SYDNEY: Macquarie Regional Radioworks is amping its online credentials in a bid to attract both listeners and advertisers.
The regional radio powerhouse will launch an online portal housing its 86 regional radio stations on 27 November, with the help of MediaZoo and Legion Interactive. The portal is Macquarie’s choice of weapon following a series of unsuccessful individual station websites, which failed to build enough clout to attract national advertisers.
“It wasn’t cost efficient, running individual websites while trying to keep them active and relevant with local content,” said Ben Parsons, digital content & national promotions director at Macquarie Regional Radioworks (MRRW).
Competitors Austereo and DMG already have strong online presences, but Parsons said MRRW’s delay was for a good reason – opting to wait for the right partners to work with and researching overseas website models.
The main point of difference of theradio.com.au will be its focus on local content positioned on a national scale, according to Parsons. “Most national websites are Sydney-centric, but we will have a strong focus on localism across all our stations,” he said.
Interactive media company MediaZoo has created a local content management system which allows for individual uploads of local content for each station across the country, while Legion Interactive will be supplying the online mobile content.
Daryl Mitchell, national sales director at MRRW, said the late arrival of the regional stations to online had worked to the network’s benefit. “Rather than have 86 rough and ready stations, we’ve got one that houses them all [and] that’s the best in the business,” Mitchell said.
Mitsubishi is the first advertiser on board, promoting a car giveaway, which coincides with the website launch. But MRRW was coy about other advertisers, and how they’ll be incorporated into the portal, saying only that the banking sector has expressed a huge interest, and that a partnership to launch a digital music store on the website is in final negotiations.
MRRW is touting the main advantage to advertisers to be the ability to reach a vast audience in one easy buy, and being exposed to difficult-to-reach areas such as far north Queensland and Tasmania.
According to the network, these areas have had recent unprecedented growth, which it attributes to a baby boom and a shifting population of cashed-up retirees.
MRRW will urge advertisers to make a consolidated offering of radio and online campaigns, to reach listeners at all possible points.
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