Moneyweb Holdings Limited - Moneyweb Radio Secures National Fm Partnership
Moneyweb Holdings Limited
(Registration No:1998/025067/06)
Share code:MNY ISIN code:ZAE000025409
(`Moneyweb`)
MONEYWEB RADIO SECURES NATIONAL FM PARTNERSHIP
Starting next month South Africa`s top business radio programme, the Moneyweb
Power Hour, will be available to a national audience for the first time. The
programme is moving from its current community station platforms to the SABC`s
Radio 2000 (around 99 and 100 on the FM frequency (between Radio Five and RSG))
from May 4.
Hosted by financial broadcaster and columnist Alec Hogg, it will be on air
weeknights between 6pm and 7pm.
Moneyweb founder Alec Hogg says the partnership with Radio 2000 is the
fulfilment of a long-held ideal for the JSE-listed company`s flagship radio show
to be distributed through a national FM station.
Last July`s move of the Moneyweb programme from Classic FM to struggling
community radio station 1485AM Radio Today sparked considerable controversy. It
also triggered a formal complaint by Classic FM and Radio Jacaranda calling on
ICASA, the broadcast regulator, to close down the community station or take
Moneyweb off air. After lengthy and costly hearings in which leading advocates
were drafted in by both sides, the Classic FM and Jacaranda complaints against
Moneyweb were dismissed.
Hogg says: `We did extensive research a few weeks after the move to Radio Today
and then again six months later. The results of both were identical. Most of our
Johannesburg listeners told us they would not accept the inferior AM signal,
many saying they didn`t even know how to find AM on their radios let alone try
discover where Radio Today might be.
`The research revealed that just over 25% of our Johannesburg listeners moved
with us to Radio Today while a third stayed with the replacement show produced
for Classic FM by Business Day. Most of the others switched off or listened to
CDs; with some transferring to Highveld (7%); the new RSG show (4%) or SAFM
(4%).`
Hogg adds: `Critically, 95% of those who did not follow us to Radio Today said
they will do so when Moneyweb returns to an FM platform. We are delighted that
the new partnership with Radio 2000 means from Wednesday May 4 they are able to.
We`ll also be working on getting that last 5% to come across to our revamped
format that has led to a far better programme than the one we previously
produced.`
Although unaffected by July`s move from Classic FM, the transfer of the Moneyweb
Power Hour to Radio 2000 will now impact existing listeners in Cape Town, Durban
and Pretoria where the programme is currently broadcast on FMR, Highway Radio
and Radio Rippel. Hogg says it is unfortunate that we will have to terminate
these relationships but says the commercial reality meant Moneyweb had no
option. In a recent trading statement, the company announced that partly as a
result of the revenue lost through its move from Classic FM, Moneyweb would be
reporting a loss of around 3c a share for the year to end March.
In each of the past four years, the Moneyweb Power Hour has been adjudged the
country`s best radio programme in both the Sanlam and Citadel journalism awards.
Last year the programme received the unprecedented honour for a radio programme
by winning the overall award for business reporting in the Citadel competition,
beating the Internet, newspapers, magazines and television.
Rosebank
21 April 2005
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