Oh wow! When was 4BH talk? Thatās interesting.
About 1993-1994
It was very brief. They Idād as New 882. I donāt think it even lasted a year, and coincided with 4KQ beating B105 to No. 1 overall in Brisbane as the 4BH audience flocked to 4KQ.
Hereās the Sydney radio ratings for Survey 8 of 1994.
| Rank | Station | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2UE | 14.7 |
| 2 | 2WS | 10.7 |
| 3 | 2DAY | 9.5 |
| 4 | 2MMM | 8.2 |
| 5 | 2JJJ | 7.4 |
| 6 | GOLD 1269 | 7.1 |
| 7 | Mix 106.5 | 6.9 |
| 8 | 2BL | 6.5 |
| 9 | 2GB | 4.7 |
| 10 | 2CH | 4.4 |
| 11 | 2KY | 4.1 |
| 12 | ABC-FM | 2.9 |
| 13 | 2RN | 2.0 |
Really interesting. I had no idea Gold 1269 was so successful, particularly relative to the long established 2CH. Also, was it then bought by Carallis and blown up to become a talk station?
I think it had a couple more ownership changes and format changes (e.g. KICK-AM Country?) before it settled down with Caralis.
From what I can determine, the last time ABC/774/3LO rated below 5% was in Survey 1/1963 when it rated 2.6%. This was just before ABC did a revamp of its two radio networks and flipped program formats between them, bringing light entertainment and general programming back to 3LO, and 3AR becoming the fine music/specialist talk station. (Although 3LO would still have its schedule interrupted by large slabs of parliament broadcasts for the next 25 years)
3AR 6.3
3LO 2.6
3UZ 28.1
3DB 22.2
3KZ 12.3
3AW 15.6
3XY 5.5
3AK 6.3
Other 0.8
In the next survey, 3LO rated 5.9%
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=C35VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pZYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7015%2C3784210
What stations were there in the 'Other" category in 1963? 3GL?
could have been any of the neighbouring regionalsā¦ 3GL, 3UL, 3BA, for instance. The airwaves were a lot less crowded in those days so there might have been considerable long distance listening, particularly at night?
I am slightly obsessed with the Sydney radio wars of the 1980s. Does anyone know somewhere on the internet where we can access surveys from that decade?
Google searches will often bring up this thread. I have accessed the Sydney Morning Heraldās archives in the past. Am I missing another source?
Obsessions can be good, even better when we can indulge.
The google newspaper archive for SMH (up to 1990) is OK but very patchy (lots of issues, weeks and months missing!) and the search function is not great (i.e., really bad!!)
ProQuest has a more thorough (and indexed) archive of The Age and SMH up to 2002, and its search function is much much better than google, but you may need a membership with a library that has ProQuest access (as the State Library Victoria does, which is how I access it)
Looks like the State Library of NSW also has access to ProQuest ProQuest Central (ProQuest) | Eresources | State Library of NSW
One thing to note is that in those days there were only four surveys per year, so if you only see half as many ratings results, thatās why.
Thank you for this. I was unaware, but my Uni has access so it will be fun to jump into the Fairfax archives.
As an avid DX listener of 2SM (and 3XY) in the 80s, 1988 was probably the saddest year of my life. I remember when the Comedy Company parodied the whole āLite & Easy 1269ā phenomenon. Interestingly, 2SM was apparently rating a 6.9 before the format change.
I have all the topline data thanks to decades of research, happy to answer any specific questions you might have.
Thanks HUFF. I worked in radio in the 1980s and have many individual survey and I have posted many of them in this thread. I also have a few old B&T magazines with surveys.
If you have the Sydney survey results for 1980, 1981 and 1985, my brain will explode.
I have already saved many of the other surveys you have posted. Thank you for lighting my brain up with my obsession.
With about 85% of the market covered in these 1982 figures, Iām thinking there would be a lot of stations in Sydney that would have made up the remaining āotherāā¦ 2BL, ABC-FM, 2JJ, Radio 2, 2MBSā¦ et al.
I would imagine 2BL would have been rating better than 2DAY. Also was Uncle Doug doing breakfast on 2JJ? And was it in 1982 when he went to 2MMM?
Reason why I ask is the Uncle Doug Wikipedia page says:
Mulray served as breakfast host, which lifted the ratings share from 2.6 percent to a staggering 18 percent.
But the ratings posted above donāt seem to paint that picture.
Itās a shame no one has any for Brisbane ,the 80s Iād be most interested in
i think those high shares came later in the 80s/early 90s?
I have them