I first thought it was these guys taking over Canberra radio:
Amplifon AU | Experts in Hearing Healthcare, Hearing Aids & Solutions
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Well, that explains the new news openers on both stations.
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The AmplifyCBR logo looks a lot like Nova!
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Which looks like the “beats” headphones logo.
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Was in Canberra for the Easter long weekend and had a good chance to listen to the local offerings.
This weekend Hit 104.7 was running their own music log, do they normally take the regional Hit music log??? The playlist was quite good and not the Nova 2-3 hour repeat repeat.
Snow Digital, the last time I listened to Snow Digital in Canberra they had Snowy Mountains ads. Now they insert Canberra ads into the ad breaks instead of Snowy Mountain ads, making the station sound more like a local Canberra station.
While Mix 106.3 had league coverage on Saturday night I had a chance to listen to 2CA, on their jukebox Saturday night playlist I noticed quite a bit of overlap with Mix 106.3. INXS I send a message is a song you would hear on Mix 106.3.
Staying at the Eaglehalk just over the border in NSW also put me in range of Goulburn fm. On my portable I was able to receive a weak Eagle fm and GN Fm. GN fm played this almost WTF song on their Saturday night playlist, Justified and Ancient by the KLF, without the Rap edited out. I was not expecting to hear this on GNFM.
99.5 TCL Radio Ramadan, does anyone know where it is broadcast from in Canberra? It was the weakest of the Canberra fm stations at Eaglehalk.
Lastly Dab+ in Canberra sounds so good with the high bit rates they use.
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From what I can gather through Lava, Hit 104.7 takes the regional Hit log on weekdays, but has its own log on weekends.
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They should do their own log 7 days a week.
Re 2CA, looking at Lava there is quite a bit of overlap with Mix 106.3 in their playlists. On Mix 106.3 every second or third song is a current song, but the 70’s / 80’s tracks on Mix 106.3 and 2CA are the same or quite similar.
If 2CA was to get an fm conversion I bet they would drop the forever Classic format and position the station in between Hit 104.7 and Mix 106.3 with a format very similar to Star 104.5. (80’s to now) pop rather then rock classics. This would provide enough point of difference between Hit 104.7 and Mix 106.3, and could rate very well or #1 if done properly, and with the right talent.
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Do Hit104.7 and Mix106.3 have different Content Directors? Or just the one?
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Just one - Rod Cuddihy.
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I have enjoyed a bit of high quality DAB commercial radio listening in the car whilst in Canberra today (via 2CA at 96kbps).
There is a fair amount of 80s music on 2CA as well as 60s and 70s too. Not much is from 90s onwards. It’s a good mix, maybe not as good as the XL/GN log though.
Now only if more Canberrans took advantage of DAB+, I think 2CA could challenge MIX106.3 for the #1 spot on ratings survey.
MIX is now only 64kbps, but much better than what you get in Sydney! The music on MIX has unfortunately gotten a bit safe from what I heard yesterday and today, I didn’t really hear any WOW songs on it.
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2CA have been playing some early 90s tracks recently such as:
‘Heart In Danger’- Southern Sons
‘Hazard’- Richard Marx
‘River Of Dreams’- Billy Joel
‘Show No Mercy’- Mark Williams
It’s a sure sign that you’re getting older when songs you remember on the charts are being played on 2CA 
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Great to hear you enjoy the music on 2CA. It’s a pity about their on-air talent. The breakfast team is just terrible.
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Yeah, I know, I’m still getting used to WSFM playing stuff like Pharrell Williams and Lady Gaga!
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At least they play more music in breakfast than the FM’ers (rather ironically for an AM station!)
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Captain Cash is a freaking institution I tell ya.
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2CA is the best of a bad offering in Canberra.
Hate the joint venture FMs in Canberra - I normally just flick between them to find whatever station doesn’t have ads as the music is mostly the same, largely dated, offering and I assume they are blocking a proper Triple M station getting up in the market?
Driving through regional areas such a Wagga with their Hit and Triple M offerings provides more variety than Canberra. I’d even take the GNFM / Eagle FM formats Goulburn has over Canberra’s nearly identical FM music offerings.
As for Canberra breakfast, drive shows etc across stations… As the saying goes, if you can’t say anything nice…
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I think it is clear that Canberra & Newcastle markets are probably the two worst when it comes to choice in the entirety of Australia.
They need to have stronger competition to drive better radio options for listeners.
Surely a market such as Canberra could handle a third commercial FM station (and network).
I would love to see Nova come to Canberra.
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What about Wollongong? I think they need wave be similar to 2ST? I think Wollongong wins the crown of not much variety compared to Canberra and Newcastle.
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A fifth commercial station has been considered in the past. There was an ABA discussion paper linked here a while back which mooted several options for Canberra. Unfortunately (as usual) the incumbents trotted out the standard ‘commercial viability’ line and the protection racket won the day. The spare frequencies were given to less threatening community and narrowcast operations.
I agree Wollongong is the worst market for commercial radio variety. It’s worse now than it’s ever been there because Wave FM and Power FM share music logs. I know Power FM isn’t a Wollongong station per se but it has had a long association with Wollongong. It was the first FM commercial station to start in the Illawarra region, in 1991.
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Here’s my post that links to that Discussion Paper:
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