Radio History

Were these names the origin/inspiration for “Australia Overnight”?

There have been some great variations for overnight programming. 2UE and network stations had “New Day Australia”, and the Super Network has “Talk Overnight”.

Australia Overnight IIRC dated back into the 1980s on the former Macquarie Network (e.g. 2GB, 3AW, 4BH, 5DN, 2CA, etc.).

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This is gold except I am a Parra fan. Started listening its just Frank it seem on the call. A legend before my time (whilst I was around was too little to be interested in radio)

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Some radio goss as reported by Ian Cover in TV Scene, dated 29 January 1983:

And the radio programs for the week for Melbourne/Geelong. Apologies as the newsprint/colour has not aged well:

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I didn’t know PBS and MBS also had frequency swaps. I suppose just as they didn’t fit the spacing, but wonder why they didn’t just ‘fix’ them like the ABC move to 105.9, and have 93.9 for MBS and 107.5 for PBS.

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I wonder if MBS moving to 103.5 was just that the gap became available between 102.7 RRR and 104.3 (to be KZFM), and 93.9 was probably already set aside for the new Geelong station (Bay FM).

I don’t know why PBS was moved to 106.7 rather than to 107.5. PBS’ new frequency came with a new transmitter/location which allowed it to broadcast 24/7 for the first time (its previous transmitter site was causing problems with a nearby hospital’s equipment, apparently, so it could only broadcast after hours on weekdays and longer on weekends, and on low power). The new frequency also came with an increase in power. Maybe logistically it was too difficult to do testing on 107.5 while still broadcasting on 107.7, so it had to have the new transmitter on 106.7? That’s just my guess, I have no intel on what happened, but it seems from what I’ve read that it was a lot more complicated than ABC’s minor move to 105.9.

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Moving to a frequency that is not too close to the current one is probably easier to explain to listeners, if it’s just a slightly different frequency, some listeners might still hear it but find it a bit distorted and wonder why and what to do to fix it?

Particularly back then when most radios didn’t have digital display tuning.

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2DayFM ad from 1994:

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The music sounds like Mix 106.5 before the change to Kis ie how the station was formatted one mid 2000s very similar music.

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It’s interesting they use the term “music MIX” with Mix106.5 in the market.

Yeah I remember that ad :slight_smile: .

It was the summer of 1981 and 2SM and Triple M were busy playing some album tracks and sounding very adult. So 2UW relaunched as The New 2UW and filled the gap in the market for pure fun Top 40 radio.

In the first survey of 1981 the New 2UW surged in the ratings form an 8 share to 15.8%. It was now the No.1 music station in Sydney. This is from one of the promotions the station ran in 1981. It letterbox dropped every Sydney household and asked for their thoughts on Sydney radio. They would use the positioner “We Listen To You, Because You Listen To Us”.

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I thought 2Day dropped the ‘mix’ wording once Mix106 5 was launched.

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Given the recent conversation about radio in Noosa on the “Random Radio” thread, this is pretty timely to have this uploaded on the 'Tube:

Credit: @dxnerd

This recording was received via E-Skip in South-Eastern NSW around 1997-98.

Also in the same region, one of the latest uploads from Frankster has the final 30 minutes of 4SS on 31st December 1994, followed by the first 20 minutes of Mix 93FM on 1st January 1995.

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And then like now, since when were 2Day FM never not “new”? :joy:

Although the jilt of it kinda makes sense when 2MMM were still a competitor back then. But not competing directly like, according to the stories I’ve read here and elsewhere, Fox FM was doing, trying to out-rock MMM - given, before 106.5 started, 2Day were probably filling a role equivalent to somewhere in between “the Fox” and TT FM.

Probably why it didn’t seem like too bad a listen back then. I can see why they’re going back to that “throwback” formula now out of desperation, it’s just that the things they’re throwing back to… well they are a generation after my time and I never really understood hot late-90s/2000s music much :sweat_smile:

An aircheck from a now defunct community radio station in the Upper Hunter, Mount Helen FM (2GGZ), from 2001.

Credit: @dxnerd

The station gained its full-time licence in November 1999, and was broadcasting on 107.3 in Murrurundi & 101.7 in Muswellbrook. The station ceased broadcasting in August 2006 after ACMA found that it had breached some of the additional licence conditions that had been imposed on its licence the previous September. ACMA subsequently cancelled the licence in December 2006.

Here are the Radioinfo articles from that time:

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An interesting gem being unearthed by The Radio Vault: an aircheck of 102FM (now Mix 102.3) Adelaide from August 1991.

102FM was an FM conversion of 5DN, which had occurred in September 1990. 5KA was the other commerical AM station that converted to FM as KAFM (now 5MMM) back in January 1990.

The ratings for the station were pretty poor, being well behind that of SAFM & 5AD. Its first music format under the 102FM branding, as you would hear on the above aircheck, was Classic Hits, with some newer AC music thrown in.

In early 1992, the station changed its format & rebranded themselves as X102. In December that year, AM music station 5AD purchased the struggling FM station and began to simulcast 5AD onto FM, as well as on AM, until the then ABA instructed the station to discontinue the simulcasting on both FM & AM, which then saw 5DN being relaunched on 5AD’s old AM frequency of 1323AM (5DN was previously on 972AM prior to the FM conversion).

5AD & 5DN was then acquired by ARN in 1996, with 5AD rebranded as Mix 102.3 in 2001, whilst 5DN was leased out to (pre-Crocmedia) SEN in 2005, which saw its ratings tumble. After SEN ceased its Adelaide broadcast, Mix 102.3 began to be relayed onto 1323AM before Cruise 1323 was launched in November 2005.

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Great summary. What was X102’s format?

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According to the below article link, it appeared that it had an adult rock format.

See: Fairfax upheaval and Macquarie selloff in late 1980s flows on to 5DN: its old Adelaide identity obliterated as X102 | Adelaide AZ

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And no relation to Newcastle‘s X107, which was a FM conversion of 2NX (then X13) that occurred in May 1992 which was a Top 40 format.

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