And yet Gold 104.3 in Melbourne did have a live announcer (who also happened to be their MD) - why you wouldn’t follow your sister station is absurd in my opinion
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Even Nova had George Michael songs playing every few hours that day and their playlist almost never has 80s music
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Easy and The 80s digital stations were also non-stop George Michael.
That’s odd that The 80s could reprogram but WS didn’t, given they are both run by ARN.
The only thing I suspect is that The 80s might be programmed out of Melbourne?
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10.45am: I was at Ramsgate Beach buying a flat white and a girl in the cafe told me that George has died. I got in my car.
If a PM dies I would tune to 702. If Bieber died I would tune to KIIS, 2Day or Nova.
But if George Michael, Madonna or Kylie died I would tune to WSFM.
I did tune to WSFM first on Tuesday. They had a short story on his death in the 11am news, played Faith and then went back to normal music. Nova played Faith - fair enough. Nova reacted exactly the same as WS. Hmmmm.
I then tune to 95.3 and it was non-stop George Michael. Instant and reacting to the shock news. It was a radio station with a human in the studio. Pure class.
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‘It was a radio station with a human in the studio.’ - that’s what radio should be. Immediate, live, interactive with its audience.
Anything less is an iPod on the air.
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Even 4KQ had a live announcer on air Boxing Day.
What the hell is up with WS?
Meanwhile I’m currently listening to the midnight - dawn shift on BBC RADIO 2 on my BBC iplayer and they not only have a very engaging presenter live on air expertly weaving some George Michael tracks into her normal show, but also engaging in some low key chat and interactions with listeners on all manner of subjects… Sigh…
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Agreed. That’s radio’s best asset. Switch the mic on and you are breaking something or informing people of news. Even if they didn’t have an announcer in the building, an on-call PD/CD would have surely been able to remote in and massage the logs?
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4KQ is running 25 Years in 25 Days again starting 1 January. As well as playing songs from different years they play TV commercials, TV themes songs plus news items.
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I love the idea of the TV themes, news items and commercials. It puts the music into perspective.
And it is exactly what music on my iPhone lacks. Context.
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Meanwhile, down in Melbourne, judging by their current playlist, Gold 104.3 is doing the A-Z of songs, starting from 9am today & will probably go throughout this week.
As for WS in Sydney, it’s just business as usual. 
It’s been over 12 months since Richard Mercer hosted “Your Song” on WSFM.
He was “taking a break”.
I thought he would have returned by now?
Has anyone heard anything…
A Google search reveals nothing and the WS website has nothing either.
Hopefully we’ll hear him again on the radio soon… His relaxing subdued presenting style was a breath of fresh air from the manic halfwits you often hear.
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Just played on WS - Adele’s “Someone Like You”
That was released in 2011. More WTF than WS.
Mind you it was followed up by one of WS’s Pure Repeats - David Bowie’s “Little China Girl” so I knew the world had not gone mad.
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Well I guess in about 5-6 years time, WSFM will be playing music that’s currently charting…
Probably due to the competition with Smooth, in which the latter is rating ahead of WS since Survey 4, 2016. FYI, Smooth played that song about 6 hours before this morning.
From my observation, Gold 104.3 doesn’t play anything by Adele nor anything from the late 00s/early 10s. In other words, Gold is more closer to its past ‘classic hits’ roots than WS is at present.
That song also gets played on Smooth quite regularly, believe it or not. In fact, it was played a little after 3pm this afternoon.
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At a cafe, TV blaring as I stood in line, Brendan Jones was on Studio 10, he said he’d been told to delay his return from 16 Jan to 23 Jan, he may have mentioned he was phoned the day before he was on Studio 10.
Interesting that WS have delayed the return of their breakfast talent. Wonder what the reason is?
The Pure Gold stations need to start copying the playlist of their NZ sister ‘Coast’. It is what a real Classic Hits/Gold station sounds like!
He’s been aware of it since December. I believe it has to do with renovations in the WSFM studio.
didn’t they do renovations for the KIIS launch back in 2014?
The KIIS side of the building was completed back in 2014 but WSFM and The Edge only had the renovations started over christmas 2016
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