Matty Harrison from NewFm’s Novos is leaving. He’ll be heading to Triple M Sydney from mid May.
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In what role at Triple M?
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87.8 in Newcastle say they are transmitting on a Satellite? How many people would actually listen to a radio station on Satellite?
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VAST Network? Not necessarily in Newcastle though.
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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.
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VAST is on a different satellite.
Maybe they have a satellite dish receiver at the transmitter sites?
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I believe that’s how it works at the many small towns that re-transmit 7 & 10 Central and Nine Imparja on VHF/UHF.
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Thanks to fantastic new program manager at ABC Newcastle, Rob Mailer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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NEW have adopted a Star 104.5 music library. New and old music but still a bit iffy.
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Mostly due to a lack of effective competition, if i am going to be totally honest.
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I’d say you’re right. Hit Brekkie have a great product too, of course caters to a slightly different demographic. And the only other “competition” is New Fm; and well, they don’t really have anything good happening for them.
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100% agree. There is no competition anymore. It probably shows my ages remembering when 2NX/2KO and 2HD were all fighting for top spot. Its now an easy job for any SCA programmer in Newcastle.
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Also the fact that Hit 106.9 and 102.9 Triple M have identical playlists to their Central Coast sister stations.
Back in the time when there was competition the Central Coast stations ran different playlists to their Newcastle stations. Now SCA are just running on autopilot in all of these markets.
The problem also is that Bill is running on autopilot with New fm / 2HD too. He has never put up a decent fight, and pays the lowest wages.
So SCA don’t have to do much to maintain their dominance.
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I can’t help wonder how wonderful the market would be if Bill pumped cash into 2HD/NewFM. It would probably be the most competitive regional market in Australia.
Someone needs to tell Bill that he would get a return 10-fold from his investment.
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