Is there going to be a 50’s ,60"s-70s golden oldies station in Melbourne soon?
Yes, ARN are under utilising their capacity since they removed Elf Radio, also in Brisbane and Sydney.
Nine radio is badly underutilising its capacity - 2 talk stations using 128 kbps is a poor use of digital bandwidth, especially as NTS is not even in the ratings.
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To be honest. Everyone is underutilising the spectrum.
Look I will freely admit at times I have listened for hours to Dance Hits at 32kps. And been happy. Sure it’s reduced quality from an FM and less than what we were promised at the launch of DAB+, but 32kps is where it is at.
If I listen to 4BH on 96kps I immediately notice a difference. Anyone would. It’s like going to a mate’s place and he has his HiFi on and gives you the headphones and says ‘listen to this’.
The trouble with DAB+ is all the 32kps stations. We can all listen to them. They are ‘listenable’ for music. But surely this is not what the medium was created for?
Ace could of brought back 2ch/4kq as DAB+ only stations if they wanted to that is
In theory yes. But there could be something in the lease agreement with Nine that prohibits them from putting additional stations on DAB. They only lease the stations from Nine, so you never know.
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They kept 2CH as a DAB+ only station when 2CH 1170 switched to SEN, but they couldn’t make it work, so they closed it down.
Did they really try though, or couldn’t be bothered? I’d suggest the latter. The initial stint with 2CH on DAB-only was just an initial attempt to placate the audience. But they didn’t even bother with that for 4KQ.
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I think Craig Hutcherson could not be bothered with running a music station that is why he shut down 2ch down Instead of shutting down 2ch dab+ down what SEN should of done is give the rights/license of 2ch DAB+ to ACE instead. That would be much better option then shutting down the station
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One difference is that with AM/FM stations they publish the rating figures, but with DAB+ stations they only publish cumulative figures. So my guess is that they couldn’t say to advertisers that 2CH (on DAB+) was getting any audience share. That’s despite the audience share of Magic 954 going up by 1-2 % when 2CH DAB+ closed.
Or do people who subscribe to the ratings get as detailed audience information for DAB+ only stations as for AM/FM stations?
Another problem could be that while the AM station was called SEN on-air, it still had the callsign 2CH and appeared in the ratings as such, whereas the DAB+ only station was also called 2CH. Did that lead to any confusion?
Sydney has some DAB changes happening too…
80’s New Wave is now Aussie Pub Rock…Im a regular listnr to 80’s new wave and noticed this change yesterday arvo…annoyed that its gone off simple DAB…will have to stream it now.
Checking others I also found Indie and Alt has changed to Trending Now.
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This is not the first time it has happened to these 2 stations.
I’m assuming, something has gone wrong at some point in the system, when SCA added their 10 new LiSTNR stations recently and put them on their GC bandwidth.
They must be trying to fix it…listening in the last hour it was 80’s new wave but then interupted by pub rock again.The Cures “lovesong” into “Better” by the Screaming Jets.
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According to the Digital Radio Plus website, the new Forever Classic 70’s station has also become available on DAB+ in Perth.
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That would most likely be due to Forever Classic 6IX.
Looks like it would have replaced My Perth Digital, which I’m not sure is an improvement. I suppose though, at least it’s not duplicating the other decades stations on Perth DAB.
| 92.9 Triple M | 32kbps |
| Mix94.5 | 32kbps |
| MMM COUNTRY | 32kbps |
| MMM 90s | 32kbps |
| MMM CLASSIC ROCK | 32kbps |
| BLENDER BEATS | 32kbps |
| RnB FRIDAYS | 32kbps |
| OLDSKOOL 90 HITS | 32kbps |
| EASY HITS | 32kbps |
| OLDSKOOL 80 HITS | 32kbps |
| MMM 80s | 32kbps |
| 1080 6iX DAB+ | 48kbps |
| FOREVER 70’s DAB | 48kbps |
| FOREVER 60’s DAB | 32kbps |
| Niche Radio | 32kbps |
| 6PR Perth | 48kbps |
| NTS | 48kbps |
| CADA | 32kbps |
| CW Remix | 32kbps |
| 96FM | 32kbps |
| 96FM 80s | 32kbps |
| Nova 937 | 48kbps |
| Smooth FM | 48kbps |
| Coles Radio | 32kbps |
| Noongar Radio | 32kbps |
| CurtinDG | 48kbps |
| VA Radio Perth | 32kbps |
| RTRFM 92.1 | 48kbps |
| 6EBA World Radio | 24kbps |
| Capital Digital | 48kbps |
| Sonshine | 40kbps |
| Sonshine Extra | 32kbps |
| VA IRIS Perth | 32kbps |
With credit to digital bitrate for the data, reproducing here mainly so there’s a record of this to compare to in the future, as it’s rare to get Perth info.
Nine should drop NTS in Perth and let ACE have another stab at the “6GT” idea. Would certainly do better.
6EBA is still listed - there was discussion a few months back about that being dead air - assume it’s still the case?
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Ex TC Alfred has knocked ABC Gold Coast off air.
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Yes dead as a door nail, on FM it is long gone from 95.3 MHz, I guess a carrier without modulation does use power, not sure what a DAB empty digital transmission of 24 bps uses, other than demonstrating there is still space on that multiplex?
And in other news looks like KIX Country SW has disappeared from the Mandurah DAB+. Strange that digitalradioplus shows it is still there but doesn’t show SEN PEEL at all (which is actually still there). Somehow it seems a bit of waste one whole multiplex devoted to only three radio stations.
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Yes My Perth Digital has been replaced by Forever 70s in my favourites. I don’t think My Perth was rating well since it had a format which, although complementary to 6iX Classics, competed with many other DAB stations featuring cotemporary rock/pop music. Forever 70s (and also Forever 60s) are the first and only radio stations bringing back the 60s and 70s (given the many already there on the 80s and 90s). For Forever 70s I have yet to have an opinion, suffice to say a 70s does work (for me anyways), if it gets the playlist right, one good example being iHeartRadio 70s.
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An unmodulated FM carrier uses just as much power as a 100% modulated FM carrier does, that’s the way FM works, an unmodulated AM carrier uses much less power than a 100% modulated AM carrier does, that’s the way AM works, as for DAB, an empty slot in the multiplex is still using data space on the many carriers across the channel, it’s just lacking audio data, so any allocated space it’s taking up will just be filled with null packets in-place of the missing audio data, the channel bandwidth doesn’t decrease, nor does the overall channel power or modulation.
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3MP have allocated their bits now, putting it all to their main station - so 3MP has gone from 48kbps, up to 72kbps.
I don’t really hear a significant audio quality improvement though - maybe there’s some constraint in the chain still? The ABC/SBS stations at 72kbps sound much better to my ears
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