Probably why SEN is on 1629am in Adelaide, it’s not included in the Adelaide radio ratings, so it avoids scrutiny.
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I think SEN’s relationship with ACE Radio probably made it easier to give oldies listeners a pathway to 2UE, rather than just stranding them.
I guess we also now know the template when 4KQ finally leaves the air at the end of the month - giving folks a gentle nudge up the dial to 1116 and 4BH in the last few days.
I doubt 2UE or 4BH will be a great substitute for either (especially with 4KQ leaving on such a high point) as I still feel the ACE format is a little too sleepy, but I guess it’s still a button in the car. Will certainly be interesting to see how many make the migration to 4BH in future Brisbane surveys, or go elsewhere.
Still the end of an era though - it’s a little sad to see it wind up so quickly - and although it’s possible the 2CH name could be seen again down the track (look what happened to 2UE), it really won’t be the same - and with AM slowly disappearing from relevance, I doubt anyone would want to pay the levels Hutchy paid for it ever again.
Glad to see some airchecks pop up for posterity that I could listen to, good to see that Tim W checked in briefly with Bob Rogers too… I doubt he expected to outlive the station he’d been on for so long.
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also because it hasn’t found a commercial station to pounce on. The second a commercial licence goes on the market, you know they’ll be onto it 
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It’s a wonder SEN hasn’t hoovered up one (or more) of the MF NAS frequencies in Canberra. The X-band (1611-1701 kHz) is virtually empty here. There’s even a 1692 kHz licence in Bungendore which I believe is held by Radio Symban…but of course it’s never got to air.
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I feel 2CH was always a sleepy format even though it was Classic Hits. Except for Tim when he would sneak in some classic rock (or so it seemed). I do agree oldies stations can tend to be too sleepy. Probably an exception disco gets a spin for those stations who play 70s music. WSFM is pretty upbeat , I wish they stuck to a 4KQ format in Sydney.
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As mentioned earlier, the pressure should now be on 2UE to shift to Classic Hits now that 2CH is gone. Leave the easy format to Smooth DAB+.
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I sort-of agree - though I haven’t exactly listened to how Magic 1278 was formatted after it was split apart from 2UE/4BH, to know whether ACE’s rendition of that would actually be any good. I get that the “easy” playlist is a lot different from a 2CH that prided itself on… for instance, still having the Elvis and Beatles specialist shows, almost to the very end.
It’s kinda odd that the best 2UE had sounded - oldies music-wise - was early on in 2021; the callsign was back so there was a little nostalgia, but Nine might’ve expanded its playlist a bit too as 2CH was well off the AM band by then, and 3MP had also been relaunched, so avoiding some of the “easy” music on a networked log would’ve been viable in both Sydney and Melbourne.
And that’s strange because they were running it basically on life-support, with practically no announcers at all. But it seemed very listenable to me. I won’t discount the potential nostalgia aspect though because the brand “Magic” to me still has the connotations of the old 693 days where the music was basically from the “beginning of time” (if you consider the start of rock in the 50s that 
).
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IMO it’s very good. Not into “easy” music so I enjoy Magic. As they promote on the station, “it’s the best of rock and the best of pop from the 60’s 70’s and 80’s”. I’ve just moved house and was busy unpacking for a few days so listened to Magic as I worked. Having it on practically all day for a number of days I did find it becoming a bit repetitive though. All in all, I think ACE are doing a good job. 2UE would do well to use the playlist to get 2CH listeners over.
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I think ACE are doing the job more than adequately - 954 is still a preset on my car as I’m sick of Smooth and it’s better than no alternative at all.
The only question I’d have is whether the current “easy” network or whether a format closer to the current incarnation of Magic would be closer to the formats we’ve lost in Sydney and will soon lose in Brisbane. I haven’t listened to the reformatted Magic at all so I can’t exactly judge that.
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I heard Gareth McRae do a break and for a moment I really thought I was listening to 2CH again. He mentioned, “Continuous easy favourites”, before mentioning “the greatest hits from the……”.
I wonder if this is direction from management to make the station win over ex-2CH listeners and rebuild their 5% ratings that 1170AM had before SEN Sydney launched.
Either way, it’s nice to see they’re “switched on” at 2UE/ACE.
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There is definitely now a gap in the market for a Classic Hits station, now that 2CH has gone and Fun is off air. It would be good if Ace managed to broadcast Magic on DAB in Sydney.
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It’s interesting that despite SEN closing 2CH DAB+ which such speed, their broadcast guide is still outputting a daily schedule for it on their website SEN Broadcast Guide.
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Join the 2UE Music Club then
2UE is easy listening, not classic hits, and it’s doing well under this format. There is a gap in the market for a classic hits station to complement 2UE.
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Actually, lots of Classic Hits stations no Longer Focuses on Music from the 1960’s and Early 1970’s as they’re considered Oldies.
I kind of agree but you can also see the troubles some have in extending the term “Classic Hits” in Australia to the 80s and at a stretch to the early 90s - especially to AM stations of the likes of the 3MP/2UE network.
Leave the inexorable march of streaming and CarPlay and the like aside:
1/ Does an AM station really want to delve into a mainly 80s format when most people would have heard a lot of this on FM first and would have been mastered with FM and compact discs in mind?
2/ Are stations that have two FM networks going to even bother doing that when the (braindead but seemingly profitable) of “one network skewing female, one skewing male (and maybe slightly older/younger but not by much)” and instead put on an early-FM-radio days (80s/90s/maybe a bit of the 00s at best) format?
I know much of that is half covered under the generic AC format, but it’s not quite the “80s to now” type of thing that AC is more known for. But it also doesn’t really feel like “Classic Hits” is the right word either, which still to some evokes the days of vinyl and when the new music leaders were the likes of 2SM/3XY/Radio 10. Maybe if you loaded it with 70s/early 80s music where they were at their peak it may work on AM, but later than that and it becomes a problem.
And even with streaming services the trend has of course been “decades” stations and just calling something like that an “80s” station rather than Classic Hits - which seems lazy but if it’s a streaming (or extra DAB) service it kinda has to be.
So I guess I sorta agree that it’d be a struggle to have the same kind of focus as 2CH had - Beatles and Elvis is practically Silver Memories territory by now… you’re sorta getting to the point where a more modern Classic Hits territory would sound odd on an AM station. Of course this would not be an issue if everyone is on FM or some kind of digital radio but with how the ACMA handles things we are a long way from that.
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Well the actual definition of the “Classic Hits” format is music, (generally top 40 hits) from the 1960’s to early 2000’s, with music from the 80’s as the core of the format.
Classic Hits Format has an overlap with the Oldies format which spans from the mid 1950’s to the 1980’s.
The Oldies format is dying out now with Classic Hits format taking over as it’s replacement.
Music formats right now are quite strange & have never taken on this form before, 1980’s music is still really popular with movies & TV shows using music from that era & the songs are rocketing back up the Top 40 charts, with Kate Bush - Running up that Hill reaching No. 1 again in the last few weeks.
1980’s music is now 40 years old, still well loved & played a lot on radio, in the 1980’s you never heard music from the 1940’s played on radio & it wasn’t that popular.
I’m not sure in 40 - 50 years time, Current Hit Music from today will still be widely popular & played on radio & used in movies & TV shows (or as an entertainment in whatever form that may take in 40+ years time), the way that music from the 70’s 80’s & 90’s does today?
That’s really a Capital City view, but even then it’s not quite correct.
Most of the 80’s music wouldn’t have been heard by people on FM first & mastering for FM radio & CD’s also wouldn’t have happened until the end of the 80’s.
2SM was still the CHR station until the mid-late 80’s on AM, where most people would’ve heard 80’s music first, because 2DAY FM started life as a easy listening format, it didn’t change to a CHR, Top 40, pop format until the late 80’s when it surpassed 2SM. 2SM dropped it’s contemporary music format in 1988 still with it’s last ratings for that format at 6.9%.
CD’s also didn’t start to become widespread with new tracks coming out on CD as well as Vinyl & Cassette until the late 80’s, it was into the 90’s when new music being released on CD passed being released on Vinyl Records & Cassettes.
Radio started using CD’s in the very late 80’s, before then music on radio was played from Vinyl records or carts (tapes, similar to 8 track carts), computer (digital) playout was much later into the 90’s early 2000’s.
Coast Rock FM Gosford was the first station in Australia to play it’s entire music library from CD using a computer system & a CD “Juke Box” player which they could automate for overnights, prior to that any automation overnights’ etc was played from Carts in a “Juke Box” type system no computer control, or music & voice tracks recorded onto a VCR Video tape played at partial/half speed to get the 5, 6, or more hours out of the 4 hour video tape length. Coast Rock FM first went to air in September 1990.
When I started my radio career, learning to panel operate at the end of '94 at NXFM Newcastle as it was then, music was mostly played off CD’s, with some still being played off carts, commercials were still all played off carts then, with some pre recorded programs like Take 40 Australia, being played off reel to reel tape, there were no computers at all in the studios then, in most radio stations, the music library was literally still walls full of carts with songs on them & a few records, the CD’s (in rotation played on air music) was stored in racks on the studio wall which at that time comprised 400 CD’s.
I actually now own the NXFM CD music library, as it was last used, before full computer digital playout took over, which comprises of 1000 CD’s from the 90’s into the early 2000’s.
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Yeah I get the feeling pop/rock music has matured now. I feel the evolution stopped about 2000. Maybe a bit like classical music/jazz. It got to the stage where it was very popular in history to now its more of a niche. Jazz and classical music would of been more mainstream in years gone by. Maybe the big band periods was the “Jazz” era. Still people love it and create new tunes I am sure , but you won’t hear 2Day FM go fully Jazz. People will keep on creating new Pop/Rock tunes but I feel this music genre has reach its peak. Gone of the days where old and young listeners listen to the top 40 tunes. Sure a few tracks might make it, but I don’t think it compares to the 80s and before where the number of tracks are universally appealing to a wider audience was much greater (like half of the top 40 countdown a 50 year old would like all the way down to children).
To me classic hits / Pure gold are just branding, I don’t think it is a complete cut and paste. 2CH was still easy listening and was very different from 4KQ and WS (when then they did classic hits earlier this century) or 2UW in the 80s. There are a lot of oldies 4KQ would play that 2CH would not play in the old days nor they would of today. So perhaps there is a much broader range of “Classic Hits” these days. I don’t recall 2CH playing Midnight Oil.
I think maybe in the 80s it might of been more defined what classic hits was. I think a lot of things these days even in politics if you Liberal or Labor it isn’t that well defined the values or beliefs as it was before or this is how I feel maybe I am getting old. Its a bit like the classic hits , pure gold it sort of similar but at the same time can be very different. Anyway off topic here .
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I agree Classic Hits is a pretty broad genre and can be harder leaning towards rock or a lot softer. My observation would be that in the 80s and 90s the classic hits branding referred to more recent decades than it does now. Classic hits in the 90s meant 60s, 70s and 80s. It’s still much the same now, including 90s. So the definition has “aged”.
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