At times there seems to be two audio streams overlaying themselves on 2CH DAB Feed, both seem to be 2CH though
They would be changing the error protection rates to fit in the extra capacity.
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As mentioned on the “Hit Network” thread, Easy Hits has been rebranded as Easy 80s Hits, therefore becoming an all 80s station.
As with Oldskool 90s Hits, Easy 80s Hits are now directly going head-to-head with ARN’s 80s station.
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Maybe Retro 80s would be a better name alongside Oldskool 90s.
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What about Oldskool 80s? Or call Oldskool 90s “Easy 90s” as a contrast to Triple M 90s
My thinking was that Retro was the common term back in the 80s and then people started using Oldschool and now it’s Throwback. So the Retro name fits for the older music.
Plus, Club Retro in Sydney was huge a few years ago because they played 80s music every Saturday night. They’re still around now but have expanded to play 70s to 90s music there.
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Fair call. I’d personally prefer if they pick a naming convention and stick to it. We did have all Hit and all Triple M branding just a few weeks ago. Hit80s/Hit90s works just fine.
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I had a listen to the Hit Easy 80s DAB station last night.
Definitely softer than the ARN 80s station.
The closest they got to playing rock was Ian Moss’s “Tucker’s Daughter”.
I prefer the ARN 80s station for the wider variety.
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You’d assume a Triple M 80s would be just around the corner to fill that gap?
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What really helps on this decision, and comes as a bonus, is that the ARN 80s station has a higher bitrate (48k) than Easy 80s Hits (40k), at least in Sydney.
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Id rather they just combined one station (retro hits) and be 80k or 96k 
.
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What an omnishambles.
Not only are they segmenting their stations by ‘style’, for lack of a better word, they are segmenting by decades now. You can no longer turn on one of their stations for some variety.
If they do insist on pigeonholing everything I’d do:
- Easy Retro. 70’s to 00’s, softer, easier to listen pop.
- Hit Oldskool. 80’s to 00’s, Top 40 style radio across all the decades.
- MMM Greats. 70’s to 00’s rock
Keep Little Fox, Hit Dance, Urban, Buddha and MMM Hard and Heavy as they are, but bring in newer music to keep them up to date, and ensure they are in all markets if possible. Delete MMM Country and Soft Rock, and SoundCloud Radio. I’d also halve the number of ads, perhaps DMG Regional used to be years ago (no more than 4 ads in a row).
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Speaking of Little Fox - what’s their strategy there? Still Melbourne only by the sound of it.
I think they should make the clear move into the Radio Disney model - where the station is hits that are Kid friendly - no swearing, clean lyrics, etc. They seem to be split from the times I’ve flipped past, with some songs feeling like they are cloning Kinderling, and other times having songs that would fit that model. Even the three songs I saw on the recently played list as part of writing this post, they went from a Bieber song to playing a rendition of the Yankee Doodle song - which I don’t know what they are trying to do.
With Kids Listen and Kinderling - I think the real young end of the audience is covered - so they don’t need to be doing lullabyes and the Wiggles. But something that a parent could turn on in the car and be confident that the songs will always be appropriate, but also more upbeat and kid friendly.
I suppose basically ‘Family Hits’.
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Don’t know which of the Digital Radio threads is the right one to mention this in, but Christmas Hope is back on the 9A multiplex for another year!
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…and now ARN has brought back Elf Radio for another year with 32kbps of festive tunes being pumped out on the 9B multiplex (in Sydney at least).
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And as a result, the bitrate for KIIS 90s goes down to 32kbps. At least WSFM 80s is still at 48kbps.
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The elves have been working extra hard this year to make Santa Radio available from Monday, 9 November on DAB+ in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and on the Hit and Triple M apps anywhere and anytime, even on Santa’s sleigh!
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Do we really need another one of these Christmas stations?
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Not really, although I’m hardly surprised that SCA are planning to launch “Santa Radio” in response to ARN’s highly popular (well it has been part of DAB+ every festive season for about a decade now) Elf Radio.
Does anyone here remember when SCA asked their listeners “Has your favourite 80s/90s station gone missing” before More Digital launched in 2015? I’d presume that was in response to ARN rebranding their 80s and 90s music channels, however those never went away and infact, are still broadcasting now while More Digital has long become part of DAB+ history!