What's New
BY Jen Seyderhelm April 12, 2024
What's New October 23, 2018
SEN returns to South Australia with new sport station 1629 SEN
Image Credit: Sarah Reed
Pacific Star Network has announced a return to South Australia, in the form of new station 1629 SEN.
SEN SA will launch later in 2018, providing round the clock sports coverage for the state, with its lineup to be headed by Port Adelaide legend Kane Cornes.
Cornes will leave Adelaide station FIVEaa, where he has hosted Sportsday SA with Malcolm Blight.
The lineup is also set to include Gerard Whateley and The Front Bar‘s Andy Maher, with PSN set to announce more names in the coming weeks.
It will be the second attempt to succeed in South Australia for the Melbourne-based SEN.
The station launched in Adelaide in 2005 as SEN 1323 but went into voluntary administration after just a few short months.
This time around, 1629 SEN promises five hours of locally produced content daily.
The new station is set to bring together local and national sporting identities kicking off on 6th December with the first Test match of the season at Adelaide Oval.
The cricket coverage will be lead by SEN’s chief sports caller Gerard Whateley, as well as his regular morning radio show ‘Whateley’.
“South Australia has such a rich sporting heritage along with an active and major stake in all the national stories, issues and events. To begin with the broadcast of Test cricket through the summer is perfect,” he said.
Kane Cornes will host the station’s local Breakfast show.
“South Australia has such a rich sporting heritage along with an active and major stake in all the national stories, issues and events. To begin with the broadcast of Test cricket through the summer is perfect,” said Cornes.
“South Australia is a parochial state and 1629 SEN SA will deliver thousands of hours of local content each year across all sports,” said PSN CEO Craig Hutchison said.
“That’s content made in Adelaide for South Australians.
“It will also provide national content and leverage our broader business rights and content portfolio. Put simply it provides the best of both worlds.”
“Around 40,000 South Australians are already 1116 SEN listeners remotely, so a 24-7 sports talk station for SA was the natural extension.”
I give it 6 months before it’s done…
At last an alternative to the “B-Graders” we have had to endure all these years.
The big difference this time around is that one of the SEN merger partners, Crocmedia, own the broadcast licence.
The first attempt of this required SEN to lease the 1323 AM frequency from Australian Radio Network (and given the relative success of Cruise 1323 since, there was obviously some faulty strategic thinking going on back then)
A smart move I think. The AFL ensures greater cultural similarity between Adelaide and Melbourne than there is between the three big capitals (which is one of Macquarie Sports Radio’s problems…and I suspect not the only problem).
They’re also committing to hours of exclusive local SA programming which is a similar to a commitment they’ve given to programming SEN+ (1377 AM) in Melbourne. So you therefore have then main offering, then you have SEN SA broadening the markets SEN goes to and SEN+ deepening the program SEN offers.
Succcssful or not, at least there’s an understandable rationale for what they’re attempting. By contrast, I can’t understand what Macquarie Sports Radio is trying to achieve.
How did they get a commercial licence? Will hurt 5AA revenues?
It’s not a commercial licence – it’s off-band, so most normal radios won’t pick it up.
Tuesday, 23rd October 2018… the day SEN officially (if not already) jumped the shark.
This has been tried before on 1323 in Adelaide, and failed big time.
Now the idea is for a more local Adelaide SEN, on a frequency most radios can’t pick up, and the transmission power is limited to just 400 watts!
Plus I read elsewhere that they’ve killed off the Aussie and Kool digital channels in Melbourne and replaced them with SEN2 and SEN3.
There’s a thing called ‘diluting the value of your product’ and Hutchy is doing that right now. The question is, why? (Can the experts in the accounting/tax field see an angle?)
I don’t know if you guys would know but a few days ago Kool Digital and Aussie Digital on DAB+ in Melbourne has now been rebranded to SEN2 and SEN3! Another petition has been started to bring it back!
https://www.change.org/p/craig-hutchinson-bring-back-kool-digital-aussie-digital-on-dab
THE 5MMM SPORTS DRIVE SHIOW WAS DROPPED BY 5MMM HUTCHY WILL SIGN THEM TO JOIN KANE CORNS AS THE NEW ADELAIDE SEN 1629AM BREAKFAST SHOW
Shouldn’t be allowed by ACMA… makes it tough for the other AM channels trying to be profitable in a tough market.
@JASON ANDREW TOPPIN 23 Oct 2018 – 5:21 pm
Jars and Louie boned?
They should be given a decent frequency but in Australia’s restricted radio industry of keeping out new players, this isn’t going to happen. BTW the acronym doing the rounds for DAB …. radio, Dead And Buried. I think it’s true. There is nothing new going on and no extension (as promised) beyond mainland capital cities
This makes sense for SEN… but given 5AA are struggling financially they could move away from sport talk and go to a more cost efficient format as a result?
Interesting times in radelaide!
My am radio in the car only goes to 1621.
The addition of another sports station maybe great BUT! My am dial only goes to 1602am and will it go to DAB which is where most of the AM stations have expanded to these days and it’s better for me.