and in Sydney and Melbourne where WS/Gold have long removed the 60s and a large chunk of the 70s (with exception to ABBA, Billy Joel, Elton John’s Rocket Man, Queen and Boston)
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Smooth Vintage plays some 60s and 70s and even some 80s, it’s a great listen. WSFM 80s has been sounding good too, playing some gems recently.
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Same with 2NM Muswellbrook.
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@JasonF remember when covid began, Cameron’s were looking for every excuse possible to sharpen the numbers for sale, lots of sackings at Radio Ballarat, wouldn’t have been a locally produced music since then or long before.
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Surprised no ones picked up on it & mentioned it here, unless I’ve missed it?
Started on New Years Day, River 94.9 Ipswich are playing their entire music library starting at 9am each day & they don’t know when it’ll end, I think it’s in song title alphabetical order.
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I might have to give it another listen. I did flick to it a few times over the Christmas/NY break but was a bit surprised how much it sounded like 97.3 even under the KIIS brand. I would have thought ARN would be trying to differentiate 94.9 from 97.3 a bit more, by I dunno, going Pure Gold! Maybe the music library thing is a pre-curser to that? It doesn’t make sense to have 94.9 competing for 97.3 listeners, particularly given it’s not included in the Brisbane ratings and would be a fair chunk of the “other” figure.
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Looking at Lava, it appears to be exclusively for River 94.9 & not being heard on other stations that normally take the same log as heard on River (ie. Bay, 3BA, LAFM/7SD, 7XS, Mix 104.9). For this day & age, that’s quite rare.
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To me this indicates River will likely break away from the ‘regional’ network and be more of a metro station, likely a Pure Gold station and co-located with KIIS 97.3
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I heard them promoting this around Christmas time. It is their usual all the hits in their music library A-Z (except the Macarena).
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Now THAT’S something that we haven’t seen in a long time.
Was it Triple M that did it last during their, “You’ll Never Know What We’ll Play Next” era?
Always a great idea for a variety-based music station.
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Stuff like this just screams either change of format or at least a change in positioning and tweaking of format.
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Pllleasssee relaunch as Pure Gold River94.9.
Having a classic hits alternative to 4BH on FM would do okay in the Greater Brisbane & Ipswich markets.
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My favourite MMM Brisbane positioner was ‘Playing the songs the other FM stations don’t’ at the time when Nova launched in that market.
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2GO on the Central Coast used a similar positioner (“Playing the songs missing on Central Coast radio”) back in around 2005-06, when they broadened its music playlist during the ‘Jack FM’ craze that was occurring on multiple adult-skewed music stations around the country. Back then, 2GO was a good alternative to the Sydney stations, musically.
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Especially if they put it on DAB in Brisbane.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they drop the River name if they do launch on DAB in Brisbane. They could go more generic with Gold 94.9 and Gold or Pure Gold on DAB Brisbane.
They could always then put Gold or Pure Gold on DAB on the Gold Coast also and market it as a true South East Queensland station on 94.9 and on DAB on the Gold Coast and Brisbane. The “Gold” brand would work well on the Gold Coast and be fine for Brisbane, whereas the River brand wouldn’t work for the Gold Coast as well.
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Power FM was taking KRock’s music when CHR was generated there (Circa 2019). Basically all the Power FM’s / Hot 100 took the log. It’s since all been moved to Hot Tomato these days for those stations.
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94.9 PowerFM used to have a very listenable playlist around the early 00’s.
I found them to be a good regional CHR station - perfect listening for South Coast holiday makers.
Grants (now ARN) have ruined it by adding too much 80’s into the PowerFM playlist. Leave the 80’s to 2ST, WaveFM, River94.9, etc.
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I agree. I remember they were a bit more rock-skewed than i98FM, and was providing a point-of-difference to the Wollongong-based stations. They were also considered an unofficial 3rd commercial station for Wollongong, in which they used to rate quite decently (8-10%) in the Wollongong ratings.
It doesn’t help that 94.9 Power FM now has the same music log & most network programming as Wave FM, in which both stations can be heard well into each other’s licence areas. In other words, there’s not much incentive on listening to a fortuitous station over a local station, except for during drive when Wave has its own local drive program whilst Power has Will & Woody.
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Yeah, it’s weird hearing songs on ex-Grant CHR stations that are older than songs played on their Gold stations. Happens all the time on Magic and PowerFM in SA.
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Happens all the time on K-Rock as well, a huge opportunity has been missed to break away from the ARN Regional logs…
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