3MTR launches today
April 7th, 2010 at 10:41am
3MTR, the Melbourne talk station which replaces 3MP will be “launched” today but will not be going to air today.
It is expected to be officially confirmed today that the new station will have A Current Affair reporter Martin King as the drive show (4pm-6pm) host, although it will be more of a surprise if they don’t confirm this today as it has been splashed all over the Melbourne media.
2GB’s Chris Smith is not on-air in Sydney today as he is in Melbourne for the launch and it is expected that his show will be syndicated to 3MTR in a slightly altered format. His show will be split in to three distinct parts. Midday-1pm will be broadcast in to Sydney only and will have a Sydney focus, 1pm-3pm will be broadcast in both markets with a national focus, and 3pm-4pm will be broadcast in Melbourne only with a Melbourne focus.
The weekday lineup for 3MTR is expected to be:
Midnight-3:30am: Jim Ball
3:30am-5am: Wake Up Australia with Andrew Moore
5am-6am:Unknown
6am-10am: Steve Price and contributors
10am-1pm: Steve Vizard
1pm-4pm: Chris Smith
4pm-6pm: Martin King
6pm-8pm: Money News with Ross Greenwood
8pm-midnight: Unknown, but likely to be similar to 2GB’s evening lineup, minus Brian Wilshire.
Meanwhile Ash Long, proprietor of Melbourne newspaper The Melbourne Observer is maintaining quite possibly the best publicity stunt for an unlaunched radio station in living memory. For months Ash has been publicly stating that he owns the name “Melbourne Talk Radio” and that Macquarie and Pacific Star have no rights to the name…lots of noise, but no action. It’s true that Ash owns this name, but surely if this was a serious claim he’d be dragging it through the courts and not through the media?
Regardless, my suspicion here is that Ash reached an agreement with Macquarie/Pacific Star a long time ago, and this public “dispute” over the name is just part of that deal as it benefits the new radio station as well as The Melbourne Observer. Case in point: who, outside of Melbourne, had heard of The Melbourne Observer before this all blew up?
It should be interesting to see what the actual lineup is, and whether it will be able to put a dent in 3AW’s ratings. I’m personally hoping that 3MTR will take the rugby league coverage from 2GB even if it doesn’t take the hours and hours of talk surrounding the coverage. Time will tell, and we should all know in about twenty minutes from now.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: TV/Radio/Media
