Interesting to see SAFM (and B105) making a comeback.
Flashback to the old days of SAFM… with their Top 40 chart…
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I really wish Triple M would change their logo - I’ve never liked it from day 1
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Going back to 92.9 history, when they were running the Freq Club, were they doing anything else aligned to Triple M?
And same with Mix94.5 - when they had the blue globe logo, did they have any Today Network programs on the station?
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Mix 94.5 was always very independent. No network stuff at all, despite the blue globe logo.
92.9 was a weird one. They had PMFM footy (AFL), they took a package show of Tough Love with Mick Molloy. They also used to run a few competitions aligned with Triple M. I know circa 2001, Triple M stations were giving away PT Cruisers. 92.9 was the station in Perth that took that. Triple M’s positioner at the time was “90s and New Stuff”. 92.9 had that positioner, but with a Today music format.
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Of all the major commercial radio networks in this country, I think the KIIS Network logo design is the one I like least and hope to see a relaunch of next, if not closely behind the production of a consistent logo design for all of Nine Radio’s talk stations.
If I’m not mistaken, the first version(s) of the current Triple M logo was launched in 2004 however it has since been tweaked slightly since then:
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Yes, 5MMM was the first to have the new logo during their “Totally Different” phase in 2004 (as a means of undercutting Nova before they launched in Adelaide). 4MMM was next to get it.
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The “Totally Different” format in Adelaide was launched in November 2003, which also saw both Austereo stations (and its on-air presenters) swap target audiences, with SAFM targeting an older audience.
Here’s a Radioinfo article from that time: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/triple-m-adelaides-new-format-launch
And also this: https://radioinfo.com.au/news/triple-m-adelaide-turns-format-upside-down
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I believe New FM Newcastle used The faux Nova ‘Something Different’ around 2003. This was after they ditched the pure rock format which hung on until 2002.
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Advertisement in the 22 March 1983 edition of The Bulletin magazine by The State Bank of NSW about the success of 2MMM. Their first logo was great, I think.
Source: NLA Trove and YouTube
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That change in format saw New FM’s ratings drop from 10% at the end of 2002 (S4/2002, the final year of when Newcastle had 4 surveys a year) to just 6.7% in the first survey of 2003. For the record, KO & NX dominated well ahead of the others.
In a similar vein, in the first survey of the “Totally Different” format (S8/2003), 5MMM fell from 15.5% to 12.8%, whilst SAFM went up from 20.2% to 23.1%. In the following survey (S1/2004), Mix 102.3 went up 5.2% to 16.6%, with the 40-54 audience nearly doubled (16% to 31.8%), picking up audiences that were disenfranchised by 5MMM’s move to target a younger audience, as well as some from SAFM.
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2DayFM promoting the benefit of advertising in the Sydney Pink Pages, a telephone book owned by Kerry Packer. I prefer the original 2DayFM logo.
Source: NLA Trove. The Bulletin, February 1984.
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Thanks for finding these!
The 2MMM logo on the radio dial looks like a primitive form of RDS! (though not real I know).
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I found this old website of New FM Newcastle from 1997, which was 2 years before Caralis had bought the station: https://web.archive.org/web/19970302033658/http://newfm.hunterlink.net.au/
Interestingly, they were positioning themselves as a “Hit Music Station”, whilst rival NXFM (who had been bought by Austereo a year earlier) would have a “Better Music & More Of It” positioner, similar to 2DayFM at the time.
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I think Austereo wanted to have a Triple M and Today FM station in Perth after selling 96.1, but given 94.5 was an AC format, they didn’t want to mess around with it too much and PMFM and 94.5 were a package deal brought together by Jack Bendat. Ideally they would have wanted just PMFM to pair it with 96.1 Triple M. PMFM was No1 at the time and 94.5 was a distant No2
94.5 was always the odd one out, more suited to ARN, but sounding more like Triple M these days.
Interesting to see what happens next for 92.9 and 94.5
Great interview with then director of programming Craig Bruce at the time.
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Listening to Uncle Doug this morning (link below) he mentioned that the State Bank of NSW had owned Triple M Sydney for some point - does anyone know how did the bank end up owning a radio station?
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Probably because the original owners ran out of money and the bank foreclosed on the station. Same way Westpac was involved with Ten. I think that’s when Peter Harvie got involved.
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On 25 May 1998 7HT’s licence officially converted to FM as 7XXX on the frequency of 107.3MHz. The Australian Broadcasting Authority converted 7HT’s vacated frequency into an open narrowcast licence.
The TAB wanted to operate two radio stations in Hobart, one on the AM band with the frequency of 1080kHz, 7HT’s old frequency, and the other on the FM band. If this fell through then TasRadio would keep the FM licence and operate it with a similar format as 7HT. The narrowcast licence went up for auction, with a base price of $4000.
There were two bidders for the narrowcast licence, the TAB and Commercial Broadcasters, the then owners of 7HO FM. Commercial Broadcasters wanted the licence so they could trade the narrowcast licence for the TAB’s FM licence of 7XXX. This was so as not to have another commercial FM competitor in the Hobart market. This would enable Commercial Broadcasters to operate, if they wished to, two commercial FM radio stations in Hobart.
At the auction the TAB bought the licence for $280,000; the highest price paid at the time for any narrowcast licence in Australia.
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Today (1st August) marks 40 years since Sydney welcomed in its first two commercial FM stations, 2MMM & 2DAY. On the same day, Melbourne welcomed in its 2nd commercial FM station, 3FOX (now Fox FM).
You can find the first minutes of 2MMM & 2DAY on this following link: http://www.andrewhost.com/audio-inaugural-broadcasts.html
Until late 1994, 2MMM & 2DAY were competing with one another, likewise between 3EON/3MMM & Fox. That rivalry came to an end when Austereo bought the Village Roadshow (the owners of the Triple M network) stations.
Throughout the 80s & into the early 90s, 2MMM was the #1 FM station, then 2DAY took over that position for much of the period from 1992 until the end of 2013. Both had the Sydney commercial FM market to themselves until 2WS converted to FM in June 1993, which saw 2MMM’s ratings fall behind for a few years.
Today, both 2MMM & 2DAY, as well as Fox & 3MMM, are now owned by SCA.
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I’m sure this has been explained somewhere already, but my memory is failing, but what was the delay with the Sydney FMs starting, as weren’t they meant to start in July initially, at the same time as EON in Melbourne?
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It was due to technical problems with their transmitters.
Meanwhile, 2MMM, 2DAY & 3FOX are not the only commercial FM stations to celebrate its birthday today, with Coast FM in Warrnambool & Mixx FM in Hamilton going to air on this day in 2002, one of the last S39s to go to air (Sea FM in Burnie & Scottsdale followed in 2003).
Radioinfo article about Coast FM & Mixx Hamilton’s 18th birthday: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/two-ace-radio-stations-celebrate-coming-age
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