for years and years and years. My favourite is “It’s your call, New Day Australia on Talk Radio 2CC”. As it turned out during the day, “It’s your call” is the catchcry of 2CC and is featured in almost every station ID.

The open line number also features quite heavily, and in what I think is a first for 2CC, network programming is receiving voiceovers touting “13 13 32” as the open line number. There are a couple open line promos floating around which sound a bit snappier than the previous ones, and don’t have a rushed voiceover.

2CC production have obviously had a lot of fun and put a lof of effort into the new imaging, and some bright spark has decided to use snippets of Lawsie’s jingles in the place of the old music returns which used to clash with Lawsie’s own music returns. The jingles still overlap Lawsie’s music, but the transition from end of jingle to music return actually works surprisingly well.

On the subject of music returns, it sounds like 2CC have updated their music returns (the bits of music they play as they return from ad breaks if you’re wondering what I’m going on about) as well, a new set, it’s probably about time too. Unfortunately it still drowns out overnight programming when it returns from ad breaks, but overall it sounds more serious and focussed than the previous set.

A little while back 2UE dumped the half-hour “Best of Laws” segment at 11:30 Friday in favour of a “Five Days in Five Minutes” segment at 11:53. This has undoubtedly presented extra work for 2CC who have a locally produced hour-long “Best of Laws” segment on Sunday’s at 9am. I’ve been thinking about this, and now that 2CC have new imaging, I have to wonder if “Best of Laws” will be dumped in favour of “The Best of Mike Welsh” or (and this would be a tad odd) “The Best of John Stanley”. It would probably take the same amount of production, but would fit in with 2CC’s new-found local emphasis.

As fas as I can tell, the new imaging was launched as of Midnight, and is probably an early birthday present for 2CC, which turns 31 tomorrow.

Samuel