Sunday 8 May 2011

Merge 104.8 transponder goes active. Hi FM shuffle their schedules.

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and for that, well I have a few nice things lined up for you to read this week and next. Starting with this...

By now you should all have heard about the new English language FM radio station due to open shortly here in the Sultanate. There is still no word on the official start date for this new station, headed up by previously popular on Dubai 92 FM & Coast 103.2 FM Disk Jockey, Chris Fisher.



I quite like the official logo for the new radio station, originally leaked by fellow blogger (and winner of Oman Collective Intelligence's Top 15 Oman Blogs list) (thanks for the #2 spot by the way OCI!) the Undercover Dragon from Muscat Confidential on the 10th of April.What do you guys think about it? It does kind of remind me of MTV Arabia's style though, but I like that so it's fine with me :)

The English language radio market here in Muscat is now about to get a little bit more competitive with the launch of this new station. Marketing budgets in the country are beginning to increase, with a noticeable increase in other than print media advertising from the Financial and Telecommunications sectors in the last 6 months.

The most competitive part of the day for these three English language radio stations here in Oman (Oman FM 90.4, Hi FM 95.9 and Merge 104.8) is naturally going to be the morning show. Which perhaps may be why Erin from Hi FM has switched from the evening show to the morning show (6-9), leaving Darren the 9-1 slot, Kathy in her usual afternoon slot and new Canadian DJ, Marcus is handling the afternoon rush hour show. So it would seem Hi FM is going for a more North American sounding brand of radio, even in a lot of the advertisements now, it features fairly prominently accents from across the Atlantic.

So we have Erin, seasoned from a spell in Egypt on Nile FM (and 17 years in the business), and Chris Fisher, experienced from 2 different radio stations up in the UAE (and has been working in radio since 1993) going up head to head. Radio Sultanate of Oman FM 90.4's morning lynchpin, Faiq Al Mugheiry (known as Faiq on the Mike) probably will not see too much of a change in his audience, as the younger demographic of the audience here in Oman have already switched over to Hi FM. So in my 5 minute analysis of the situation, it looks like Merge FM will either take listeners from Hi FM, switch from an Arabic station, or will have to convince potential listeners to turn on their radios and turn off their iPods on their way to work.

It'll be interesting to see, or rather, hear, what goes on in the next month or two as Merge launches onto the market. I'm guessing that there will be lots of give-aways. I'm also interested in how much it will cost to advertise on air now that there is direct competition.

As soon as I know the launch date for Merge 104.8, I'll let you all know, if you don't know before me!

le fin.

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