Radio wars: The Clone Wars

Well the results of my most recent radio poll are in, and we did something new this time around: we used Facebook Questions to conduct the poll. This meant that I could control the voting by ensuring people were not voting more than once, but it has the drawback that only Facebook users voted, and those that voted could be seen by everyone - a bit of a privacy issue that I'm not really very comfortable with. So the search continues for me on how best to collect your votes.

On with the results:

Radio Sultanate of Oman took 6.03% of the vote (12 votes)
Merge  took 39.20% of the vote (78 votes)
Hi FM took 47.74% of the vote (95 votes)
Arabic took 1.01% of the vote (2 votes)
CD/MP3 took 6.03% of the vote (12 votes)

A total of 199 votes - down from the last radio poll where we had 266 votes, but at least I know there were no double-votes this time :)

Being the third time we've voted on our preferred radio station, I thought it's enough data for me to plot a graph... and here it is:

Click to make this bigger!

Straight away you can see 2 things: Hi FM lost a lot of votes, and Merge gained more votes in the same period. Hi have suffered from the reduced number of votes more than Merge has. The overall number of people still listening to MP3's is less as well. The Ewoks over at Sultanate of Oman 90.4 have made a small increase in listeners - indicative of at least a steady audience. And that is really the crux of my choice of blog title: The Clone Wars.

I remember when Merge launched, there was a lot of talk about targeting a different audience than Hi FM, along with merging different cultures into the big Sabco melting pot that was Merge FM. And I guess to a point, they have done this: every hour or so there is the odd Arab-themed track and the way-back playback of the 80's (lately I've heard U2 with or without you a few times!). However, the over-whelming majority of the music is pretty much exactly the same as Hi Fm. Hence: The Clone Wars.

Darren & Chris found their outfits slimming

It certainly seems that by mixing in the odd Hindi or Arabic track, along with the odd 80's retro track, people seem to enjoy the blend, and more of you are switching on to Merge. I contacted some of you who voted on Facebook and asked you what it was you liked about Merge, and Hi FM for that matter. Interestingly, it seems the general reason for people liking Merge or Hi is the music - of course there are fans of the radio presenters, but the overwhelming majority of you don't really care about the radio presenters, unless they are annoying you.

Personally, I've found myself switching stations a lot more frequently recently - if Hi are playing a track I don't like, I'll switch to Merge or 90.4 Oman FM. I've noticed Hi FM have commercialized their output heavily. One might say too heavily, I don't know - but people seem to be switching over to Merge in greater numbers, and this could be a key driver for the switchover.

It's not all a one way street though, Hi have copied Merge in some things to, most notably the 10am-noon segment (Merge's At work network) is now the same as Merge - pre-recorded and not "live" (Darren seems to be providing the voice links between songs, which can be done easily). In a change to Merge though, Hi have now got live DJ coverage up to midnight, with Marcus Monopoli driving the show from 8pm to midnight - Merge just has pre-recorded shows in the same time slot, with the Muscat drive ending at 8pm.

Interestingly, on 90.4 there are also live shows up until midnight (or possibly after). I had a good giggle listening to the 90.4 presenter the other night with his American-British accent; he was trying to give away a prize and wanted someone to call in with the name of the CEO of the Oman Football Association - the first guy who called didn't know and just wouldn't hang up, then a girl rang in and announced that she didn't know the answer but she had just baked some cookies and would he like some? Classic, I can honestly say I was very entertained by it all. I've no idea if the presenter (their website - yes I finally found it - looks like it's not been updated since 2002 and so I've no idea of the guys name) ever did manage to give away his prize, but perhaps he got some tasty cookies!

Hi FM continue to dominate the market and still have the largest audience. Their branding is also more readily recognized and present in our lives around the Capital (sorry those of you from outside Muscat!). This last winter, Hi have been involved in a number of large concerts with world-class acts and have diversified their brand as a result. Hi FM are obviously a radio station, who also dabble in live concerts and comedy events. Merge on the other hand, have not really competed on this front, with a few exceptions: Hed Kandi & Yanni.

Hi FM are technologically more advanced than any of the competition: There's an iPhone and Android app for listening to their radio stream which have a handy track log of songs played. In addition to this, Hi FM employ true RDS (Radio Data System) which allows them to scroll small text messages on radio receivers capable showing the name of the track being played, or the Radio Presenter currently on air. Neat. The people at Merge tell me they have the same technology but have chosen not to use it at this time.

Hi FM also continue to have regular news broadcasts whereas Merge doesn't, however, it is apparent that the current news broadcasts provided by Hi (from Feature Story News) are "yesterdays" news in many cases. Quite frequently I hear the exact same news broadcast driving home at the end of the day as I do when I'm driving to work that morning, so the news, in my opinion could be improved upon. Some of the people I contacted after their votes in the poll also said the same thing: The news is nice, but out of date. The only other broadcaster in this race who give the news is of course the loveable Ewoks at 90.4 Radio Sultanate of Oman, except 90% of their news consists of who His Majesty sent cables of greetings to that particular day.

Faiq over on 90.4 has focused even more on playing music from the 60s/70s and 80s and is still steadfastly dishing out free dinners at the Radisson and other hotels on his breakfast show - and I have to admit I sometimes switch him on in the mornings on my way to work if I'm not in the mood for pop music.

So will Hi FM alter their music line up as a result, or will they stay on their current format? Personally I don't see anything wrong with slipping in an occasional retro track - it seems to work with the diverse audience here. Will Merge start broadcasting news (I asked this question at their launch and they confirmed they had planned to) and will 90.4 invest in a new website?

Hi FM has a website and a facebook group
Merge has a website and a facebook group
Sultanate of Oman Radio 90.4 has a website

More soon - and for those interested, Oman lost to Senegal last night, 2-0. Shame.

le fin.

Radio Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In local business magazine, Business Today, the Best Brands survey results for 2011 were published recently, you can buy it for RO 1.500 from most shops that sell magazines. In it, it reported that Hi FM had 39% of all expatriates polled for which radio station they listened to, whereas Merge had 5%. Quite the difference indeed, and amongst the Omani people polled, Hi FM had 13% of the vote versus Merge's 3%.

A rare snap of Darren attempting to fit the mic in his mouth

Now, here on Ze Blog I have run 2 polls asking you what you listened too, and both times (once when Merge launched, and again 2 months in) Hi FM were still the clear winner. Another way to look at things is that Merge have captured 5% of the expatriate market when they had 0% previously. But still, I'd imagine there are some uncomfortable people at Sabco at the moment, it's a fairly poor performance, especially after all the hype last year. Its a shame the data doesnt have some time relativity with it, but thankfully, you readers helped out and we have our own set of data - it seems people tuned in when Merge launched, but then went back to other stations or MP3's or whatever after some time. The real stinger for Merge is that this a publicly published poll and you have to assume advertising clients will consider this when making the decision to advertise with Merge or Hi FM.

Hi FM had probably their strongest year last year, closing some major advertising deals, the arrival of Marcus and a string of successful music concerts held in conjunction with Alive Events. It seems that Darren, Erin, Kathy & Marcus are dominating Chris, Rummy, Sayeh and Sami at the moment, lets see what Chris and his rebel alliance pull out of the hat this year.

Even the Ewoks over on Oman FM 90.4 (can you believe they still dont have a website?!) have got 17% of the expat audience and 27% of the Omani audience - destroying even Hi FM's audience base amongst Omanis. And rumours are circulating that Oman FM is about to get a total overhaul and new management (some sort of split, or re-positioning) from it's parent Ministry.

Oman FM's boom mike left a lot to be desired

So the big question for Radio in the Sultanate for 2012 is, will the Ewoks wake up and recognize their share of the audience and modernize their radio station? I wonder if they will hire in a Chewbacca to give them some new blood or carry on as they are? One could argue that they don't care and will just rumble on, I'd like to see them leverage their position and present a better polished range of shows. Perhaps better production of their shows, and perhaps they could try transmitting in true Stereo instead of the maxed out - defaulted to Mono - nonsense that they currently broadcast in. Perhaps they will even get a website!

Hi FM have continued to innovate, and have now rolled out Radio Text for those of you with fancy enough radio's in your cars. The title of the track being played pops up on the radio, and cycles with the name of the radio show being broadcast at the time - a nice touch and sets them technically above the rest.

Dont forget, I'm currently giving away 2 VIP tickets worth RO 100 to see James Blunt live in concert on February 15th - you gotta be in it to win it, so enter now!

More tomorrow.

le fin.

Radio Wars: The results are in.

Well, firstly, thank you to all of you who voted in my most recent poll. It was quite the turn out. As originally promised, I have re-run the poll 2 months in from the launch of Merge 104.8 FM and the results are in.

Last time around, these were the results:

Hi FM took 48% of the vote (95 votes)
Merge 104.8 took 26% of the vote (53 votes)
Oman 90.4 took 9% of the vote (19 votes)
Ipods/Cd players too 15% of the vote (30 votes)

A total of 197 votes.

This time round, we have had a total of 266 votes, and I added a new option to the poll: Arabic stations, to gauge a bit more feedback from those of you kind, kind people who clicked for me :)

Radio Sultanate of Oman took 3.76% of the vote (10 votes)
Hi FM took 65.41% of the vote (174 votes)
Merge  took 16.54% of the vote (44 votes)
Arabic took 1.13% of the vote (3 votes)
CD/MP3 took 13.16% of the vote (35 votes)

It's not looking too good for Merge, at least as a reflection of what you all, readers of  ze blog, think. Merge have lost 10% of the vote, and even their volumes are down on increased voting numbers, while Hi FM have stormed off with 65% of the vote, an increase of 17% over last time. Also, less of you are listening to Radio Sultanate of Oman, and I note that Merge's Facebook "like" campaign has netted them 2,028 people, and Hi have 3,847 likers at the time of writing on their Facebook page.

 @o3mer's picture seems to sum things up nicely

So I wonder why people are not, well, those of you that voted, are choosing not to listen to Merge, and more people are listening to Hi FM. Care to share?

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Merge FM, 2 months on.

Well Merge have been transmitting live for just over 2 months now, and so I'm re-running the poll I ran before - what radio station are you listening to?

I'll run the poll for a week, just like last time :)

More tomorrow.

le fin.

Radio Wars: Attack of the Clones

Nearly a month has passed since the invasion of Oman's airwaves, and the Galactic Republic of Hi FM is in turmoil. Former Jedi Master Chris Fisher has organized a separatist movement against the Republic, known as the rebel alliance, Merge. The Republic contemplated creating an army to assist the crushing of the rebel alliance, prompting Senator Darren Shortt, to return to Planet Nawras to court them for free tickets to stuff, again.

The Storm Troopers from Nawras were only too happy to assist the Republic's battle against the Merge rebels, and rolled out an extremely successful campaign that kept the citizens (listeners!) tuned to Hi FM.

The Merge rebels were left as a minority, but had been secretly preparing an army of droids to assist them in their battle with Hi FM. The music being played by both stations is very similar, albeit a fairly high occurrence of tracks from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.

Meanwhile, the Ewoks were making technological advancements, but being teddy bears, seem to be loved by many hotels across the galaxy of Oman. The Ewoks have launched a campaign of giving away free meals to any hotel that will give them vouchers, and seem to have even started advertising for some companies.

It seems that the more competition, the better things are for us citizens, the listeners. The Hi FM Republic forces have now recruited the services of a bounty hunter, called Bobba Fett, who likes to read the news a few times a day. Finally, a decent news service broadcast regularly giving world news - great!

I wonder what the Merge rebels are going to do to respond to this? It seems that their RO 104.800 daily give away is not cutting it. The rebels have, however, managed to tempt lots of advertisers to do business with them. One wonders what their listener base is like though, it's really just Hi FM with some fancy branding as far as I can see so far when it comes to music being played.




What can the Merge rebels bring to the table to fight the Hi FM Republic? Time will tell.

More soon.

le fin.

Radio Wars: The empire strikes back

This is part 3, Click here to read parts 1 and 2.

Ok, so we last left off with A new hope in local radio with the rebel alliance now known as Merge 104.8 launching it's attack on the Galactic Empire known as Hi FM. Interestingly, in the background, the Ewoks (90.4 Oman FM) have discovered vocal branding and now have jingles. Still no logo that I've come across yet, but a jingle is ground breaking for the forest people, good stuff, I wonder if we'll ever see a website from them?

Last Tuesday 7th June at 7:00 AM, the Rebel commander, Chris Fisher came on air. My first impression was that he actually came on air at 7:02, and his clock was 2 minutes slow, and apparently continues to be. Perhaps they have a different time zone in Rebel HQ up in Seeb. Chris was, at least to my mind, a little slow starting but seems to have settled into things now. I also find that the DJ's Radio Presenters at Merge seem to be muffled - turn up the gain on the mic guys, or speak louder or something.

To combat the hype of Merges.... emergence (heh) the people at Hi FM have rolled out the very popular Black Eyed Peas competition, and appears to have retained a good many of their listeners in this first week of competition. I note the girls in Darcy's Kitchen the other day were still listening to Hi, as were Glacier Cafe.

And lets now have a real good look at Merge. Their branding is excellent, and their social media campaign seems to be doing well - local blogger Andy in Oman appears to be extremely excited by anything Merge and has blogged a couple of fluff pieces about the new radio station, and, like me and a few other bloggers, has opted to place a Merge banner on his blog. I do also recommend (totally unrelated) his blog on bitching and moaning. Excellent stuff. Merge are even offering people a chance to win RO 104.8 every day - and all you have to do is "like" their facebook fan page. At the time of writing their total "likes" were at 479, I suspect they shall blow past my 820 likers in no time at all. If you happen to be reading this and have "liked" me on the 'book - many thanks :) And if you have not "liked" me yet.... it'd be lovely if you did.... :)

Back to the Rebel alliance. In a rather amusing coup, Merge 104.8 have placed a billboard on the roof of a building close to Hi FM's HQ. When travelling on the Muscat Expressway from Qurum to Khuwair, it looks as if there is a Merge billboard on top of the Hi FM building :)

The music that Merge is playing is pretty much the same as Hi FM in my opinion. OK so I have heard tracks from the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire a few times and the odd Hindi track here and there, but essentially it's the same music that Hi FM is playing out. The evenings and weekends are good - I especially enjoyed the 80's stuff on Thursday afternoon and the Friday afternoon chill out too.

I am wondering how on earth Merge are getting away with playing uncut versions of songs on air though. I have heard a fair few swear words while listening in, and in the Hed Kandi show there were a lot of references to drugs that I would have thought should have been edited out. Does Merge have some sort of deal with the Ministry of Information, or have the Ministry just not started listening to them yet? I'd imagine some fines will be levied if Merge carry on... or maybe not? At least boundaries are being tested!

Rummy during the lunch break continues to impress me, it's good to see local talent being given a chance. I wonder if her success will pave the way for other local radio presenters? There has been a lot of hype about Merge's launch, and just like when they finally released Duke Nukem Forever the other day, its been a little disappointing. Just a side note for those who don't know their video games, Duke Nukem Forever has been in production for 14 years, and has been hyped a lot, which makes it hard to live up to.

Now I'm not saying Merge is bad, I'm just remarking that because there was just so much hype over the station, I kind of expected something unobtainable - perfection. I do feel that Sayeh needs to sit closer to the mic than Chris, and that they both have this terrible habit of totally ruining songs by talking all over them. But I acknowledge that this is a style of radio presenting and to be honest they're the professionals, not me.

I could go on and start a critical review of the new radio presenters, Chris, Rummy, Sayeh, Sami and Marcus (from Hi)... but I think it's too early to do that just yet. I do have to say that I think Sami has taken to radio presenting like a duck to water, from the part of his show I did hear last weekend, I was impressed, but was driving to a friends house and so didn't carry on listening. I will also say that I don't mind coming out and saying it: I don't like Sayeh on the radio, it has nothing to do with the music she plays (or the computer plays when she's on) and I find her a nice person to talk to face to face.... I just don't like her style - nothing more or nothing less. Personally I prefer Erins show.

The radio poll we have done here on the blog has now come to a close. I intentionally launched this poll before Merge's launch. My reasoning? There was a lot of marketing and buzz around the new station and regular readers of MM will have known about the station before I posted the poll, I also wanted to establish a benchmark to compare to later on. The results are as follows:

Hi FM took 48% of the vote (95 votes)
Merge 104.8 took 26% of the vote (53 votes)
Oman 90.4 took 9% of the vote (19 votes)
Ipods/Cd players too 15% of the vote (30 votes)

In my crude analysis, this tells me:

1. Hi FM are still dominating amongst you, the readers.
2. Merge have quickly established themselves as a strong alternative
3. More people listen to their ipods than listen to Oman FM

I'll re-run this poll again in a few weeks/month or so and see how the results compare.

Back to you lovely readers: So now we've been merging for just under a week now - what are your opinions on Merge?

le fin.

Merge 104.8 Now on air, website now online

Just a little blog to mark the occasion that Merge 104.8 and Chris, Rumaitha and Sayeh will be presenting daily. And Sami will be showcasing Omani talents every Friday evening.

They have a website here (be sure to check out the poll).

They have a Facebook page here.

They have a Twitter identity here.

Good luck!

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Radio Wars: A New Hope

This is a continuation from my previous post, The Phantom DJ (which you can read by clicking here)

We left off with the Galactic Empire (Hi FM) having banished the Ewoks (Sultanate of Oman Radio) to their tree village, and busily setting about running their empire (radio station) in the galaxy (Oman). This might make more sense to you if you watch the Star Wars films. Or not. Is there really anyone out there that has not seen a Star Wars film?

And so, as it seems impossible to satisfy everyone with one single radio station, a new rebel alliance was formed to take on the dominating Hi FM. And so the rumours began at the end of 2010 that there was going to be a new English language radio station coming to Oman. The rebel alliance was growing, and eventually their name and branding was leaked online by the Undercover Dragon in April this year. Previously people were referring to it as "Sabco Radio".

Merge 104.8 now had a name, and shortly after the leak announced that they plan to launch at 7am on Tuesday the 7th of June. Just like HiFM, Merge have begun their test transmissions around the city (and country?) and you can listen in on 104.8 on your radio dial right now. I understand they are only broadcasting during some hours of the day, but the music sounds pretty fresh, but at least to my ears, from the same playlist that Hi FM is playing from.

The lines are now drawn: 7am on Tuesday the 7th June (thats next week) Merge will launch their assault upon the Galactic Empire that is Hi FM. I wonder if the Ewoks Sultanate of Oman Radio 90.4 guys and girls will roll out anything new as well at this time?

Hi FM have already changed their presenters (Erin last year, Rachey Roo (Now on Dubai 92.5) & Chris Marsden removed, and Marcus added recently this year, along with syndicated shows from Roger Sanchez and Ryan Seacrest) and have notably changed their sound and are playing more US Billboard top 100 music in the day and more dance music in the evening. Darren and Kathy are still going strong too. I wonder if they will finally start reading the news?

In contrast, Merge have the talented (and regionally experienced - in Dubai) presenter Chris Fisher for the morning show (so going head to head against Darren) and British lass, Sayeh Stone pulling the evening drive-time show and will be facing up to seasoned HiFM presenter, Erin Fleming.

Merges secret weapon appears to be dance music, with radio shows from the following acts lined up for each night (which to be honest looks awesome): Hed Kandi, Paul Oakenfold, John Digweed, Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren, Adam Beyer and even Eddie Halliwell. It'll be interesting to see how Hi react to this, as they currently have Roger Sanchez, Global Dance Sessions and Aly & Fila Future Trance in their dance line up. Being a fan of dance music I'm pretty pleased about this development!

A special thanks to @O3mer for the image

HiFM have already made a pre-emptive strike against Merge by rolling out a forced listening campaign (as it's known in the biz, I'm told). Hi FM are giving away business class tickets to Paris to see the Black Eyed Peas in concert, VIP backstage passes, and also the hotel - all you have to do is wait until the alarm is sounded in the morning or afternoon drive time shows and then text in - it's a clever campaign because it'll surely keep people listening to them for a chance to get the tickets.

And to us, the listeners, go the spoils of war... more music, more choice, more prizes. As Mr Burns likes to say - Exxxxxxxxcellent.

Lets see what Merge have up their sleeves next week then!

More tomorrow.

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Radio Wars: The Phantom DJ

In the beginning, there was 90.4 Oman FM. I remember driving around in my rented Mitsubishi Lancer and invariably getting completely lost every time I tried to find something and had the lovely people on Oman FM to help me through my latest quest to find.... Lulu's.

It was nearly Ramadhan, and the radio presenter, some Australian/Indian sounding lady was running a quiz of nursery rhymes on air. I seem to recall she was in Salalah for the Khareef. People were calling in to try and finish the nursery rhyme to win a prize. And rather amusingly, if they didn't complete it properly, this woman would berate them, sometimes even calling these people stupid, and then never actually tell us the answer! I thought it was hilarious, in a cruel twisted way, but honestly, I would just be driving around, totally lost with absolutely no idea where I was, but would be laughing at the absolute ruthlessness of this radio lady. My most favourite moments would be when she cut people off that were chirping because she said something like, "no, you got it wrong stupid!" and half way through their defence they get cut off. hahahahaha. Evil lady, I loved it!

Faiq in the morning was amusing too, you could hear him turning the newspaper as he read it out on air, along with the nearly daily playback of Puff the Magic Dragon each morning. One of his regular listeners, Mr Angry, must have had a free meal at the Radisson every week as well :P

Along with the fascinating news jingle (still in use today I think) and the amusing 30 seconds to 5 minutes of random dead-air, I felt thoroughly like I was destined to finally give in and buy an ipod. Now I should mention here that I'm totally anti-apple. Why? I'm not really sure, I just don't like them. And that's really all the excuse I need not to like a product really.

And then one day I heard that there was a new radio station coming to Muscat. I hit auto-search and it landed on 95.9, and, in full stereo was Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend. It was October 2007, and there was a new Phantom DJ on the radio waves. They played modern music, it sounded clear and in stereo, and there was no classical music on it! Score!

Enter Hi FM. It was the end of January, 2008 when they finally launched, under much fanfare here in Muscat. I think purely because they broadcasted their signal properly (and thus in stereo as opposed to mono) and they had real native English speaking DJ's and played a style of music that was not trying to satisfy everyone in the country, it very quickly built a large audience, leaving poor old Sultanate of Oman radio in their wake. It wasn't all rosy though, Hi FM made mistakes (Rachey Roo) and I certainly had my fun poking Darren Shortt on this very blog at the time. To their credit, Oman FM 90.4 has gotten better - they don't have any dead-air these days, and they even play dance music in the evenings sometimes.

And everyone in the city now had a new, comparably decent, radio station to listen to that played modern music, and lots of it. Quite why Darren insisted on playing Scooter so much I've never really understood. I like to think that someone deleted all of the Scooter tracks from the Hi FM music computer one night, and I'm glad we don't have to hear Scooter any more!

In terms of Star Wars (my theme here...) Hi FM became the Galactic Empire, Sultanate of Oman Radio 90.4 became the Ewoks and were left to play in their tree village with their friends. The Galactic Empire were dominating the radio waves, playing whatever they wanted and living happy in the knowledge that they were on top.

But, the winds of change started to blow once more.

Next up in Radio Wars: A New Hope

More tomorrow!

le fin.