I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s sourced from either Hot 91 on the Sunshine Coast (where the Random 20 Countdown is produced) or Hot Tomato on the Gold Coast.
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just comparing I think its hot 91 on the sunshine coast
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I stand corrected 
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The Geelong stations are paying ARN to provide some of the behind the scenes operations such as logs, network shows, national sales along with some other back of house functions.
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Would be great to see Geelong stand alone and be something different
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It used to be, prior to around 2008
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Hope so - or better still copy Breeze. River used to be a great alternative but it’s really gone downhill in recent years. It actually grates on me these days.
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Tries to be all things to everyone much like Hot Tomato on the Coast does, which makes it hard to listen to for very long.
River has to play like a metro station, given it competes directly with the Brisbane stations on its own turf. They do the localism part fairly well (for 2022 at least) but need to be different to Triple M and 97.3, not just another version.
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Nailed it with those points.
I recall when QFM first launched they had a metro FM sound which has been totally lost over the years. River now sounds regional and as you say “trying to be all things” instead of the targeted and polished format that QFM and Star 106.9 had. Even the very early years of River 94.9 (when 97.3 launched) they sounded metro with the Adult CHR format. But they’ve really gone downhill.
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Now with 4KQ gone, would ARN re-position River 94.9 as Brisbane’s “Pure Gold” station complete with guitar pick shaped logo, but only playing 80s, 90s, 00s (and some 70s such as ABBA, Boston, Queen, Billy Joel, Elton John’s Rocketman) similar to WSFM and Gold 104.3?
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I think they should.
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I’m surprised they haven’t rolled out a rebrand of their regionals yet.
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I don’t think there is any plan to - not just yet anyway…. But I’ll be surprised if they don’t do something like that within the next couple of years.
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They definitely SHOULD, but I’m not sure they have any vision at all.
There’s no reason it shouldn’t have flipped to that format the very day 4KQ was killed off. It should have happened instantly. I guess the fools at ARN thought 4KQ listeners would go to KIIS… as if.
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One thing they will have vision on, River949 moved to the old 4KQ studio on Coronation Drive.
Once the trigger event period has expired that is.
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www.hot91.com.au and www.zinc96.com.au have also been given facelifts similar to PowerFM & 2EC Bega.
I’d say this is going to gradually be network-wide.
Interesting that the ARN Regional websites aren’t getting websites similar to their metro sister stations.
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It looks pretty awful to be honest. Possibly a downgrade from the current websites.
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They are all running Wordpress now though the same as the metro sites, so it would be comparatively easier to standardise from that base than the Joomla that their old sites seem to run on.
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ARN seemed to want to have a bet each way with the Pure Gold networked content, even - JAM Nation went to 4BH but Christian O’Connell’s still on 97.3.
I guess that is one issue with how 4KQ was, skewing a lot older than WSFM and Gold 104… if they were to start up a new Pure Gold station/network on the fringes - be it using River, Zinc 96, Hot Tomato Gold or a combination of all three - they’d want an entirely new audience, one closer to the Gen X they target on WSFM or Gold 104 than what they were targeting on 4KQ (who are probably rightly on 4BH or even 4BC now), without cannibalising what they have on 97.3…
…and also not bothering the Nova side of the joint venture who would be quite happy leaving 97.3 as this sort of weird half-Kiis limbo lest it become a direct competitor to 106.9.
I also can’t imagine Nova letting go of their half of 97.3 unless there was a way to get Smooth on FM too (unless ARN/HT&E threw them a huge pot of money), which in a hopelessly overcrowded Brisbane/SEQ market may not be possible without a huge re-think; and we’ve all seen from the Perth re-plan thread how much of a cluster-something-or-other that could be. 
Alas, it’s not a perfect world - it’s Australian commercial radio. 
There’s also some argument that refocusing River further on Brisbane rather than on its licence area (including the Lockyer Valley region which makes up a fair bit of land area) is abandoning it, but that may not matter in the medium to long term, especially if governments keep developing the corridor beyond Springfield - it may well end up serving quite a large “Greater Brisbane” audience within the current Ipswich licence area boundaries anyway.
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Perfectly written.
All eyes IMO are on River94.9. Let’s hope we see some Pure Gold changes soon.
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