At least the pirate did their homework in choosing 89.3, a clear frequency in Newcastle and not likely to interfere with anything. I think there is a low powered mining relay somewhere in the Hunter Valley on 89.3, though.
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We need more pirate stations to shake up Australian radio.
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There are twoā¦ 2NM at Liddell mine, and Power FM at Bulga Mine, this one can be received in elevated Newcastle areas like Cardiff Heights.
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Does NewFM do Feel Good Fridays?
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More stations need to be Adele free all the time. The audience core remaining listening to NEW should be wake up call the programmers to return to a playlist more towards rock.
If digital ever happens for Newcastle, they could run rock for NEW and the 80ās to now network feed on a digital station.
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We already have Triple M doing rock.
I think NEW would be best served with a more contemporary format, akin to Star104.5, that covers 80s to now with a good blend of rock and pop.
Promotions and imaging are NEW FMs Achilles heel. They donāt spend enough $$$$ in this area.
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Perhaps NEW should invest (unlikely with Bill) in music research? Find the gap, find what tests well and go from there?
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Agree, he needs to invest in more than just research though, talent, promotions, imaging also need $$$$.
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Yes.
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I think a lot of people in Newcastle do listen to Star 104.5. I donāt see why NewFM couldnāt copy what Star 104.5 is doing. Why not? Itās working great for them on the Central Coast. NewFM could really pull it off if done right.
I listen to Star 104.5 online every couple of weeks. Really slick station. @Radiohead is on the money. If NewFM got their product right along with promotions and imaging it could really make a big impact. They just need to have the discipline to follow it through.
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I agree with above. Make NewFM return to REAL rock. Iāve said it before - share the log with sister station B-Rock and run the network feed separately, or from up & coming announcers based in Sydney like they used to do in the 131009.net days.
New could easily skew younger than Triple M and their current audience will be fine given Hit106.9 plays more variety these days.
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Young people donāt really listen to rock these days, they like the doof doof stuff.
Thatās why Triple M skews older for rockā¦ as Sydney tried getting younger listeners with a modern rock format about 5-10 years ago and they just werenāt there.
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I completely forgot about that experiment they did on Triple M Sydney. I look at Triple M mid 90ās to early 00ās as the benchmark for any rock station. If there was a way to replicate that formula Iām sure they would have. I think Newcastle canāt handle two rock stations. The Triple M brand has surprisingly stuck well (probably the only SCA convert that has?). No way would NewFM hold up against that. They have all the ingredients to make a great Adult Contemporary station.
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Yes, while I think many of us would love to see New FM return to itās rock roots I think in reality itās future would be more successful as an AC station. It could still play a few rock tracks. Surprisingly even mainstream softer AC stations in the US like KOST-FM in LA do still play some rock tracks and make it work well.
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I used a VPN to listen to this station today. Really great format and executed so well. Do you think a few Australian A/C stations would use them as inspiration?
Reading into the last 2 years of surveys in Newcastle. If NewFM were serious they could potentially win the 25-54 m/f demo with a disciplined A/C format. It would take them 3-5 years but in the long term it would become a great cash cow for Bill.
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Itās definitely a possibilityā¦ SCA have struggled elsewhere when good competition is put in front of them ā¦ they are only really #1 and #2 in Newcastle at the moment because the local competition isnāt strong,
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If 97.3 in Brisbane and Mix 102.3 in Adelaide copied KOST they would both pull away from the pack, no doubt in my mind.
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2HD OB with Richard King from the Newcastle Caravan, Camping, Lifestyle Expo this weekend.
Iām mostly interested in whatās in the mobile OB rack.
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Thereās two wireless mic receivers and three wireless headphone transmitters (all Sennheiser) below what I believe is a radio tuner for audio at the location. At the bottom is obviously a rack mounted mixer which judging by the faders isnāt being used - and since theyāre using the larger (but discontinued) tieline unit which has four mic inputs and a fifth stereo input, I would guess the mics and headphones are just plugged directly into the tieline.
Canāt be sure about the laptop use in this instance, but at some BOG stations they load up Simian and have a fully operating playout system live on location - saving the need for a panel op. At a guess though thatās not the case here.
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