If the government hadn’t offered FM conversions (and the later licences to DMG/Nova), I’d imagine that the original FM stations would’ve become extremely dominant in the ratings. Here in Sydney, I think 2DayFM and Triple M each probably would’ve very regularly gotten 10%+ ratings during the 1990s if 2WS and 2UW/Mix were never allowed to convert to FM.
Although realistically, I do think that it was inevitable that the major capital cities would have more than two commercial FM radio stations. Presuming that 2DayFM & Triple M still got a common owner and the current trend away from local content in favour of more networked programing still happened, Sydney radio probably would been even more homogenised and boring than it is now with only two commercial FM stations!
When 2day fm relaunched in 1990 to compete with Triple M,they started targeting a younger audience and adopted a CHR format that mainly played dance music and RNB music which was similar to Kix 106.
Kix 106’s playlist was more adventurous then 2day fm with a dance / rock skew to compete with fm 104.7 who was the market leader at the time.
You would have heard songs such as Epic by Faith No More, I like it like that my Kylie Minouge, Erotica by Madonna on Kix 106 but not on 2day fm, or part of their regular playlist anyway.
I use to dx Kix 106 from my home at Oatley at the time and was receivable on the car radio as there was no Mix 106.5 / KIIS 106.5.
This was when Canberra radio was great.
2day could not topple Triple M with this format so changed format and become hot AC which then allowed them to become market leader.
Speculation at the time indicated they may have intended migrating their talk back format to 101.1. Would have been interesting to see how that would have turned out. Alas they defaulted on the payment and then got sold off to the Italians.
It was 5DN and 5KA that got FM licences. 5DN ditched years of talkback heritage for a music format that nobody cared for. This at least worked out well for 5AA by handing them all those ditched talkback listeners.
I think it was Jeremy Cordeaux who owned 5AD on AM and bought what had become X102FM and switched 5AD to FM. Smart move although never really seemed to have much luck in re-establishing 5DN talkback at 5AD’s old 1323 position. The audience had made the move to 5AA and weren’t coming back.
I wish i knew but i guess 3AK themselves didn’t get to lock anything in as the licence was taken from them after missing payment deadline. I don’t recall them announcing any big contract or talent signings before losing the licence. It might have been just the same AM lineup on FM.
But I guess if they didn’t go for talk they might have sought to capture back some of the listeners they’d lost when they dumped Beautiful Music. That actually would have been quite bold for FM at that time and could have hurt 3MP dearly.
I still haven’t gotten over 4BH not having the cash to convert despite wrangling over the frequency - originally 96.5 they ended up getting 102.9 (closer to the other FMs and not having to cross that ‘weird’ ZZZ on 102.1
Then stingy 4KQ as second bidder reneged as well even though they bid much less.
I’m not sure exactly what format 4BH would have gone with - easy listening or classic hits - but I’m sure if they had converted then 4KQ wouldn’t have remained the classic hits powerhouse it is today. At the time 4BH was very easy listening and not long out of their “beautiful music” format.
As a consolation at least we had a quasi 3rd FM in QFM which went to air the same time as B105.
Nothing stopping them except the incumbent FMs would kick up a stink. They’d also have to squeeze it in to the FM dial somehow - maybe dislodge a talking community station or Gold Coast Radio National - but it could be done.
They could also make quite a few million $ by auctioning it off.
The owners of 4KQ basically called their bluff at the time that they wouldn’t offer it to the 3rd highest bidder, presumably 4BC or 4IP. It was my understanding that all 4 commercial AM stations bid.
Absurd decision by the broadcasting authority at the time.
Staying in Sydney and just managed to get this shot of the AWA Radio Tower from my hotel room (centre of picture - nb. taken with an iPad which doesn’t have an optical zoom - only a digital zoom which is pointless imo).
4IP were doing rock based classic hits at the time but I too would have loved to see what they would have launched on FM. Even though they were rating poorly at the time with B105 dominating, they still had a lot of goodwill with the 4IP and Radio 10 brands. Interestingly there are quite a few people in Brisbane to this day that think Radio 10 “became” B105, true! Of course it’s not true but I’ve had several people say it to me when I mention Radio/Stereo 10.
I would have loved them to convert to FM with a frequency close to 100. (99.7 or 100.5) and launch as Radio 10 on FM
The move to St Helena Island and increase in power to 5kw made a huge difference for 4IP. The day before the change, the station broadcast on a lower frequency while the tests on 1010 were carried out. I had a book that showed the radiation pattern of radio stations in Australia - the North-South lobes of 4IP were very narrow and long to cover the narrow strip along both coasts. The East-West lobes were much larger to give general coverage to Brisbane. The day after the move to St Helena, people were ringing in during the morning program with reception reports.
