102.5’s coverage seems okay to the south and east… I have received it at fair levels in Shepparton and even Albury in the past. Not sure about other directions though.
One thing I don’t understand with ACE is why they use different FM branding in Warrnambool and Traralgon in COAST FM and 3TR FM. Why they’re not also known as MIXX seems odd to me.
Can’t answer for Warrnambool, but in the Latrobe Valley, 3TR and 3GG were pretty much head to head competitors (and at one point, 3GG had studios in the Valley). So unlike say, Horsham where ACE competed with ACE from surrounding areas and the heritage brand was left on AM, in the Latrobe Valley the heritage brand was taken to FM as 3TRFM with the hope of holding the audience and the advertisers, whilst 3GG launched SEAfm (later STAR, now HIT). From an advertising income viewpoint, a significant portion of ads on both 3GG/SEA and 3GV/TRFM are from the Latrobe Valley, so protecting the advertiser base was presumably part of the rationale. If the listeners stay, the advertisers will… given 3YB was surrounded by 3HA, 3CS and 3WM - can’t explain Warrnambool.
BTW IIRC, 3TR actually reduced its licence area to exclude the western portion of the Latrobe Valley so that it would be able to apply for a s39 licence rather than face the competitive tender with a new player. The fear of competition runs high…
True mate, south and east are good, but when you are traveling 30 Km to 50 Km north towards Hay it start to fade out. I can pick up 102.5 in some parts of Shepparton.
It would make sense for advertising reasons to rename them to one name, either The Edge or Mixx. I think Edge would be the more suited.
Because Warrnambool is on the coast?
That’s so true. How come Commercial Radio Australia and ACMA can’t join the dots on this and recognize that many regional areas are a complete wasteland for over 30 listeners who prefer music. They’re presiding over an industry that’s killing itself. More stations are required.
What about a radio version of aggregation in regional areas. Sole operators like Ace should then be forced by ACMA to affiliate with multiple metro networks to provide 3-4 different formats. Regional roll out of digital radio would facilitate this.
For example Ace could provide.
Ace Talk (3AW, AFL Nation and the odd local programming. Pretty much their current AM network)
Ace Mixx (Nova/Hit/KIIS style station with mix of programs from both, Pretty much their current FM network)
Ace Gold (Smooth/Gold FM style station with mix of programs from both)
Ace Rock (Triple M style station with the odd Triple M program like Homegrown, My Generation, Rush hour)
Obviously they would be unable to take some SCA programs from Triple M and Hit networks in areas where there is overlap with SCA regional stations but could work in more remote markets or they could just take more ARN/Nova formats and programs.
I think it’s an excellent idea.
But unfortunately both the Minister and ACMA seem to care very little about what is best for the listener. They seem entirely focused on protecting incumbents at the expense of everything - even the long term viability of the radio industry itself.
People are switching off because of the lack of format variety, even in some metro areas. People are streaming overseas stations out of necessity and that’s just absurd.
It really sad how the Minister and the ACMA treat the people of Australia. You go over to NZ and they have just about every format covered in most places.
They really need to relax that 2 stations by one owner rule and allow a third commercial radio station to start up in regional areas where they only have two commercial radio stations.
Their use to be a streaming 2AY2 which was pure music, it had Don Plenty doing their breakfast program and automated music throughout the day, from what I recall they took 2UE news instead of 3AW and also took local news and weather from the main channel. This online station died with the fight that restricted radio stations from streaming online. It was later relaunched as NTS
A post worth replying to in a more relevant topic.
It’s a month old, but this report from RadioInfo mentions a number of staffing changes to take place from November 1.
*Dave Robertson will be the General Manager of 2QN/Edge FM in Deniliquin.
*Qwen Godenzi will be the General Manager of 3NE/Edge FM in Wangaratta.
*Lui Zacher will be the Content Director for both the Deniliquin and Wangaratta stations.
*Angela Frino will be the Assistant General Manager of 2QN/Edge FM and the Assistant Content Director for both the Deniliquin and Wangaratta stations.
Lui Zacher will do well. He was the only good thing propping up Max FM Taree with Craig ‘The Diceman’ Huth sadly dead prematurely.
Would like to see major engineering improvements to the s.39 for 2QN. The FM signal doesn’t get out far to the north (towards HAY). If you have OD specs, you might as well broadcast as such.
From my interactions with him elsewhere online, Lui Zacher’s a good bloke.
I don’t know if Lui will continue to have an on-air role with ACE Radio (he’s about to finish up as a co-host of “The Daily Grind” breakfast program on Mixx FM in Horsham) but in any case, I’m sure he’ll continue to do well in the industry! 
I suspect 102.5 doesn’t have great coverage to the east either?
As I can remember doing a bit of DXing atop Mt Parnassus Lookout in Gundagai once, and getting 3SR FM and Star FM Shepparton but I’m pretty sure there was nothing on 102.5. This was probably 10 years ago now though.
New logos for the Wangaratta & Deniliquin stations, which ACE assumes control of from Wednesday.
Of note: the ACE website now lists the format of the two FM stations as “Hit music, local and national news”: lazy copy + paste, or a change of format on the way? Plus this from the company profile.
I suspect a rebrand from EDGE to MIXX will occur at some point.
This is probably a step in that direction given the logo takes the same form as the MIXX one.
For comparison purposes, the (soon to be) old station logos:
As generic looking as the standard ACE Radio logo design is, it’s a considerable upgrade on the outgoing logo design for the Deniliquin & Wangaratta stations IMO.
At this stage, it’s a case of wait and see. But with a new content director (who’s no stranger to regional radio stations with formats that could be best described as “Hit music, local and national news”) I wouldn’t be overly surprised if there are format changes expected.
I don’t think that the logo can indicate that - it’s the same logo that ACE use for all their stations, including Coast FM and TR FM which are aligned to the Mixx stations. If a name change was going to happen now would be the best time with new logos and formats rolling out. Re-brands are expensive, particularly for smaller stations, so it would be wasteful to do it twice.
There also appears some brand differentiation, with the Mixx stations profiles saying they target 18-35, but Edge saying they target under 45. I expect there will be a shift towards a CHR format to compete against the hit stations which have fortutious coverage over almost all of the Wangaratta and Deniliquin markets, but maybe with a slightly older skew to keep that older market happy aswell.
Ive been told that the stations names will stay as Edge Fm. There will be a format change in the near future. I still think the best format would be like a Hot Contemporary format playing a wide variety of music from the 80’s to Now. (Rock and Pop)Similar to some of the BOG Fm stations or even Hot Tomato. I think this would have a good point of difference to the SCA station.
I reckon the 90s version for 3NE not only looked better, but quite usefully identified their FM frequencies…
![3NE_1994[4]](http://mediaspy-org-s3.s3.dualstack.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/original/3X/d/d/dd88e01108a06fb26b3c0db14501eed3aedd2ab2.jpg)
Mind you, they have had a lot lot worse…
I note Mt Buffalo is now 99.1… not sure when & why they moved from 105.3?