How can you tell? List of songs haven’t been published yet!
Well there’s twice as many songs for a start… Based on last year’s 4BH countdown it wasn’t bad, but the 4KQ Easter countdown went a lot deeper in terms of rarer hits.
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Strange 2ue is not doing the easter top 500 as well for some reason
Oops for Ace Radio. It looks like they forgot to take down the voting page for the Magic 1278 Easter 500 countdown even though the voting is now closed
4KQ’s Easter countdown was based on Brisbane charts so featured many songs that were ‘big in Brisbane’. Cloudland favorites that gave the locals lots of warm fuzzies.
4BH’s countdown is just a reflection of their everyday playlist. For example, every time BBQ Bob plays Elvis he says ‘4BH, Brisbane’s home of the King’, so there’s plenty of Elvis in there. But no obscure Brisbane bands from the 70s, because 4BH doesn’t play that sort of tat.
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Another song that seems to be popular in Brisbane is Rock Lobster by the B-52s.
It’s a real stinker of a song.
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I disagree. I like this song
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For those wondering - the full lists are updated now on their websites.
4BH #1 was Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody.
Magic 1278 #1 was Eagles - Hotel California.
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I still wonder why 2ue did not take part of the Easter 500 Countdown for
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Well, this is true, just shows the diverse tapestry of Australia that one city is culturally different than another in music tastes, personally being from Western Sydney and now Living in Brisbane again since January. I like the song
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In its last survey 4KQ, had a share of 10.2% and a cume of 304,000.
4BH finished 2024 with an 11.6% share and a cume of 263,000. So not bad.
Fast forward to 2025 and now 4BH has slipped to an 8.1% share and a cume of 220,000. Notably, they’ve shed a sixth of their streaming listeners.
What’s causing this slide? Are listeners getting a little tired of the format (which is a lot tighter and more repetitive than 4KQ) or are there other reasons? On AM have some listeners ditched the music for more talk in the lead-up to the election? Or have some music listeners just made the switch to MMM, Smooth or River?
I’m wondering whether last year’s ratings success was just an aberration and is BH now just settling into its ‘new normal’? Or is the slide set to continue?
Maybe rather than worrying about what order the same old tired songs should be played in, it’s time for a playlist re-fresh.
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I can’t say this for certain, but had they known how 4BC & 4BH was going to play out, even with 4BH on a slide, would they have done the frequency/transmission site switch, given I believe 882 & the Wynnum West site to have better coverage across Brisbane than 1116 from Nudgee?
The 693, 1278 swap in Melbourne with 3AW & Magic, & the sites being on opposite sides of Melbourne was probably really a no brainier, to have 3AW on the better site/frequency, given that city definitely prefers talkback radio over music (yes I know there’s lots of music that rates well on FM, but 3AW on AM still out-rates all of them most of the time, with the same in Sydney), but did they think Brisbane was going to be replicated when Brisbane clearly & pretty much always has preferred music radio over talkback.
In Sydney there’s technically no need or point in doing a frequency/TX site swap between 873 2GB & 954 2UE, given the frequencies aren’t that far apart & neither is the transmission sites, being only a few hundred meters apart.
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Good points. When the switch happened, 4BC was on 7.2% and 4BH a measly 2.5% (4KQ was on 10.2%). Nine’s focus was clearly on giving 4BC the better signal and they were probably happy enough with 4BH scratching around getting twos and threes (4KQ didn’t become SEN until eight months later).
So you’re right, had they’ve known about the prospects of 4BH becoming Brisbane’s solitary commercial music station, they might have kept things the way they were.
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I don’t think 4BC’s demise was due to the switch. It was due to the failed gamble of resurrecting LG&M following 4KQ and the miserable attempt to introduce only SOME classic hits into its News Talk format.
When K&J were up for grabs, I didn’t see 2UE or 2SM go for them. Only a music station like Mix106.5 had a go. LG&M should’ve been left for maybe Triple M. Not for 4BC.
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I think the problems for 4BC set in long before LG&M. The Sydney networking really started the decline. I get what they tried to do, but yes in retrospect they would have been better off moving to 4BH or River 949. I couldn’t understand why ARN didn’t keep them on and move them to River. Seemed to be a no brainer to me.
I’m not sure though whether a full time talkback format will work in Brisbane and Perth in years to come. I think they should probably have a more full-service format on 4BC. News, talk, sport and music. Still some AM stations in North America offering full-service formats.
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Yes I agree the playlist needs a refresh. I used to be a big 4BH listener post 4KQ but it just sounds daggy and stale now.
It wouldn’t hurt to introduce more 80s and 90s into the mix. Or go back to their easy listening roots seeing as we don’t have a Smooth FM* here
- DAB doesn’t count.
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I wasn’t suggesting the 4BC demise was because of the switch, it was purely programming.
The switch was because Nine Radio thought 4BC was going to be the better higher rating station & wanted the best signal/coverage on air for it, to gain more listeners with less listener reception complaints, but in my eyes that was a false basement of thinking Brisbane would & was following Sydney & Melbourne with talkback success, when reality was that it wasn’t/wouldn’t, so the switch was pointless & somewhat backwards to what’s there now.
Had 4KQ not collapsed & 4BC been programmed with local shows of interest to Brisbane instead of piping Sydney into it, the switch & 4BC being the better station warranting it to have the better signal/coverage over 4BH may have been plausible.
If Nine radio can’t come up with some better local interest programming for 4BC, personally I’d be swapping the stations back to where they were, frequency & TX site wise.
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Their playlist can be repetitive sometimes,it needs a refresh.They do tend to flog the same songs
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Or Nine could close 4BC altogether and lease the 882 frequency to Ace who could launch an easy-listening format, similar to the old 4BH or current 3MP.
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