our family car (late 1970s vintage) had AM radio only. It wasn’t really a problem as dad never liked having the radio on anyway 
My brother’s first car in the mid 90s was a 1970s Toyota Corolla. It also had an AM radio only. He became very familiar with listening to Perry Como on Magic 693 
My first car was a 1985 Nissan Pulsar. It had an AM-FM radio.
My father was the same. Even on a 6-7 hour trip to Coffs Harbour he wouldn’t turn it on and would prefer to sit in silence. If we wanted to listen to music on a long trip we’d have to bring the transistor radio with earphone, later the Walkman. The only time the old Datsun’s AM radio went on was when he wanted to catch a horse race he’d bet on.
My 73 year old mother has every AM preset on her relatively new car’s radio tuned to 2GB and will not allow anyone to touch it. Switched to the FM band when I had to drive it once and the stations had never even been tuned in.
I prefer to listen to podcasts and my iTunes playlist in the car now. I’m slightly irritated by the quality of what’s being put to air these days. Far too repetitive.
My first car an XD Falcon had AM only but my 1983 Ford Meteor Ghia had FM (2x FM presets and 3xAM). At the time though it was very common for after market car stereos to be installed. Car stereo installers like Brisbane Car Sound and Strathfield Car Sound in Sydney were huge.
Anyway regardless of some cars not having FM stations like FM104 were rating as high as 30% by the mid to late 80s.
As a young kid in the 70s our home stereo had FM - but no stations…
In the early 80s, higher model grades eg. Ghia or SLX/SLE usually had FM and a cassette player whilst lower grades like L/GL only had AM.
But by mid 80s, lower grades had FM and cassette added, whilst higher grades got 4 speakers and digital tuning.
My very first car,a 1978 Datsun 200B only had an AM radio,My next one,1983 Ford Laser had an AM/FM radio,later on I had a AM/FM cassette player installed in this car…Thats when I started listening to FM 104/Triple M more ,around 85/85 .In my bedroom I had a small AM/FM ‘boom box ,that I also played my cassettes on
I’ve got the Sydney radio ratings from that time. They made its debut on Survey 4 of 1980.
Here are the ratings from that survey:
#1 2UE: 19.2
#2 2CH: 15.5
=#3 2SM: 11.6
=#3 2WS: 11.6
#5 2BL: 8.8
#6 2UW: 8.3
#7 2GB: 6.0
#8 2MMM: 2.6
#9 2DAY: 2.0
#10 2JJJ: 1.2
And Survey 1, 1981:
#1 2CH: 17.7
#2 2UE: 16.5
#3 2UW: 15.9
=#4 2SM: 8.5
=#4 2WS: 8.5
#6 2BL: 8.1
#7 2MMM: 5.2
#8 2GB: 5.0
#9 2JJJ: 2.9
#10 2DAY: 2.4
Wow! Thank you TV Expert.
Check out those 2UE and 2CH ratings.
There were only four surveys a year in the 80s. 2UW almost doubled its audience over summer. Now that is a stellar relaunch of an old brand. Take note 2DayFM in 2020.
Triple M gained traction so much quicker than 2DayFM
My parents car when I was a kid was a 78 Ford Falcon, it had FM-AM and tape.
And I have to add that both 2DayFM and MMM has a higher inaugural ratings than Vega achieve 25 years later.
And Vega did not have to educate listeners on how to tune to FM.
Here’s the shocker. Triple M basically rates the same today as it did in its second survey of 1981. They really need to set and achieve some bigger long term goals.
For Melbourne, the first FM survey (4/1980, with survey 3/1980 in brackets)
3XY 15.5 (16.6)
3UZ 12.9 (13.4)
3AK 12.0 (11.9)
3MP 11.7 (11.1)
3AW 10.5 (11.4)
3DB 9.5 (8.0)
3LO 8.0 (9.2)
3KZ 7.2 (6.8)
3EON 4.5 (–)
3FOX 3.4 (–)
3AR 2.5 (3.0)
Other AM 1.3 (1.8)
Other FM 1.0 (2.2)
Thanks TelevisionAU.
The FM stations had a much better start in Melbourne. A combined 7.9 share with Sydney on a 4.6.
3AW and 3LO not far off where they rate today.
And then there’s the others. 3XY’s replacement rates less than 1%, 3UZ and 3MP aren’t in the ratings, and SEN is lucky to rate more than a 10th what 3AK did in 1980
Strangely, both the new FMs suffered drops in Survey 1/1981
3XY 15.2 (15.5)
3UZ 12.8 (12.9)
3AW 11.4 (10.5)
3MP 11.0 (11.7)
3AK 10.3 (12.0)
3KZ 9.6 (7.2)
3LO 8.5 (8.0)
3DB 8.1 (9.5)
3EON 3.8 (4.5)
3AR 3.5 (2.5)
3FOX 3.0 (3.4)
Other AM 1.4 (1.3)
Other FM 1.4 (1.0)
By the end of the year (4/1981), EON was up to 6.8, FOX was 4.7.
By comparison, in Sydney by the end of 1981, 2DAY rose to 5.7, whilst 2MMM rose to 6.0. Then by the end of 1982, 2MMM rose to 9.2, whilst 2DAY only rose to 6.5, but then 2DAY jumped to 8.6 in S1/1983.
2MMM scored its first double-digit overall share in S3/1983 (10.7), in which they were ranked 3rd overall behind 2CH & 2UE, before scoring its first ever overall #1 in S4/1984 (13.5).
BRISBANE - S3/80
In Adelaide, SAFM debuted with a 7.5 in S3/80; in Perth, 96FM debuted with a 12.9
Thanks for that. Strong debut for 4MMM, SAFM and 96FM really.
Wonder what 4BH were playing at the time? They were doing the Beautiful Music thing by the mid-80s but wonder when it started.
4BK would have been the Soft Rock format or getting close to it.
It’s a pretty even split between the top 3 but I’m surprised that 4IP was that low coming out of the 1970s. I just figured it would have been close to the top in those days.
2CH was Beautiful Music 24/7
Wow they rated number one in 1983 amazing ? And looking through the 80s how well 2CH went.
Yes 4IP dominated in the 70s. I think they had a bit of a resurgence as Radio 10 in the 80s but FM104 fairly quickly dominated.
In celebration of our first radio ratings survey release in just over five months, I’ve gone through the relevant pages of archive.org to bring up the results from Survey #6, 2000.
1: 104.1 2DayFM & 2UE 954: Equal #1 with 13.8%
3: Triple M 104.9: 10.4%
4: Mix 106.5: 8.3%
5: 2BL 702 (ABC Sydney Local Radio): 7.9%
6: 2WS-FM 101.7: 7.4%
7: 2CH Easy 1170: 7.2%
8: Triple J 105.7: 5.9%
9: ABC FM 92.9: 2.7%
10: 2KY 1017: 1.7%
11: 2SM 1269: 1.6%
12: Radio National 576: 1.4%
13: ABC NewsRadio 630: 1.3%
Source: ACNielsen.
It was a very different radio landscape two decades ago. Nova 96.9 would not launch until 6-7 months after the release of this survey, while 95.3 was just under half a decade away. One station which was in the surveys back then but not now - 2SM.
2DayFM would be Sydney’s #1 radio station during six out of eight ratings surveys in 2000, with 2UE at #1 in Survey #7 (possibly in part due to Olympics coverage, which I believe 2UE had exclusive commercial radio rights for) and as you saw above, Survey #6 being a tie between the top AM & FM stations.