SCA have blown their dough. Nowhere near worth $80M today.
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Add to that if they had invested the $80 mil in Sydney real estate back then, they would have $500 mil now.
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Yeah but when you factor in the income 2day has produced for them since 1989 that 80M would have paid for itself many times.
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Today (1st June) marks 25 years since 2WS (now WSFM) in Sydney converted from 1224AM to 101.7FM, which happened at 8:10am during Hans Torv & Kayley Harris’ breakfast show. It become Sydney’s 3rd commercial FM station, the first in almost 13 years since 2DAY & 2MMM went to air.
The first song played on FM was “Simply The Best” by Tina Turner & Jimmy Barnes
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If I’m not mistaken, it was also with the FM conversion that 2WS officially became a Sydney-wide broadcaster (as opposed to being a Western Sydney station on AM)?
Meanwhile the old 1224AM frequency/transmitter is now used by 2RPH and the old Seven Hills studios where 2WS had their big FM conversion party a quarter of a century ago has since become the home of Hope 103.2 after WSFM moved to the current ARN Sydney studios at North Ryde in the Early 2000s.
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Here’s the playlist of the first hour of 2WS-FM that @SydneyCityTV posted back in August 2016: Radio Stations - Music Logs
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7QT officially commenced broadcasting on the 29 May 1937 as a station to serve Queenstown Tasmania.
In 1939, 7QT operated with only three permanent employees and it boasted a “Chum’s Club” of nearly one thousand.
In 1987 7QT was renamed 7XS because an FM translator was installed on Mt. Read to serve Rosebery, Zeehan, Tullah, Waratah and Savage River. It was considered at the time inappropriate to continue with the 7QT call-sign which effectively labelled it as just a Queenstown station.
In 1994 7XS installed an additional FM translator in Strahan.
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Coffs and Kempsey stations prior to acquisition by DMG, were they in common ownership by an earlier ownership consortium including the Gamble family, other Riverina families and Macquarie Bank?
Not sure who owned 2MC/ROX and 2CS/FM105.5 back then.
According to this link, both 2CS & 2MC were locally owned separately in 1993-94. At around 1995-96, Rod Gamble’s Broadcast Media Group had purchased 2CS, in which the company was then bought out by DMG in late 1996. In 1997, DMG then purchased 2MC/Rox FM (who remained locally owned up until that point) and by 1999, both FM105.5 & Rox FM were rebranded as Star FM. In early 2000, both 2MC & 2CS moved to the FM band.
Under DMG’s ownership, 2MC & 2CS had a identical music format with “The Best Songs of All Time”. At present, due to the significant overspill of the Mid North Coast stations from Kempsey, SCA allowed Triple M Coffs Coast to have a different format to that of its Mid North Coast station, in which the former has the “Greatest Hits from the 70s to Now” format, whilst the latter has the “Classic Hits” format.
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Thanks for that post about NSW Mid North Coast radio history, quite interesting reading as always TV_E! 
I’m guessing that before the local solus broadcaster launched their FM station in 1997, 105.5FM from Coffs Harbour was (and probably still is - along with 106.3 once that came online - knowing the quality of commercial radio in Grafton) quite popular with Graftonians?
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Correct, it was Hot in that era. Coverage was good enough into Grafton then, I wonder why.
On the subject of commercial radio in Grafton, 2GF (and New 104.7 when it came on-air in late 1997) was locally owned by the Dougherty family until they sold it to Caralis in 1999, which is within the same year that Caralis acquired 2HD/New FM in Newcastle & later 2SM in Sydney.
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I recall 2GF/FM104.7 being owned by Westlawn Investments just prior to the sale to Caralis - not sure if they are the same as the Dougherty family…
FM 105.5 started testing in July 1997. I was on holidays at Sawtell at the time and remember it appearing on the dial out of the blue one afternoon. I was very fond of the old Rox FM, too- a great ‘holiday station’.
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Yes, Westlawn is the Dougherty family. Not quite Warren Buffet but they’ve done well with their investment business. Bill offered a good price & despite them capably operating the station, it was considered worthwhile to reinvest.
Rather Bill buying than it become another zombie franchise of the bigger ownerships.
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I can remember listening to Rox FM on my way up to Coffs for holidays on New Years Day 1994, completely unaware at the time that they had only just started the day before and also unaware that they were run by 2MC. Back then they only had the 105.1 transmitter, with 102.3 starting about 6 months later. I could tell that the transmitter was at Mount Yarrahappini because when we approached, the stereo indicator on my Sony Walkman appeared without the headphones (which acted as the FM antenna)
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Yes, August 1994 is when 102.3 started.
Not sure why there was a delay to get 102.3 to air.
Pretty sure it was power supply issues from ramblings I’ve read online
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I definitely remember Rox in July 1994; they were thrashing the heck out of Electric Hippies- Greedy People at the time. It’s a great song and one I’ll always associate with the station and region. The Mechie Show continues this legacy on the B’s.
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