I think that was roughly the same time that Fox went in the other direction and went towards a Classic Rock format, so the disgruntled MMM listeners would have just gone to Fox, whether Fox’s traditional audience then went to Triple M, I’m not sure. I was listening to Triple M around that time. The sound and format wasn’t bad and certainly unconventional for that station. It had morning talkback/music with Ian Rogerson and Alison Drower IIRC?
But at least when Triple M went back to its more traditional base Fox then reverted back to its hits format.
Is was a good time, I remember 3MMMs Music that rocks era when they played D:Reeme, things can only get better and started playing some pop music. Was disappointed it never took off. Was actually disappointed when Lee Simon took them down the footy covered path (which has been successful) but killed off a pure rock music station.
Fox went classic rock from the 60s and 70s (along with Triple M) in 1992 as a response to Gold 104.3 (which played nothing but Good Time Oldies from the 50s 60s and 70s) which launched October 1991. At night Fox had a CHR show (hosted by James O’Neill) a nightly top 30 countdown, then back to classic rock after that. Triple M had a similar show with John Peters called Top 8 at 8. Take 40 Australia continued on Saturday nights while American Top 40 was shunted to midnight Monday morning. The rest of the time was all classic rock. This continued until 1995 when Fox moved to CHR full time (in line with 2DAY) and Martin Molloy started its successful run. Triple M was all predominately classic rock except for that brief period in 1996 I mentioned above, and that time in the mid-2000s when they had a Jack FM style format with the slogan “you’ll never know what we’ll play next” (it didn’t last long).
Gee you a bringing back the memories now. What ever happened to James ONiel? I hated the “classic rock” era as no new music was being played. Fox and MMM were at war.
Funny that, since these days it’s a bit the opposite, with 3 of 6 Melbourne commercials now playing in the ‘Hit’ music space, and there isn’t really a ‘classic rock’ station.
The week in radio in Melbourne as listed in the Listener In-TV on 30 August 1969.
Kevin Arnett, pictured here as a 3LO presenter, went on to present the weather at GTV9 and was a regular guest on The Don Lane Show .
With 3AK extending to 24/7 broadcast a few months earlier (November 1968), it looks like all Melbourne commercial stations are now on-air 24/7. The ABC stations 3AR and 3LO both sign off at midnight.
At around this time, 3UZ was the top rating station in town (19%), followed by 3AW, 3KZ and 3DB all equal second (14% each), then 3AK (13%), 3LO (12%), 3XY (8%) and 3AR (5%). (Source: AC Nielsen, Survey 2/69)
That ‘rock baby’ would now have grown up to be a western Sydney bogan, dressed in singlet, flannelette, thongs and with tattoos everywhere, and be drinking VB and smoking Winnie Blues.
