today’s equivalent to 3GL’s then-format now would be the community radio station Pulse FM which carries a similar variety of programming such as sports coverage (albeit no racing), country music, religious programmes and magazine programmes.
Back then there used to be three stations carrying racing: 3UZ, 3GL and 3DB (the latter only doing Saturday races and sometimes Saturday night and weeknight trots).
Surprised that 3AR gets a bigger column than the other stations.
I suspect it’s to do with the programs on 3AR being shorter in duration, thus more detail required.
Another current program still on air is Family Counselor on 3UZ now RSN with Fr Gerard Dowling.
He had a few years at 3DB after 3UZ dumped racing and much of its programming in 1983. I’m not sure at what time Father Dowling went back to 3UZ, though. (Maybe when 3DB did much the same and axed most of its programming after it lost the rights to cover racing before it got sold off entirely)
Radio Auditions, shown on this 1977 listing, was also axed by 3UZ in 1983. I remember my grandmother listened to the show but all I can remember of it was that contestants were judged and awarded a number of gongs. I don’t remember anything of the acts. I think the highest number of gongs you could get was 3 or 4 or something like that. Even back then I thought it seemed very dated, like some remnant of the ‘olden days’ of radio from the 1950s but somehow had survived unscathed until the 1980s.
EDIT: Just found this article on The Age from 1980, just as Radio Auditions was starting its 37th year. So it dates back to the early 1940s and it seems very little had been changed in the show’s format in that time except that it had gone from going to air live to being pre-recorded.
The article does mention, however, that Radio Auditions was one of 3UZ’s highest rating hours even as late as 1980 and that one of its star contestants was a young Barry Crocker. The show was sponsored by Safeway supermarkets, who at the time also happened to sponsor the show’s TV equivalent, New Faces with Bert Newton on Channel 9.
Some Brisbane radio history - a TV commercial for 4BK from 1983 - “Playing one great soft rock song after another.” 4BK 1300 was actually on 1296kHz though it had originally been on 1300 before the 9kHz frequency spacing was introduced. It is now 4BBB aka Hit105.
How on earth did this fare in the ratings?
I remember listening to Safeway Radio Auditions on Sunday mornings on 3UZ (growing up in the country it was one of the more powerful signals of the Melbourne commercial AM stations and as such it had a huge reach of much of Victoria), it was on before Newsbeat, then What a Week it Was, then country music all afternoon and early evening (including Nick Erby’s country music show and American Country Countdown with Bob Kingsley) before The Family Counsellor. I do remember John McMahon hosting, Shirley Radford’s piano accompaniment to many of the acts, and some acts were good and others were shocking! I also remember the plugs to Safeway New Faces that night on Channel 9.
Today’s equivalent would be the Hillbilly Hoot, live to air on Three D Radio 93.7 in Adelaide every Monday night, where anyone can get up and do a song live on the radio. The only difference is acts are not judged, there are no $10 shopping vouchers (although there is a meat tray raffle) as prizes, and everyone has a good time doing it!
I remember being in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia in the 1980s and receiving 3UZ as clear as a local station. Very strong signal and i guess almost a clear channel, i don’t think anywhere else at least on the Eastern states had a station on 927.
You just know when you make a post like that, someone will contradict you! Also on 927 4CD Gladstone (now 4CC) 
From Brisbane, I found that 3NE originally on 1600 (now 1566) was the clearest Victorian commercial station. Of the Melbourne stations 3KZ (1197) and 3DB (1026) came in pretty well and both were clear frequencies I think. (Frequencies from memory may not be right).
3KZ was 1179 kHz and 5KA was 1197 kHz. Both frequencies now Vision Australia Radio (RPH) stations in their respective cities. 1179 is a clear channel frequency. 1197 was originally 4GG’s frequency but is now 4BI (Switch) Brisbane. 1026 is not a clear channel, it was shared with 4MK Mackay and 6NW Port Headland.
…and 4BK’s old 1296kHz frequency is now used by 4RPH, if I’m not mistaken! 
Great, I thought 3KZ was something like that, right next to 2CH. Strangely 4MK wasn’t as strong here as you might have thought.
Yes. Even before that 4BH used to be on 1390. but after it moved to 880, 4BK was the end of the dial in Brisbane.
That’s true i should know better than such statements … even when i clarified it as “Eastern states” because i think there is or was an AM station in Perth on 927. Possibly a community station?
Si - 6NR Perth
Yes that’s correct
These young people of today whom listen to Hit 105 don’t know that it was once a daggy AM station🙂
And even before that it was a Medium Wave station 
When or why did the language change from Medium Wave (MW) to AM? Although in the UK they used MW for a long time still, and referred to FM as VHF.
Before the start of FM radio in Australia in 1974/75 you couldn’t really purchase a domestic radio with FM. When they started to get imported they were mostly from Japan and the labelling was AM/FM. Once AM Stereo came around eevryone was referring to the AM band.
Interestingly many of the better receivers like Tecsun still label the bands as MW, LW, SW and FM, presumably because they are multiband.
I think 4BK rated pretty well during the early 80s with the ‘soft rock’ format. I think it started to decline in the late 80s though before the FM switch. It was my distant “third choice” of station here in Brisbane during the mid-80s after FM104 and Stereo 10. Although I only had AM in the car so it was Stereo 10 and 4BK. If I ventured down the coast it was 4GG (although Stereo 10 was pretty much a local station there too in those days) and up the coast it was 4SS and 4GY 
And Toowoomba was all about 4AK for me at that time.
Ahhh, my holidays on he Gold Coast and those black and yellow 4GG stickers were plastered on every car. My radio was firmly tuned to Stereo 10 though - I loved the energy of Stereo 10.