He’s also the current narrator /voiceover guy for Masterchef Australia
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Lofty Fulton survived too but got moved to the night a lot.
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Love me a bit of Whitney Housten 
I also listened to Live to Tell by Madonna because I wasn’t familiar with it. Safe to say not all of the hits from the 80s were bangers
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Very Interesting how a few of the songs on this chart charted higher in Tamworth than the National Average (aka the Kent Music Report). E.g. All I Need is a Miracle peaked at number 8 on the national charts but reached number 2 in Tamworth.
I’m not sure if these regional charts were based on any real science, probably a bit like how some of those “Retro 20/20” Countdown shows are done!
@Ricketycricket I like that Madonna song, but each to their own of course.. But yes some of those on there came and went very quickly, ala Sique Sique Sputnik (#6), which I haven’t heard on the radio since!
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Could be based on the State charts. They were still doing them in 86 or 87 at least. There were often a few variances between them too
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The regional charts, even the metro charts I think, back through the 60s, 70s, 80s & into the 90s were based on the sales from the local record stores, back then the local radio station Music Director was very powerful, they could make or break a song &/or artist. The record labels would do deals with the local Music Directors to have a song played on the radio, but if the local MD didn’t like the song, artist or even the record company sales executive, they wouldn’t play it on the radio & therefore sales would be nil or had to be pushed up a hill hard by the local record store.
Back through the 60s, 70s, & into the 80s the local radio DJ had a lot of say in what they played also, so as long as the Music Director passed a song as okay to play on the radio, it was up to the DJ as to whether they played it or not & how much/often depending on if they them selves liked it or not.
That changed through the 80s into the 90s where the local music director had more or less complete say in what songs were to be played on air, when & how often, then as time progressed into the 2000s, local MDs started disappearing to be taken over by Network wide MDs, & music started to be released & downloaded online, bypassing sales of physical media in the local record stores, so locally sourced figures for top 30/top 40 charts became irrelevant or non-existent, as local record store sales diminished & the record stores closed, the charts then became national or state wide based, encompassing any still physical media sales & online sales/downloads.
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Yes, lots of examples of songs that were bigger hits in Brisbane than elsewhere in the 80s, based on FM104 airplay. At a time when FM104 was rating 30%.
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Darwin radio guide, 1 July 1987…
I’m guessing the paper didn’t go on sale until late morning, hence only listed programs from that afternoon to the following morning.. The daily TV Guide was the same. It kind of looked a bit odd at first, but an unusual listing all the same.
Not much choice with only 4 stations, and only one of them still there on it’s original frequency, but with a different name these days (8TOP, now Territory FM).
When I was there around this time on family holidays, I recall the 8DN music mix during the workday shifts being quite random, they’d play Top 40 stuff from that era but not stuff you’d hear on 2SM eg. ‘Caravan Of Love’ (The Housemartins) and ‘Holiday Rap’ (MC Miker G and DJ Sven) mixed with more common songs like ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ (Bon Jovi).
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The Darwin ABC FM closed down overnight. Interesting given that the original 1976 stations were 24/7 from the very beginning.
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And looks like they closed down after breakfast on Thursday mornings at least for testing and then run a test tape.. Not seen that before!
my recollection is that the NT News then was an afternoon newspaper, for reasons I am not sure.
very odd program line-up for ABC FM. Could be a typo, even. The Wednesday programs have some similarity to TOP FM listed above it. Not the sort of long form classical music programming carried by ABC FM elsewhere. Doesn’t look right at all. Also not sure why ABC FM would be closing down for testing, ABC FM had been in operation in Darwin since the early 1980s and all ABC FM stations were basically fed on relay from ABC FM HQ in Adelaide.
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Hmmm… I wonder if they got some 8TOP programming mixed up with ABC FM? This is the guide from the following day… probably looks a bit more like it?
that looks a bit more normal
I remember that in the early days of ABC FM. Every Thursday morning. They took fidelity very seriously in those days. Mostly because of using analogue lines prior to digital I guess.
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As seen during Bathurst coverage - John French. Queensland racer sponsored by “Color Radio 4IP”. This was well before the move to St Helena Island when the 2kw station at Ipswich was the most popular station in Brisbane.
You’re tuned to Color, Colour, Colour Radio, the sound you can see - colour it right, you’re on 4IP 
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There were various regional differences between in the 80’s.
Some examples:
- Around May 1982 I believe that Charlene’s I’ve Never Been To e was #1 in the Australian Top 40, but in the Melbourne Top 40 (not sure if it was published by 3DB or 3XY) Six Months In a Leaky Boat was #1. This was for several weeks.
- By October 31 1980, Shadap You Face was being played on the radio in Melbourne, but over the Melbourne Cup period (November 1-4) I didn’t hear it once in Hobart.
- In mid December 1986, French Kissing in the USA was on the air on Melbourne radio and TV, but when I went to the Gold Coast, I didn’t hear it once on the radio until the end of the month or early January.
I always wondered if the last two differences were because certain places were more conservative than others, or if they released them later in different places.
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Interesting yes
But the last 2 were nothing to do with perceived or stereotyped “conservatism”.. I grew up in regional Queensland and Shadap Your Face was huge on the airwaves. I also remember French Kissing on the air in Brisbane on Stereo 10. It wasn’t surprising at the time that regional stations took a couple of extra weeks to pick up a new song
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I just checked a few of the Sydney 92.9 Classic FM guides online from around that time… it doesn’t look like it was every Thursday morning though, but once a month, as the next date they had a closedown after 2nd July that I posted that I could find was 6th August.
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There were articles at the time talking about the quality of the ABC FM broadcast (compared to other FM stations).
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