I’d love to hear NewFm with more slick production, and adapt the playlist a bit. Some song choices, especially in their 90s lunch hour and weekend four plays are quite obscure. It’s music like that, that alienates their audience. I think they need to refine the music library. As you say, like Star 104.5. Keep some 80s and 90s, and dabble more into 00s and today.
Bold fantasy, but what if NewFm lived up to it’s name and played “new” music more often. Maybe even follow what the edge in Sydney did, and only play songs that are x amount years old. Tighten the playlist a bit.
the music sounds like its just a genarate and move onto other task’s… the problem with slicker production, bill doesnt pay for production suites at all so its what ever you can find. and you can here it on air, nothing compliments anything, sounds like an mp3 player with some branding
Hit 106.9 lineup this long weekend:
Friday: Nic Kelly and MC
Saturday: Nic Kelly and Pez
Sunday & Monday: Sean Brown
Great talent, and some great music too! It does makes you think, the recent SCA casual jobs they’ve got going, will it ease the workloads for these announcers as they all are full time (some in other markets)?
NewFm lineup this long weekend:
Friday: Brandon and Jackson
Saturday: Jt and Brandon
Sunday: Brandon and Michael
Monday: Brandon and Matty
Again, great talent in Brandon and Jackson. Music still a bit off at times. Good to see them experiment with new songs in recent weeks (Mimi Webb, Camilla Cabello). A bit over hearing Gayle “ABCDEF” next to a Bon Jovi album track. Newfm need to stick in one lane of music.
2HD lineup:
Pete Davis on air Friday, Saturday and Monday. He’s great! Dave Sutherland & Cochrane complimenting the lineup. Caught a bit of Rick Dunlop in the wee hours of Saturday I think it was? He’s not too bad. Plays a bit more music than talk I found. Didn’t catch who was on Monday afternoon?
Didn’t catch Triple M I’m afraid. I know Ben Stevenson (Hit Coffs) has been doing some time on the M’s in Gosford. Sounds great. Maybe worth getting him on one of the SCA stations in Newcastle?
Yes, there’s only a small number of areas in Newcastle eligible for VAST, like parts of Caves Beach, that don’t get reliable terrestrial reception. Despite the region already having 1 transmitter and 5 relays.
Local power outage due to storm last night took 2HD FM 90.5 at Belmont North off air from around 5:40pm - 7:55pm, Belmont North DTV translator at the same site was also off air for the same times.
Looking at the current power outages around Newcastle this morning, it looks like Mt Sugarloaf also has power out since around 7:45pm last night, so all Newcastle FM Radio & DTV from there will be on generator power, all seem to be continuing on as normal.
Growing up as a kid in Newcastle, I always remembered New FM felt like the “modern station”, lots of great music… that spark now seems long gone. I feel like they could benefit from an “Edge” styled rebrand a lot more, especially after the last survey result, go further to capture the 18-25 demo.
Agree that NEW is a shadow of the once great station it was in its first few years, but given Newcastle is not a big market, not sure that going younger will work.
I think they need a clear identity, it seems a bit vague to me and the playlist seems a bit all over the place.
They could do worse than what Star 104.5 does down the M1, that is working against effectively the same competition NEW has in Newcastle.