ABC has launched ABC kids Listen a brand-new digital radio station for preschoolers and their families. ABC KIDS listen is specially curated to suit the flow of a child’s day, from the time they wake until they settle down for a good night’s sleep.
edit: not on air in brisbane yet
As far as I can tell, the new “ABC KIDS listen” station has replaced ABC Extra.
Zed is now playing JOY 94.9 from Melbourne.In time for Mardi gra i suppose.
Maybe I’ve been living under a rock but what is Zed and what programming does it usually broadcast? Is it a Sydney based FM station? or is it digital? I’ve never listened to Zed before.
I’ve always loved Joy 94.9 and thought it would be great if Joy 94.9 had a sister station in Sydney.
It probably won’t happen, but what I’d like to see Sydney DAB+ utilised for in the future are those temporary broadcasts (2CR Chinese Radio, Voice of Islam & Show Radio) heard at various points during the year on 91.6 and 107.9.
The station “Zed” is only available on Sydney DAB+ to the best of my knowledge.
Since December, the station “Zed” on Sydney DAB+ has been rotating between a mix of content from Melbourne community broadcasters - so far there’s been Light Christmas, 3RRR, 3CR and now Joy 94.9.
better use of the spectrum i think.
it’s funny i was saying to my wife only about a week ago as we had kinderling on in the car with the kids in the back that i thought the ABC would be the one to do a kids station, not a commercial opertor like kinderling - it makes sense that the ABC do it
So you can listen to it on digital in Sydney but not in Melbourne - the Melbourne community stations need to find some spectrum for Joy and let them on the platform.
Makes sense - though the ABC can gain back a huge amount of space by tackling their excessive use of bandwidth on slideshows and other data - it’s near 20kbps on many of the stations.
There. Now where is my money 
JOY is not that bad. There are only a couple of times a year I listen to it tho. Have the SBS pulled out of the radio simulcast this year?
You’d have the other metro wide stations crying foul if suburban community stations with a smaller footprint are afforded the same DAB coverage.
Until they can find a way to utilise Channel 9D (and maybe part of 8A to 8D that adjacent regionals will get) and somehow split that amongst the various suburban licence areas without causing jammed signals, DAB for suburban community radio is highly unlikely to happen.
It probably should be said that this current stint with “Zed” isn’t the only time that Sydney has had access to Joy FM programing on DAB+ for Mardi Gras time.
There was a pop-up station on Sydney DAB+ for Joy FM Mardi Gras programing around five or six years ago, the exact name of which escapes me right now…
Since you did ask for fake money… 
I managed to get pretty reasonable Canberra FM reception tonight, so I tried my luck at a manual scan on Channel 10B, but not a single bar appeared on my radio’s meter.
I know it’s only 5kw vs the 20kw (mixed) that the Canberra commercials are putting out, but I was hoping the supposedly superior propogation properties of DAB would help offset that, but nope!
Possibly the propagation didn’t extend up to the higher frequencies.
Someone has misinformed you! The propagation properties of DAB+ are far worse than FM broadcasting. All to do with the frequencies used, the fact that DAB+ uses a wider bandwidth than a standard FM carrier and the need for a certain threshold of signal strength for DAB+ to be resolved.
FM is far superior when it comes to transmission distance!
I find the coverage area of DAB in Brisbane to be pretty much the same as FM in the car, well north/South anyway. I hear east/west isn’t as good. And I also find the quality of FM deteriorates for example about 50km north of Brisbane and becomes scratchy whereas DAB stays perfect until it drops off instantly around Caloundra (about 80km). Sure you can pick up FM beyond that but with the sound quality and scratchiness you wouldn’t bother. That’s one thing I prefer with digital - it’s either perfect or not at all.
There was an article today in SMH quoting SCA that digital radio is coming of age. Hope he’s right. It’s the only thing keeping me listening to Australian radio at the moment.
That statement appears to be true for SCA at least, who are probably the most active DAB player. Ever since they aligned their stations with the hit and Triple M networks they’ve appeared to target actual markets (rather that “lets just play some music no one else is”) and most importantly have been able to draw in somewhat of a steady flow of advertisers.
iHeart Radio The 80s has been running a promotion for the Mardi Gras, including a plug for programming from JOY FM Melbourne.
Perhaps it’s ARN that’s behind the running of the Melbourne community stations on DAB+?
And as ZED is also currently airing JOY FM, which I’m guessing will continue to the end of the Mardi Gras parade on 4th March.
I noticed a few weeks back that JOY had been added to the iHeartRadio platform - perhaps that’s why?