They both had a CHR format but as you guessed correctly 7HT had horse racing coverage. I remember listening to some great music on 7HT, only to be interrupted by horse racing and commercials.
The Sunday Tasmanian Newspaper interviewed the program director in 1986, Adrian Johnston, who said "The station offered more than just music. He said the morning programmes were "personally orientated, " featuring a diverse range of music, and catering for a large audience, with a good coverage of every sport.
The programme starts at breakfast with Ron Christie and Cyril. Their original humour is followed by an hour of musical requests with AJ from 9am, and then more music.
There is a comprehensive news service, running half-hourly through the breakfast shift, with traffic updates and weather reports.
Music through the day was ideally suited to the 24-to-35-year-old age bracket, with teenagers being well catered for during “Hit Line,” from 8pm to 10pm, which was followed by Triple Tracks.
The station then combined with 7EX at midnight to give listeners Twin City Music until daylight.
“We pride ourselves on a little more than music,” Adrian said. “On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, we change to suit an older audience, the racing fraternity.”
Saturday especially had a comprehensive sporting coverage, with many local identities featured. Talkback shows and "middle-of-the-road music continued until the start of racing which was broadcast live.
Because of low ratings 7HT suffered financial problems, The Mercury in 1990 stated that “One of the things that had cost the station money and audiences was the signing of the five-year TAB contract in 1986.
Although it was worth $3 million, the revenue lost in advertising because of poor ratings probably would have been more than $3 million.”
Survey 8, 2005 was also the first survey in which Vega (now Smooth) first appeared, in which it got only 1.8% in Sydney & 1.2% in Melbourne. Nearly 12 years later, Smooth are near the top of the FM ratings ladder, with the Melbourne station being #2 FM behind Gold & the Sydney station being #3 FM behind KIIS (formerly Mix 106.5) & WSFM.
The results for Survey 8, 2005 in Melbourne were as follows:
3AW: 13.7
Gold 104.3: 12.2
774 ABC: 11.7
3MMM: 10.8
Fox FM: 9.9
Nova 100: 8.3
Mix 101.1 (now KIIS): 5.4
Magic 693 (now Talking Lifestyle 1278): 5.1
3MP (now Classic Rock Radio): 3.6
3JJJ: 2.7
ABCFM: 2.6
SEN: 2.5
3RN: 1.9
ABC Newsradio: 1.4
Vega 91.5 (now Smooth): 1.2
Gold 104.3 scored an 18.9% share in the 40-54s that survey & was #2 in the 25-39s behind 3MMM. It should be noted that back then, Gold was positioned as a classic hits station, playing plenty more 70s (with a bit of 60s) than they do now.
In Sydney that same survey, Gold’s sister station WSFM was also the #1 FM station.
2GB: 12.7
WSFM: 9.5
2Day: 9.0
Nova 96.9: 8.6
2MMM: 8.6
702 ABC: 8.3
2UE: 8.0
Mix 106.5 (now KIIS): 7.7
2CH: 5.9
2JJJ: 3.4
ABCFM: 2.2
2RN: 2.0
Vega 95.3 (now Smooth): 1.8
ABC Newsradio: 1.4
In the 40-54s, WS scored a 17.4% share, with Mix 106.5 at a distant 2nd place with 11.4%, followed by 2MMM with 10.3%. Unlike Gold 104.3, WS could only manage 5th place in the 25-39s behind Nova, 2MMM, 2Day & Mix.
Unfortunately I do not. I do have a few more numbers for some of those surveys - happy to send you my full Wlong/Illawarra history - also have a custom ABC market survey from 1982.
With 4KQ hitting double-figures in the overall Brisbane radio ratings for the first time since Survey 4 of 2004 this morning, I thought it would be worth checking out on how the ratings looked in that particular survey 13 years ago.
Brisbane - Survey 4, 2004
B105: 17.8
4MMM: 13.8
97.3FM: 13.6
4KQ: 10.5
4BC: 9.1
4BH: 8.7
612 ABC: 6.8
4JJJ: 6.3
4RN: 3.2
ABCFM: 2.8
ABC Newsradio: 1.4
IIRC, Nova wasn’t on full-time transmission at the time, and was only on test broadcasts.
Below is Survey 3 of 2007, which up until this morning, was the last time an AM music station in Brisbane scored double-figures in the overall ratings.
With the end of the year, a bit of reflection on how the Melbourne radio stations have fared over the last twenty years. Here’s a list of the top 5 stations (average for all surveys) for every five years:
Radio is becoming an older person’s game - in 2017, the top two stations are talk and the top 4 stations are aimed at older demographics. With yellow shading identifying the year where a station hit its highest ratings, Gold and Smooth from a music station viewpoint have been the beneficiaries.
The overall Top 5 share provides a general indicator of competition. This obviously increased with licences issued for Nova100 (in 2002) and Vega 91.5 (in 2005). However, the drop in Top 5 share in 2012 and 2017 indicates that other players (incl community and DAB) are being more competitive.
The Gold prize goes to 3AW for the constant number one position. The Silver goes to Nova 100 as the most successful launch by a country mile with year 1 ending as #4 in the market. Bronze goes to Fox for holding on, especially in the face of Nova’s launch, but the challenge is really on now for Fox with the older demographics taking over.
The wooden spoon has a number of contenders, as there are have been some absolutely shockers - Mix101.1 rated 6.4 in 2002, that’s a massive drop . (3MMM still rated 7.9 in 2002). I think the actions of ARN in dumping TTFM for Mix were just a bad call. As KIIS101.1 in 2017 had an average rating of 6.5, the station’s mojo is still MIA. Anyway, the current winner has to be Magic1278 to TLS (enough documented on other threads!), even though its not been in the Top 5 - it takes a committed effort to end up with a rating of 0.3 within a year of relaunch. It makes the much discussed launch of MTR1377 seem quite successfull.
Have a great New Year’s everyone…and enjoy the ratings battle for 2018!
Like in Melbourne, radio in Sydney is becoming an older person’s game in 2017, with 4 out of 5 stations in the top 5 aiming at the older demographics. This was helped by WS repositioning themselves from “Classic Hits” to “Pure Gold” after the arrival of KIIS, as well as the launch & establishment of Smooth.
It’s worth noting that 2DAY has been in the top 3 for most of that period, but by 2017, it fell out dramatically after Kyle & Jackie O jumped ship from 2DAY to KIIS in 2014, the latter having a big rise from when it was Mix 106.5 (its best year under that brand was in 1998, when it had an average rating share of 9.5).
It’s a similar story to why 2UE fell when Alan Jones jumped ship from there to 2GB, causing that station to practically rise from out of nowhere. Unlike with 2DAY in more recent years, 2UE continued to rate quite competitively with 2GB & managed to stay in the Top 5 until John Laws left at the end of 2007.
“Other” stations would have included 3EA (SBS), 3MBS, ABCFM, 3RMT (now 3RRR), 3CR and any outer stations such as 3GL from Geelong or 3UL from Warragul.
It should also be noted that 3MP was less than 2 years old at this point and appeared to be on the rise at the expense of 3XY, which up until 3MP’s arrival had been hovering around the 20 per cent share mark.
This link covers Survey 2, 1997 to Survey 2, 1999 (the column on the far left is supposed to be 2/99, not 1/99, plus the 2CA share in 2/99 was incorrect on that page (correct figures here & then scroll down to “Canberra Survey 2/99 released”).
It’s interesting to see JJJ almost knocking Mix 106.3 off the #2 spot back in Survey 1, 1999, although FM104.7 was well ahead of the others, in which they had a more rock-skewed format back then, despite being part of the Today Network, which included Martin/Molloy (which ended at the end of 1998) & Hot 30 on its programming line-up.
