Radio History

I am listening to the hits of 1995 on pandora. Its scary these songs are over 20 years old. I am not a big 90s fan, more 60s to 80s. But decided to broaden “my classic hits” horizon.

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Yeah the 90s were an “off” decade for me also, overall.

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Overall Pandora music is good. I dont know if spotify or others radio algorithm are as good. You select a year and it does dig up songs you dont hear often. You can then randomly play the songs from those years too. I find the 70 80 90s set mixs (ie not focusing on one year) sound like WSfm. I will throw some unusual tracks names on this forum. It will be interesting to hear from others on which streaming service has the best classic hits service.

Sorry slightly off topic :slight_smile:. I feel the stations of the 80s are history and trying to revive them via pandora (minus the DJs unfortunately).

On the old forum i mentioned that sometimes, Newsradio in Melbourne would carry interstate games when 774 was carrying a game form the MCG on Sundays. How long did that last?

A couple of seasons… From memory MMM, 3AW and Magic who also held rights got a bit antsy as the ABC weren’'t paying additional rights fees. Was quite often the Sunday arvo game from interstate or another Saturday arvo match if they were sending it back to Adelaid, Perth, Sydney or Brisbane.

I’ve always wondered why ABC doesn’t use the NewsRadio and Radio National frequencies for AFL, like on Sundays or Saturdays, when there are clashing matches. I know that MMM, 3AW and SEN might not like it, but ir could work.

The AFL would now want a lot of money for such an arrangement.

Oi! Listen to this instead.

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The great 2UE News theme for most of the 90s.

Mix 106.5 News 1994

https://youtu.be/sSD0_eNgb8k;t=130

Other favourites: 2WS, 2UW just before they changed to Mix and 2WL Wollongong in the mid-90s and the current 4BC Brisbane News theme (anyone know what it’s called?).

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Such an iconic theme along with the powerful voiceover from the late, great Ken Sparkes which accompanied it: “2UE, 954 News”

If I’m not mistaken, 2UE later did at least two remixes of their “Radio Active” news theme. The most recent being used from about mid-2012 until the “Talking Lifestyle” relaunch last September.

Isn’t that the “Southern Cross Network News” theme from circa 2006?

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this would have been the playlist of Fox FM in Melbourne when it changed format from classic rock to CHR which it still is to this day. It was around the same time Martin/Molloy started on what is now the Hit network, and when Austereo acquired the Triple M stations from Village Roadshow.

2SM News Theme 1997 (at 40:15) - Ian Macrae returns to 2SM

As some trivia - the package that theme was based off was also used by Cool Country Radio several years later - both in their general imaging throughout its life, but the news theme was also used in the early days (during the 88.0 FM days, not the “2KA” phase) when they bothered with a bare-bones on-the-hour news service for some reason.

Given the country twang, it does make me wonder whether that news theme was a survivor from 2SM’s phase as Kick AM, immediately prior to the “New 2SM”. Hmm…

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Cool Country 2KA used that branding package (complete with full length jingles) right up until the demise of the station in Early 2015.

Without having any Kick AM-era recordings on hand, I can only guess that the news theme was likely part of a wider station branding package for Kick AM which later became syndicated or repackaged for Cool Country Radio/2KA. It would be rather interesting to know who produced this branding package and/or if any other stations used it at some point.

4KQ News Theme

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I do like the 4KQ theme. Funny they don’t use it for every bulletin. Seems only certain ones.

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Some snippets of Sydney AM radio from 1987 featured in Spike Milligan’s documentary “From Woy Woy to Wagga Wagga”. Also includes footage from John Laws’ 2GB studio:


From 25:25

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Promotional Flashback:

It’s 1981 and 2UW has relaunched as The New 2UW - Better Music and Less Commercials. It took on 2SM and won for a while until 2SM relaunched with the “More Music” slogan in 1982.

The “2UW Call Girls” roam the streets. When they ask you what radio station you listen to and you reply 2UW you win $100 cash. If you have a piece of paper on you that says “I listen to 2UW” you win $1107.

If that competition was run today you would win if you had a 2UW (or KIIS) wallpaper on your iPhone!

I also remember a couple of 2UW listeners who won a competition so they could live in a caravan with glass sides and were paid $1000 a day. The house was moved all around Sydney so people could watch them. Was this the first Big Brother? The couple were able to live in the house until 2UW hit No.1.

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50 years ago this week, 3XY announces a change to its music policy, changing from playing album songs to having different playlists for different demographics across the day:

Source: The Age

At around this time, 3XY was the lowest rated of the commercial stations. Back in 1967 there were only 2 surveys done in Melbourne for the year:

Survey 1, 1967:
3UZ 28.0, 3DB 17.0, 3KZ 16.0, 3AW 11.0, 3AK 9.0, 3LO 8.0, 3AR 5.0, 3XY 5.0

Survey 2, 1967:
3UZ 27.0, 3DB 18.0, 3AW 16.0, 3KZ 12.0, 3LO 9.0, 3AK 7.0, 3AR 6.0, 3XY 4.0

These ratings were for all people 10+, 5.30am to midnight. Although 3AK broadcast only from 7.00am to 5.00pm – a situation that wasn’t rectified until late 1968 when the matter of interference from 2BS in Bathurst on the same frequency was resolved.

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BBC’s Radio 1 is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a pop-up digital station Radio 1 Vintage.

Has anything like that been done here? Didn’t 4TAB do something along those lines for Stereo 10?

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