How dmg are repositioning for the future

Darren Davidson in The Australian has chatted with dmg radio australia CEO Cathy O'Connor after last weeks smooth fm national announcement.

She talks of the turnaround that has been worked on over the past few years.

"We embarked on a broad plan to revitalise the core business but also to build adjacent businesses that spring from our brands and content, and embark on potential diversification plays," Cathy says.

"I think we've done a good job positioning the brands for organic growth and a big part of that is Nova. The new line-up, marketing strategy and initiatives like Red Room and new websites around the core business have paid off in revenue."

On the networks partnership with Rdio she says it's about "repositioning dmg for the future".

"From both a consumer and advertiser perspective, there is a need to extend your brand and your audiences into new platforms so that's where some of these adjacent plays into mobile and diversification plays into streaming music come from."

"It allows us to say to our consumers Nova is more than just radio."

Revenue for the network is up more than 25% in the last quarter of 2012 and O'Connor says it will grow a "minimum of 25 per cent" this year.

Their plan is to increase non-broadcast revenue from a single-digit contribution to 20% over 5 years.

"The 20 per cent target is consistent with the pursuit of cross-platform marketing opportunities from major advertisers. A tier-one advertiser now deals with a broadcast partner across a range of initiatives from experiential and event activity to promotional and sponsorship."

On dmg's goals for smooth fm in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide ?

"Our goal is to be the most successful new radio brand on DAB + in those three markets. This allows smoothfm to have a national footprint and trade more significantly with national advertisers. The availability of radio licences is limited but we have digital radio spectrum available to us."

Read more in The Australian here.
Picture by Graham Crouch, The Australian