I heard a very interesting interview on Fitzy & Wippa this morning with Steven Palovic, promoter, who brought Nirvana to Australia in the early 90’s which even included Canberra.
One of his most important tasks on the Australian tour was for him to hang out, and keep a watch on Kurt Cobain to make sure he did not OD.
Where this relates to radio history is, there was only one Canberra radio interview with Nirvana, and Steven took the band into KIX 106, but the station knew nothing about it, and they were completely unprepared for the interview, this pissed off the band.
The interview was actually with FM104.7 and not KIX 106, with the band being taken to the wrong station.
At their Canberra gig Nirvana then told the crowd that KiX 106 was the worst station, and other words that if I included in this post would result in it getting flagged and pulled by the moderators. BTW the boss of KIX 106 was at the gig when the band was mouthing off about his station. Very interesting story.
Ratings don’t always lead to higher rates. It so depends so much on who is listening. Are they 12, 37 or 81 years old? Do they earn $400 a week or $3000?
I remember them playing much the same songs back then in the 70s when I was young living there with my family . I also remember receiving some Brisbane stations long distance on my old radio/cassette player at night
Indeed 4IP and 4KQ was like local stations on both coasts. Also on the Sunshine Coast, 4GG could be received due to the water path from the Gold Coast. And vice versa with 4NA/SS coming in on the Gold Coast in areas closest to the water.
I am enjoying listening to The Frankster Archieves. I listened to a clip on 2UW in 78 and 2WS in 1981. It so great to hear the ads everything. So far the audio quality is excellent.
One thing much better then was the news service. So much better than even 2GB today. No disrespect to the readers today. You can just tell they had more people in a newsroom back then. I think the turning point was in the 90s.
I know the internet has killed off the newspaper and newsroom especially at radio stations but it is nice to reflect and appreciate that some aspects were better back then (not everything).
