Scanning through their websites, I’ve noticed that whilst Star 102.7 in Cairns & Star 101.9 in Mackay have the “80s, 90s & Now” line on top of their logo, Star 106.3 in Townsville doesn’t have that line, instead using the positioner “Townsville’s Best Music”. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike in Cairns & Mackay, where Grant owns 1 x FM & 1 x AM station, Townsville has two FM stations that are owned by Grant, with the other station being Power 100, which has a rock format.
Plus, the Star stations in Cairns and Mackay took over from previous Zinc FM stations, which always played more “80’s, 90’s and now” genre music.
The Townsville station Mix 106.3 that became Star, used to only play “Now” genre of music before the change to Star, and while it has added in a little of the “80s, 90s” stuff, it predominantly still plays more current music than the Mackay version does (from my own observations).
In Townsville, Zinc 100.7 became Power100.
Sad to see the Zinc “network” be disbanded.
It is actually quite a clever (and modern) brand for Qld markets.
I wonder if Grant sales reps also get confused remembering all these brands on a national level?
Either completely rebrand like SCA or completely leave local branding for each market. Grant seems to have done half-half with these mini networks.
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cough 4TO, 2GO, KO, GOLD cough 
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Point taken. Still, much easier to sell as “the Hit or Triple M Networks”, rather than Power/Chilli/Hot/Sea/Star/Wave/Zinc/and everything else.
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Plus River and Hitz of course.
In 4 months time, those brands will be goneski too.
Though SCA still haven’t fully implemented HIT properly either.
Sydney and Melbourne, also Gold Coast, Central Coast and Bundaberg.
You forgot the Gold Coast. 
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And Magic… I’m sure there’s still more
I guess it keeps it slightly interesting
Very sad, but the Zinc concept at its end was far from what Ronnie Stanton and team had created.
If a sales rep knows their product well, there is no excuse not to know what brand covers what audience.
The idea of late of consolidating brands is driven by beancounting who fool dills boards to accept their rubbish of it being too difficult and holding sales back.
SCA’s experience shows no difference in sales with new regional names, it’s the tried and true need for quality content to improve ratings that pushes sales not meaningless metro names.
Changing names resets your brand value to zero. Foolish for 4TO, lipstick on a pig for 106.3 Townsville.
The issue is they are dismantling regional brands just when they should be becoming more important. With Spotify etc radio needs to define itself with personalities, localism and news. There’s no reason 4TO can’t be part of a radio network identified on the air, but it can keep its name too.
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Like what the Super Radio Network AM stations do?
I agree. There may come a time when localism is all some of these stations have left, particularly the regional ones.
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Completely agree. What’s wrong with sales reps here? US networks have a plethora of station names carrying similar formats across that vast country and they seem to cope. Many stations still identifying using their call signs. I’m listening to KOST Los Angeles right now on iheart radio. (Edit: I kid you not but Karen Sharp the nighttime host on KOST just put a call out to a listener listening in “South Australia” on iHeart radio. It’s really a global radio world)
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I’ve been listening to Ellen K. on KOST late at night regularly since Sydney talkback radio turned to shit. I feel the format of that station would be perfect for Wave FM to replicate. Plenty of new release hits with classics from the past 30 years. The music selection currently playing on Wave just doesn’t gel. There are plenty of new soft rock tracks that could be played that wouldn’t clash with the classic hits they play.
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I’ve found Lite Rock on iHeartRadio to be similar and switch to it from KOST to avoid the commercials.
A little closer to home, I think Wave FM should sound a bit more like its sister station in Geelong, Bay 93.9, which has a more AC format.
I liked the KOST weather reports (do they still do them)? Along the lines of:
85 in San Bernardino;
82 in Thousand Oaks;
80 Downtown, and…
75 degrees on the KOST (coast).
Brian, do you prefer KOST over your local Breeze?
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Shame we don’t have anything like that here.
Can’t even get that in Hawaii.