Foxtel’s Shaun James and dmg’s Paul Jackson talk smoothfm’s new music channel

Popular easy-listening radio station smoothfm is expanding to television, with the announcement they are launching SMOOTH, a new music channel on Foxtel.

The channel will launch on December 3, and will feature similar programming to the smoothfm radio stations, which launched last year.

Paul Jackson, DMG Radio’s Group Program Director, spoke to TMN this morning about the slide into television, stating: “This is the first time in Australia that a radio station has launched on TV. The female audience across both TV and radio provides a strong opportunity to leverage a brand like smoothfm that has become hugely popular in Australia.”

The station’s genesis comes from an analysis of Foxtel’s overall portfolio – factoring in both non-music and music channels.

“We identified a gap in our offering in regards to the market this channel will target,” General Manager of Foxtel’s Music Channels, Shaun James told TMN. “You’re talking 35-54-year-olds.

“It was a style of music we really hadn’t serviced, and then as we made that decision, it became very apparent in conversations with dmg that it could become a really good partnership with smoothfm, given they had established a brand and really seen the audience grow, and the ratings grow.”

As far as day-to-day operations are concerned, James tells us he is working very closely with Paul Jackson and his team.

“The station’s not a simulcast, it actually can’t be in terms of the way we’re both restrictively set up, with smooth being in Melbourne and Sydney, and Foxtel having a national footprint,” he explains, “but we will work very closely with the programming teams, so it’s actually a very accurate reflection of what you’re already hearing on the radio.”

“SMOOTH will be an extension of the smoothfm radio station’s format,” Jackson adds. “The station will include a range of programming features from the artists that are played on smoothfm such as music videos, artist specials and countdowns. Programming will be an extension of smoothfm, with the same vision to create an easy place for viewers to relax.”

An area in which they won’t be working too closely together is sales, with this remaining separate between the two organisations – however even this area offers room to move in the future.

“Within the deal that was signed with dmg, we’re going to look for opportunities, moving forward,” James states, “but it’s very hard to legislate those week one, day one. That’s something we’ll work towards, and on occasion I think there’ll be opportunities for us both to work together from a sales capacity.”

While Jackson wouldn’t comment on any similarities between SMOOTH and MAX, Shaun James assured TMN that all its music offerings will be working in tandem, and, with the new MTV offerings, the music stations compete for the same marketplace much less than in the past.

“What you [now] see across the seven channels, I think it’s a diverse portfolio. That’s something that was deliberate from our end,” James admits. “We wanted to diversify, because we felt in some areas, historically, there may have been some overlap.”