A two transmitter licence limit would be a great idea for LPONs; they would no longer be a cheap vehicle for commercial operations to gain revenue (TAB, Vision, Kix Country etc.). The shell company loophole could be closed by introducing control rules similar to that for commercial broadcasting services, but this might be pretty onerous for the regulator to follow up.
You would have niche broadcasting with plenty of locally tailored programming- exactly the intention of the scheme when it was introduced with the Broadcasting Services Act in 1992.
I think the decision to remove the 5 year term for narrowcast licences is part of the problem. They should be a fixed five years after which there is an auction and the incumbent (or any related entities) cannot re-bid.
According to the website - it looks Radio Rhythm as they were known - have moved down the dial to 1665AM.
According to the ACMA database - 1665AM is now owned by a “Suneel R Assi”- with the ABC Bald Hills transmitter site listed as the location.
And it also says the 1053AM licence is still owned by Gumnut Nominees, whom run the original Rete Italia radio network. My general assumption is they just lease out the frequency these days.
Also worth noting that Vision still also own the 1674AM licence which is based at Yatala. And that 1611AM has changed hands from the long-term owner Flora Smith who tried to get Hospital Radio up and running for a couple of decades. It’s now owned by “Tri-Vision Media - 3VM Pty Ltd” - a domain lookup of the website reveals it to registered to Joseph Safi of the Consortium of Australian Media Services, whom used to run Flame FM in Bankstown.
Thanks @glen2006 for looking up the database, had only enough time to publish the post and no more to have a look.
Has 1665 been on air in Brisbane before? Bald Hills site is perfect as it’s the required 30km from 1656 in Sunnybank Hills (cnr Calam and Compton Rds, mast sways in the wind).
Are you sure from UK? What website?
Radio Nostalgia gives out a (seemingly) Aussie mobile ph number for requests (04xxxxxxx) whilst in UK
their mobile ph numbers begin with 07 prefix supposedly.
Just curious.
On a recent trip to Delegate NSW, noticed they have vision FM on 88.0. My guess by its range it would be likely 1 watt of power. Also noted that there no LPONs on air at Thredbo (87.6, 87.8 or 88.0)
1620 is back on air on the Gold Coast. Italian I think, couldn’t be sure, it is terribly distorted. I am amazed the tech who turned it on wouldn’t have immediately tuned it off upon realising how shambolic it sounded.
In an Uber and driver is listening to the Punjabi? Station on 1674am in Melbourne. Is there a list of all off bands in Melbourne somewhere? I’d love to see every single listed frequency.
I assume some owners lease out their licence to broadcast.
According to ABN records “Labor Media Pty Limited” was previously known as “Sydney Narrowcasters Pty Limited”. They also previously had the business names “2KM” and “2 GAY FM”.
Not sure if it actually went to air, but wasn’t that the proposed Gay & Lesbian station for Sydney during the mid-90s which was owned (at the time) by John Singleton & Barry Unsworth?
Not really sure whether I’m posting this in the right thread, but 107.9FM is back on air here in Sydney.
Dead air at the moment but knowing previous years there’ll probably be a test transmission (usually including ads/music but no talk breaks - has aired clean music beds during test mode in previous years but not in the last couple AFAIK) of Show Radio from AFTRS on-air tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. Hopefully reception will be good for a decent amount of Sydney this year, unlike 2018 when it was severely affected by the continuing presence of an open carrier which was the legacy of a previous temporary station on that frequency.
Still dead air on 107.9FM this afternoon so I guess Show Radio will be on-air tomorrow…unless of course there’s technical difficulties (which is quite possible, I remember the station being off air for the first day or two of the Show in 2015).