Quite sad that they’re having to “cover off” 2Day FM by imitating the old skool format. Not a single original idea at this network. Perhaps they have been tipped off that 2Day are set for a decent increase in the next survey.
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They are now mouldy oldie Friday Feels. 
I just want to know who they’re supposed to be targeting now?
Is Nova supposed to be like the new Pure Gold for the 35-45 year olds?
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What is this about? They celebrate being on air at 6am?
6am b’fast start on 969 has been consistent since launch, but what was different in 2001 onwards for many years was that the station had a full compliment of on air staff around the clock leading into each weekday b’fast shift at least.
Sydney is a 24hr city, there are congested pinch points at 5am that only get worse yet bfast team is not on air.
This has been an effort to get people listening to Fitzy and Wippa from the start of the show at 6am.
The Six O’Clock Club features content that is exclusive to the first hour and considered to be “secret”. They won’t mention stuff that happens after 7am and if any caller does they pretend that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Also callers can get a numbered key ring to be part of the club. They go into a draw and can win prizes every day. Your name and number gets called out and you have 15 minutes to call in and win.
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Points for the big effort, sounds interesting way to build cume and TSL for the 6am hour.
He has been on the role since the station first went to air in December 2002. His last day will be on 29th June.
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Wow, he’s a once in a lifetime GM. Can’t replace the great results he got but not always a favourite of some staff.
Why does Nova 937 Perth have a different playlist and sweepers to the rest of Nova, Nova Brisbane obviously has a bit of a different playlist because they know it wont affect it’s ratings as they consistently rate #1
Or they know it does affect its ratings, which is in fact, why they are #1
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Yes exactly, but why is Perth different??
It’s because the markets, and other stations available, are different.
Sydney and Melbourne are considered to be very similar, as they have the same number of FM stations and most agencies and big companies being based on one of the two. The radio companies also have their senior staff across both cities, so it makes sense to them for their radio offerings to be almost identical. In these cities, Nova compete against Fox/2Day and KIIS, therefore making a very CHR format.
In Brisbane, 97.3 is part owned by Nova and skews towards older music than KIIS, so leaves more of a CHR gap - therefore Nova don’t want to compete against it too much - they prefer to focus on competing against hit105 - so the format needs to skew towards the wider variety and “OldSkool” format that the SCA stations go for.
In Perth, the market is really different - SCA have Mix instead of Triple M. There’s no real KIIS station with 96FM being more of a mix between Gold/WS and Triple M. Which leaves a different gap in the market to what exists in the other cities. Going full CHR would be too narrow in a market where the other stations have wider formats.
Adelaide is an odd one - logically it should go more towards a Brisbane type playlist, as the stations on offer are similar, but I think Nova have had a bit of laziness towards their Adelaide format. Being the smallest market, it’s suffered cuts earlier than the other stations, and taking the Sydney log is the easy lazy option and doesn’t interfere with what they’re doing elsewhere. They’ve also rated reasonable well for a while, so there’s no real incentive for them to do anything different.
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Thanks, appreciate the explanation. Looks like wikipedia have no idea what the format of Nova really is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(radio_network) saying it is Hot AC where as KIIS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIIS_106.5 is classified as Top 40 (CHR)
Ignore what Wikipedia says; the reverse is more accurate…
but remember that radio stations here don’t fit into the neat little boxes that most American commercial stations fall into. In Melbourne, three stations play ‘Top 40’ pop music, but all three have different playlists that skew in different directions. That’s partly due to history (ie: KIIS being a rebadged Mix 101.1) and also partly due to the network effect (see Nova 100’s lack of local announcers and music log outside of breakfast).
Sure, there is a core overlap between Fox, KIIS and Nova, but they’re not identical. Just very very close, perhaps.
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I concur - they also have a strong ‘youth’ competitor in Fresh 92.7, now set to be headed by former 919 GM Dave Shearer.
Melbourne is an interesting market - I maintain that the original Sounds Different format could still work here; despite two strong community stations (RRR and PBS), there’s definitely a gap in the market for an alternative music-skewing station that’s only realised to some extent by MMM Modern Digital.
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New Sunday night Nova schedule:
7pm Smallzy
9pm Nova Confidential
10pm Fitzy and Wippa
Of course, and mostly because our offering and range of stations is nowhere near as large. In America everything fits in a neat little box as there are hundreds of stations runnings hundreds of different formats - and there’s enough population to make more niche formats work.
To be truly effective, the ‘sounds different’ format is too costly for modern radio budgets I’d suggest. I’d say if it truly still had a chance of working, Nova wouldn’t have dumped it - they did try and stick with it for a good 10 years (ish).
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Also fresh 40 has now moved to Sunday 4pm.
So now Saturday’s 6am-6pm dual programming across Syd, Mel, ADL, BNE with BNE almost exactly the same as Sydney log.
Sunday 6am-4pm dual programming across all the above. Global 40 axed
What has caused the change as Nova 96.9 was mostly the highest rating CHR on weekends?
Former PD. Now he is GM at Fresh.
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To me the “no more than two ads in a row” approach was entwined with the “sounds different” format. Unfortunately, that doesn’t generate as much money. With Murdoch more focussed on generating coin compared to DMG, I can’t see a return to “sounds different”. I also agree that I think a “sounds different” format could still work in Melbourne, it just won’t happen now.
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It’s hard to be profitable and cool at the same time…