A while back I did some research about the history of Mix 106.5 breakfast shows, I think the timeline goes something among these lines (Happy to be corrected on anything I may have missed or gotten wrong):
*Mike Carlton: May 1994 to December 1995
*George Moore: December 1995 to February 1996
*Larry Emdur, Jean Kitson & Rob Duckworth: February to December 1996
*Jean Kitson & Rob Duckworth: 1997 (1st half)
*Jean Kitson & Trevor Sinclair: 1997 (2nd half)
*George Moore: 1998 to September 2000
*David Rymer: October 2000 to May 2001
*Jason Bouman & Mardi Cole: May 2001-March 2002?
*Sammy Power & Jason Bouman: C. March 2002 to November 2005 (Longest running breakfast show of the entire time 106.5FM was branded as Mix in Sydney)
*Sammy Power & Guest Hosts: January to May 2006
*Sammy Power & Alan Brough: May/June 2006
*Sammy Power, Alan Brough, Subby Valentine + Lars Petersen: June 2006 to January 2007
*Sammy Power & Subby Valentine: January to November 2007 (final brekky show to feature the longest serving co-presenter of the timeslot in Mix 106.5 history)
*Sonia Kruger & Todd McKenney: January 2008 to September 2009
*Mike Etheridge & Carmela Contario: October 2009 to September 2010
*?: September-December 2010
*Dr Andrew Rochford & Clare Hooper: January to December 2011
*Tim âRossoâ Ross & Clare Hooper: January to December 2012
*Sami Lukis & Yumi Stynes: January to December 2013
As Mix 106.5 became KIIS 1065, the âSydney breakfast merry go-roundâ title went to 2DayFM!
He was an old school newspaper man who pioneered talkback radio in Sydney during the 1960s. He even overshadowed John Laws because of his ability to conduct intelligent, topical conversation whereas Laws was more known for spinning discs in those days. 3AW lured Ormsby to Melbourne with the promise of big money and the stability he wasnât getting at 2UE who couldnât decide which generation of listeners they wanted to appeal to. Interesting that Laws went on to become the talkback king of Sydney and Ormsby Wilkins passed away a few years after arriving in Melbourne.
Iâve been reading a bit about Ormsby Wilkins tonight and discovered he got his wife the job at 3AW even though they divorced after 30 years of marriage within six months of them moving to Melbourne in 1969. She âran offâ with her bridge partner.
He was said to be the highest paid person on Australian radio. In the months before his death 3AW had rearranged their morning schedule to accomodate his treatment for lung cancer. Heâd been an 80 cigarettes a day chain smoker and died at the age of 59 in February 1976.
3AW in 1975 seemingly knew that Sydney was the advertising capital of Australia, so they moved their entire operation to the North Shore for two days in August.
Knowing what we know now, 4KQ moving to FM probably wouldâve resulted in the station sounding very similar to the current output of either WSFM or Gold? With that in mind, itâs probably a good thing the station remained on 693AM.
Iâd also imagine that if the 1993 conversion to FM never happened, the output of 2WS likely wouldâve become very similar to what 4KQ currently provides Brisbane listeners with (older 60s/70s Classic Hits still on the playlist, slightly more of a community focus compared to WSFM/Gold, etc.)!
The logo wasnât too bad though (Thanks to @TelevisionAU for posting this a while back! ):
I had thought the bid to move 4KQ to FM was more like $22M? I could be wrong, but Iâm pretty sure 4BH won the initial bid to convert at around $30M but couldnât come up with the money.
I wonder if KQ had converted would it be KQFM or the generic Gold 102.9 by now? Or would it have become a Mix/KIIS station eventually.
Itâs possible had 4KQ converted to FM in the early 90s that Brisbane would only have been allocated one new FM licence in the early 2000s (like Adelaide and Perth), rather than two (which became 97.3 and Nova) because they were an FM station âshortâ.
Of course itâs also possible they would still have been allocated two but I kind of think they wouldnât have, despite the bigger population over Adelaide and Perth.
If KQ had converted and they still allocated two new FMs to Brisbane at the start of the 2000s then we would potentially have KQFM, 97.3 then KIIS 973 and Nova 1069. OR more likely Nova 973 then KIIS 1069.
The other possibility would be Nova got the second licence as well and youâd have KIIS 1029, Nova 973 and Vega/Classic Rock/Smooth on 1069. In this scenario ARN may have retained 4BH which they owned for a time and it would have been the classic hits station like Cruise.
so if 4BH and 4KQ were not able to fulfil FM conversion, should the 2nd FM conversion licence then not have fallen to the next bidder? (4KQ? Gosh, even 4IP on FM would have been a killer)
Originally 96.5 but 4BH requested a higher position on the dial and were given 102.9. Of course it never went to air - at least until it was later allocated to Hot Tomato on the Gold Coast.
If 4KQ had converted they probably could have taken their pick of 96.5 or 102.9
Iâm sure 4IP would have tried to get 99.7 or 100.5 if that was technically possible of course.
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