It’s the worst-kept secret in Australian radio: Easy 2CH is no more.

From today, the station has adopted the ‘Magic’ moniker – and, in general, the Magic format.

It’s still calling itself Magic 2CH in Breakfast – but certainly by 2pm, it had adopted the Magic 1170 callsign – bringing it into line with the branding at Magic 882 in Brisbane, and Magic 1278 in Melbourne.

What IS interesting is that Breakfast will (apparently) still be local from Sydney – whereas Brisbane lost all its local presenters (apart from Donna Lynch) in the middle of last year.

One of the other interesting developments is that 2CH is now taking ‘networked’ program from Perth in Afternoon/Drive with Johnny Young, from Brisbane with Donna Lynch at night, and then Melbourne overnight until Breakfast.

It will be interesting to see how long before that changes, too, and we see a full networked setup (perhaps Overnight / Breakfast ex Melbourne, Morning ex Sydney, Afternoon/Drive ex Perth, and Evenings ex Brisbane?)

There are serious economies to be made doing that – and given the ratings of all the Magic stations, it would make sense, I suppose.

But it is sad to see yet another nail in the coffin of locally produced radio 😦

As an aside, eventually, of course, Macquarie will have to sell one of its three stations in Sydney – and it’s unlikely to be 2GB or 2UE 🙂

So I suspect they’ll sell Magic 1170 back to the Council of Churches for a dollar, and then take over management duties on a fee-for-service basis.