Noticed today while flicking stations, 102.9 2ST has changed their positioner to Better Music & More Of It, matching WS Fm.
Also in the last couple of months ARN have changed the national news bulletin on 2ST and Power fm from the 2GB / Nine News service to their own in-house news.
ARN are now really starting to integrate these former Grant stations into their respective networks. Has the exclusion period in the sale contract preventing ARN from making massive programming and personnel changes to these former Grant stations expired?
From what I understand, it is expiring soon, given that the sale was finalised on 4th January 2022, and that we’re coming up to the 2-year mark of when the sale happened.
I wonder if their music format will shift more towards WS/Gold than what it currently is?
Cannot really tell as 2ST is very weak to non existent on my Hifi setup, ok on the car radio.
I receive Power fm better through the HiFI with the outdoor fm antenna.
It would be nice if 2ST took a playlist similar to XL / GN Fm.
No changes to Power fm except for the ARN national news service. They are still sharing the same playlist with Wave fm.
I might whip up an hour log of them on the relevant thread, so watch that space.
I agree with that.
Maybe when after the Wollongong radio ratings take place, perhaps ARN could use the ratings results to help guide Wave to separate themselves from Power a bit more, by skewing its music playlist a little older (Wave performs best in the 40+ demo compared to the 25-39s).
I have noticed Wave Skewing slightly older since the last survey. It started with the axing of the Random 30, now they play Throwbacks at 8pm weeknights instead.
Power fm should be 18-39 playing 90’s to now, Wave 18-54 80’s to now.
Certainly agreed that XLFM’s workday mix felt a heckload better than 2ST’s* when I was driving through both areas recently. (* actually I think I meant 2EC as well, but I’m not sure that makes any difference, it’s not that that different from 2ST really)
It still feels weird that “Forever Classic” FM stations are now creeping into things like early 90s (perhaps I’m too used to 2CA, or 2GN’s old mix pre-FM) but that’s a heckload better than ignoring that decade almost entirely.
If they cannot do that simple, give Power fm Nowra the KIIS 101.1 log, problem solved.
SCA could do a similar thing in Newcastle where there is some overlap with the Central Coast, move Hit 106.9 onto the B105 / Fox log.
Triple M Newcastle is rating to well to change logs at this stage but if they had to then the Triple M Adelaide log maybe???
Oh for sure, but I also feel like it’s a good thing in a way… sorta have had the feeling that the 90s were a bit of a no-mans’ land in terms of programming.
but on the other hand, programming the 90s can be a bit tough, because I seem to recall the likes of 2Day FM back then playing a lot more things that’d be in the dance or urban categories that I still feel like would be excluded or marginalised on an ARN Pure Gold format (except perhaps outside “party mix”-type stuff for the former; they have Cada for the latter I guess).
2ST for instance always felt a bit older though (a bit closer to the “Forever Classic on AM” sort of feel) so I’m not sure that imposing an ARN-style Pure Gold format on it made much change to it at all.
That said, as you sort of implied, every decade is going to be “the decade you grew up with” to someone (it is to me, for better or worse). The fact that it almost comes down to the likes of 2Day to push 90s/early-00s throwbacks somewhere like Sydney is almost ironic given they were the ones (besides 96.1 perhaps; Nova didn’t exist for most of their heyday) that premiered most of them.
Historically musically radio speaking Newcastle & Brisbane are almost identical markets, if a format/music log works in one, it’ll work in the other, if it was working in one market then definitely try it in the other. Newcastle has no competition so while Triple M is going gang busters here, is it really a winning log & would it do well on B015, not sure, also not sure B105 log is good enough to say it’d work in Newcastle on Hit 106.9 either?
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide are very different markets to Brisbane/Newcastle radio wise, so a log out of one of those would probably tank in the latter markets.
Having said that, what worked in Newcastle in the good old days, could be replicated in just about every other market, but would never work in reverse. These days if there was true competition in Newcastle, I think both SCA & ARN (if they were here) would be scratching their heads about a format & logs, I’m not sure it’s still a rock town like NEW FM was built on, so not sure anyone going back to that would work either?
Yes I agree the 90’s would be quite a challenging era music wise for programming.
Rock was still very strong, dance music was emerging, and rap music became more mainstream too.
Back in early 90’s CHR was either the Rock of the 90’s, or the Beat of the 90’s which was dance and hip hop heavy. like the old X107 in Newcastle.
Bringing this back to ARN, Power fm in Nowra is advertising some tweaks to their music, “We are now playing more 90’s, and Today’ s Best Music.
So it looks like ARN are KIISafying the network.
This is not going to help the cause of Wave fm compete with i98, they are going back to skewing slightly younger again after skewing older after getting smashed in the previous survey.
The strategy would work if ARN had just 2ST and Wave fm in Wollongong, but it doesn’t work in a competitive market, and up against such a strong competitor.
Curious as to why you think Brisbane and Newcastle are so similar? They are wildly different in size and the radio landscape is also massively different in terms of stations available, particularly considering overspill. Back in the day FM104 and New FM were a bit similar but that’s all I can see.
Has nothing to do with size of the city or the number of stations available, as far as programming a music radio station it’s what music the audience likes & historically people in Newcastle & Brisbane like the same music.
It’s much harder to tell these days, but back when top 40 charts were made from record sales in the local stores Brisbane & Newcastle charts would be very similar, a song topping the charts in Sydney might not even make it into the top 40 in Brisbane or Newy, & a song topping the chart’s in Brisbane or Newy, might only make it to number 30 in Melbourne or Adelaide.
If you want to program a music radio station, first you have to know what the audience in the market you’re broadcasting in likes, & most markets are different depending on what town or city you come from.
4BK used to be almost the same as 2NX & 4KQ was almost the same as 2KO back in the 70’s & 80’s before they started converting to FM. 4IP was a stand out different station to anything in Newcastle though, I changed from 2KO to 2NX in the early 80’s but when I travelled to Brisbane I’d always listen to 4BK or 4KQ, it was 2NX & 4BK in 1988 when I travelled up there for expo ‘88. I later changed to 4BH after 4BK became B105, I never followed them to FM.
