Relevant to 4IP/4TAB, obviously behind a paywall because Fin Review (although first click in search gave me the article), but contemporary article about the purchase of 4IP:
The then-owners had defaulted on a $2.8m loan to the NSW State Bank, half the valuation it was given after it had bought 4IP (well 4IO presumably as it would’ve been Stereo 10 still?) off 2SM in 1988… the price the TABQ purchased it for was not disclosed but was rumoured to be as little as $1.5 million.
Beach [Media Pty Ltd, then 4IP holding company] bought 4IP from 2SM Pty Ltd for a reported $2.5 million, but the AM stereo station has been struggling at the bottom of the ratings on about 3 per cent and losing up to $60,000 a month.
The [QLD] TAB’s chief executive, Mr Dick McIlwain, said 4IP was technically run down and would be re-equipped and later moved to the TAB’s headquarters at Albion in Brisbane.
It will convert to a racing format after the TAB’s current contract with rival station 4BC expires in October 1992. [1]
The loss of earnings attached to the TAB contract for 4BC, understood to be several million dollars, will undermine that station’s income base.
TABs in Victoria and West Australia have previously bought radio stations. [2]
[1] Obviously they had to break the contract with 4BC if they were able to get it on almost a year “early”
[2] 3UZ the obvious one, but the WA TAB also owned 6PR at that point; it hadn’t shifted to narrowcast then… 2KY wasn’t bought by the NSW TAB (through Sky Channel) until 2001
Certainly sad to see the trifector of 2SM, 3XY, and Radio 10 go down the shoot, but unfortunately that’s the way the cookie crumbled back then, daggy old 70s and 80s trax were not cool on radio in 1991 1992, wel that’s the impression I got anyway. One would be forgiven back then that the 70s and 80s didn’t exist until they kind of came back into fav around 1994 1995, wellin Sydney at least anyway.
But the demise of another great radio station also happened during 1992, 2KA, when they converted to ONE FM. I believe, and remember reading at the time that both Austereo (owners of 2Day FM), and the then VIllage Roadshow (owners of Triple M) were spitting chips because 2KA only paid 40 grand for the conversion,. This was due to ONE spraying signal all over Sydney with their 5Kw Transmitter on top of Wentworth Falls.
Wile talking to someone yesterday, they mentioned that Southern Cross did Challenge the owners of ONE FM at the time, and were unsuccessful, however wile googling this morning, I could not find much info on the whole shabang, so not sure if this was a actual court challenge or whether it was fought out in ACMA.
Would really appreciate if someone can point me to some articles about the situation. It seems any articles regarding the contested dispute no longer exist on the internet.
There was a news report from Ten Eyewitness News (as it was known back then) about One FM winning the court challenge on YouTube, but it has since being taken down.
I remember @Mechsta’s post mentioning that it made the front page of The Daily Telegraph Mirror (as it was known back then).
This podcast from a local Penrith newspaper that featured a former One FM presenter from March last year also provided a great detail about the early years of One FM, including that aforementioned court challenge:
That was a great interview, many memories of the old ONE FM, didn’t realise that it still went up to 1997, last time I heard it regularly was 1994.
They did discuss much of the case how Triple M and ARN took them to court and wanted to have their signal cut out at Parramatta, but nothing much more then I had already known.
I’m just very, very curious on what technicality ONE FM won the court case with, what was their argument. If they were a station licensed to the Katoomba / Penrith area, How did they keep their legal position of being able to still broadcast all over Sydney?
Interesting to hear that Ian Taylor noted that they can still be heard in New Zealand at times.
According to a SMH article dated 24th February 1993, the Federal Court dismissed 2DAY & 2MMM’s application on the grounds that the decision to allow 2KA to convert to the FM band could not be “stigmatised as irrational”.
I think part of ONE FM’s argument is that they similarly also have to contend with the Sydney FMs overspilling into their licence area.
Southern Cross also did try to buy ONE FM but were told they couldn’t because it would be in breach of the 2 station rule (I think that was the reason anyway).
Somehow a few years, ARN were able to buy it. Sounds like someone else at the ACMA made a different ruling. Southern Cross would have been even less happy about that!
That’s because of a technicality where WSFM is licenced to the Western Sydney RA1 market (despite having the same broadcast specs as the Sydney FMs) so the overlap percentages worked out differently.
3XY, certainly for its last 18 months on air after it dumped Easy Rock, was playing a dance/top 40 playlist in contrast to the classic hits variations being played on FM, but by then the demographic had bolted to FM anyway and they were not going to go back to AM even if it had a superior playlist. Instead of trying to recapture a market that was never going to come back, should XY/SM/1008 have perhaps persisted with Easy Rock/Lite’n’Easy? It’s a format that was not dissimilar to what stations like Mix or Smooth were doing in later years. Maybe it was just a bit ahead of its time and needed time to catch on.
It might have had some chance until Smooth FM came along, but even the original Mix106.5 which ran a similar format was not a big success.
I often wonder what might have happened if 2SM/3XY/4IP had picked up one of the FM conversions back in the early 90s… would they had gone back to rock and taken Triple M head on? Guess we’ll never know now!
Actually, from around 1998 until early 2001 (when Nova came on the air), Mix 106.5 rated quite well and was #3 FM for much of that time. For two consecutive surveys in 1998, it was #2 FM behind 2Day, scoring double-digits, outrating sister station 2WS in the process for the first time since both the FM conversion & 1990, the latter when both were still on AM & competing with one another.
By that time, Mix 106.5’s format was “Sydney’s Continuous Easy Mix from the 70s, 80s & 90s”, which was a bit of a step-up from their initial “Sydney’s Best Mix from the 70s, 80s & 90s” format.
That is correct. When the station first converted to FM in 1994, it managed to score only 7.3% on its first full survey since FM conversion, a far cry from when 2WS converted to FM only a year earlier, in which it managed to score 13.8% & beat out 2MMM in the process. During that time, 2WS rated well ahead of Mix 106.5, in which the latter generally had an overall ratings share of around 6-7%.
Interestingly, when Mix 106.5 started doing better in the ratings at around 1998, 2WS started to suffer in the ratings, with their overall ratings falling at around the time when Doug Mulray was doing drive there. It was also the time when 2WS repositioned themselves from “The Best Songs of All Time” to “Classic Hits”.
When the big cutbacks to Mix 106.5 occurred in 2001 at around the time of Nova’s arrival, as well as a music format shift, WSFM (which 2WS had become by that time) started to do better in the ratings again as Mix’s ratings fell. That remained that way until Mix became KIIS in January 2014 (9 years ago already!! ), when 106.5 took out #1 FM for the first time ever.
I’ve often thought the same. The format was really ahead of its time. Even looking at the old TV commercials they could almost be for Smooth today.
I think if they had stuck it out it could have gained traction even on AM over time. Stations like 4BH were sounding pretty similar by the end of the 90s/early 2000s and doing well.
Also worth noting that 5AD-FM was dominating Adelaide with an easy listening format in the mid-90s. It probably was a little more ‘classic hits’ skewed than the Lite and Easy format but still similar.
Anyway I really wish they had persisted a bit longer.
Also if they reduced ERP way below 5KW they would have reception issues in their licence area the Blue Mountains.
Mid West Radio know about this with their flea powered signal towards Sydney.
Another example with the complaint made to ACMA with the excessive overspill of Wollongong tv into Sydney, most likely by the Sydney commercial networks.
ACMA ruled in favour of the Wollongong regionals that a reduction in power to stop overspill into Sydney would cause massive reception issues in Wollongong tv licence area.
I think if it was looked into, (someone legally challenging them again) they would need to shutdown their wentworth falls transmitter, and then them having a lower power transmitter facing westwards directional in Penrith (covering the lower mountains), and then to over come any reception issues, another westward facing transmitter in Springwood (covering the upper mountains). I would surmise with this the CADA signal would decrease around St Mary’s and Rooty Hill and be gone by Blacktown. 2KA was a station deamed for the Katoomba to Penrith Market, so that’s what one would think would be their legal broadcast area. In reality ARN would never do it in a fit.
IMO, Basically this solution would require two frequencies.
Wentworth falls would stay on but would have the same specs as 2LT / Move fm, 1KW West / 40W east.
ARN would use their Winmalee site to service Penrith and Richmond on a frequency such as 89.5. They would also want 96.1 to be transferred to Winmalee as that is their main frequency received in Sydney, also they would want more than 100W, which is the specs of WS Fm Penrith.
I cannot see another challenge happening or ACMA entertaining it as the solution would be to hard, not efficient use of spectrum, and ARN would probably take legal action.
96.1 is grandfathered licence that probably would not be approved by the ACMA of today.
Yes it was a bit of a shock at first but I got to enjoy it. The first morning when my alarm clock went off to the new format (which I had no idea was coming) I remember thinking something had gone very wrong at the station lol.
), when 106.5 took out