Also 2UE & 4GB have time pips.
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What year was this?
1986
They ditched the top rating Beautiful Music and went to a more lively music mix, probably not unlike where Smooth is today IIRC. Ratings tumbled pretty much instantly and it only lasted a few months before it got replaced with the CBC debacle with 2UE.
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And within a few days, 3MP flipped to an easy listening format and their ratings shot up dramatically after just one survey (there four per year in those days). I canât remember if they became the number 1 station, but it was quite a big ratings rise.
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There were many beautiful stations in the US too but the format declined during the 80âs.
Wikipedia article on Beautiful Music
Other beautiful music stations in Australia included:
2CH Sydney
5AA Adelaide
Did Brisbane and Perth have one?
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Yep.
3AK went from 10.4 (4th) in Survey 4/85, down to 3.4 (10th) in Survey 1/86.
3MP, which transitioned to Easy Listening from mid-January as it took a couple of weeks to refresh its entire music library and presentation and IIRC hiring some recently-axed 3AK names, went from 4.5 (9th) in Survey 4/85 to 10.0 (5th) in Survey 1/86.
it was only downhill for 3AK from then on, Survey 2 was 2.3, Survey 3 (the first survey as CBC) was 2.0 and Survey 4 was 2.0.
It hit a low of 1.7 in Survey 1/87 but gradually started to creep up again as it wound back the talk and moved back towards easy listening.
3MP hovered around 9s, 10s and 11s over the subsequent surveys, hitting 13.7 (equal 1st with MMM) in Survey 4/90.
4BH in Brisbane, even though it was part of the talk-based Macquarie Network, had a similar format in the 1980s.
6KY in Perth had Easy Listening in the 1980s. I vaguely recall that 6KY was owned in common with 2CH by AWA, but someone might correct me on that.
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The Beautiful music format started on 4BH in the early 70s and was very similar to 2CH at the time. Here is an aircheck of when the station moved to 880 kHz from 1390 (and increased to 5kw). 4BH provided Macquarie news to many regional station across Queensland at the time.
Video also includes 2CH @2:16
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Yes I remember seeing a valve radio with 4BH on that part of the dial. I thought i picked up 4BH only to hear that it was 5AA which was on the same frequency.
Great aircheck video. When did 3NE move from 1600? When I first discovered long distance radio, I heard a continuous test tone for a on the top of the dial that disappeared after some time. I always wondered what station that was.
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When 9kHz spacing came in - November 1978. 3NE went from 1600 to 1566, a bigger change than most stations that only moved a few kHz.
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Wow, and I thought 3LO going from 780 to 774 was a big move.
I read in a WRTH that 1602 & 1684 were forlow power transmitters, so maybe thatâs the reason for the big move.
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IIRC 2BL went from 740 to 702.
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3LO was on 770 khz before moving to 774 khz in 1978.
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Yes, youâre right.
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Most were only a few kilohertz up or down.
4BH going from 1390 to 882 is the biggest change i know of in that respect.
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In Wollongong, both stations that existed at the time basically moved down the dial.
2WN moved from 1580 to 1431
2WL moved from 1430 to 1314.
Over a month later, 2OO launched on 1575.
In Campbelltown, the short lived 2CT moved from 1390 to 1602
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4BH moved from 1390 khz to 880 khz mid 70,s then to 882 in 1978 for 9khz spacing.
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The 4BH move wasnât related to the 9kHz separation. It came at the time when there was a flourishing of 5kw directional antenna arrays with new transmission sites being used and in this case a move of frequency. Just before this 4WK had moved from 880 to 960. (It was previously very close to 4GR that was on 860).
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4WK on 880 and 4GR on 860 must have been very problematic?
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