Another thought on those Melbourne ratings.
Something must have gone wrong for EON in the next 2 years, otherwise WHY did it want to change frequencies (and name) in 1988 if it was beating FOX?
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Big drop from 2ue in that survey. I am amazed how well 2ky rated!
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The Fox ad was from a different B&T magazine so it was not necessarily form the same surveyâŚ
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And 3KZ was in front of both of the FM stations. That must have really annoyed the Fox and EON
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Things fell apart for 2UE when John Laws left for 2GB and Ita Buttrose went to 2KY. Between 1982-1984 the talkback station had consistently been number one or number two in the ratings. 2UE gave up for a while and reverted to music but they couldnât compete with the newly established FM stations.
Survey three 1986 took place just after Kerry Packer bought the station and installed some big name talk personalities to re-establish its newstalk credentials. George Negus, Gary OâCallaghan, Alan Jones, Mike Gibson, Steve Liebmann, Don Lane and Phillip Adams were on air during this survey. Jones, Gibson and Liebmann were only doing one hour shows.
2KY was a combination of talk in the morning with Ron Casey from 5am and Ita Buttrose at 9am followed by the TAB racing service from noon.
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Yes that seems so odd to me that AM music was beating FM at that time in Sydney and Melbourne. Nothing was getting anywhere near FM104 in Brisbane during those times. I donât recall them ever losing a survey from '84 onwards.
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How times have changed! Talk radio certainly had more competition back then. 2sm and 2gb are really the only talk radio commercial stations now in Sydney. 2sm not really serious to be number one. Maybe 2bl was better then too?
I guess the only good thing with radio today, compared to before,there are more suburban community radio stations so more choice. There were less fm music stations back then too. Although AM stereo was launched. So is radio better today? Talkback was better then, music radio I am more on the fence. I like the 80s music better than today, so Id say music radio was better then however there might be some rose coloured glasses on 
.
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I think music radio was better then for sure, particularly FM, and particularly in the single FM station markets. FM104, 96FM and SAFM were exceptional stations and to me had the edge over the 2 FM markets in the 80s. Regional radio was also much better on the whole, even with fewer stations imo.
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One thing I definitely think we can all agree on is that commercial radio was so much more local in the 1980s, 1990s and even most of the 2000s than it is these days! 2CH is probably the last âtruly localâ mainstream station in Sydney, with all the others (including ABC Radio Sydney 702) running some degree of networked content.
The info I can gather online suggests that while the launch of Sydneyâs suburban community stations happened at various times (the earliest being 2VTR in 1978, the most recent being 2SWR in September 2003), there was a major wave of launches during the 1983-84-85 time period?
Although I suppose itâd be fair to point out that the North Western suburbs (your part of the world?) only really got community radio in the Early 2000s when 2WOW Penrith and 2SWR Blacktown started full time transmissions.
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Iâve got that same magazine 
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The CBC experiment. Look at 3AKâs severe drop from the same format change.
N.b. the survey in brackets are from the same survey a year before.
And 3XY is still very strong with under 25s, even with an increase compared to a year before.
Change of ownership and a desire to align branding and frequency with Sydney, I imagine
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I always understood that the audience went straight from 3AK to 3MP, as it picked up the âbeautiful musicâ format, but it appears that actually about 60% went to 3MP and 20% to 3UZ and 20% to 3KZ. I think 3KZ was Hits and Memories with Pete & Liz at that stageâŚas for 3UZ, no ideaâŚI was busy alternating between 3XY and EON.
In 1986 EON-FM was sold by Glenn Wheatley to Rod Muir for $37.5M who owned 2MMM and the whisper slogan of âTriple your music EON FMâ was adopted circa Sept 1986. He later sold both EON and 2MMM back to Wheatley for $90M. Wheatley then in turn sold them to Hoyts Media in 1987 for $140MâŚafter which the new owners decided on EONâs frequency and name change. Not a bad mark-upâŚ
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I was brought up in the Carlingford area of Sydney. Alive FM was on air in late 80s or so, I guess that would of been my station if I tuned in.
I started to listen to radio from around 1981 or so. I suppose I never ventured out to listen to community radio until recently. In the early nineties I enjoyed i98 fm and I looked forward to when 2uw and 2ws would go fm. But they were never were as good as i98 fm , then i98 evolved into a modern fm radio as it is today. I wish they stuck to the old format. Having said this it was nice to hear regular 60s music in FM stereo on 2ws but again 60 music slowly disappeared. There are plenty of baby boomers, I donât really understand why. Smooth plays a bit of 60s but not the same as your 80s classic hits station.
Anyway to answer your question, I probably should of tuned into community radio earlier but didnât , today you can also to community radio online which makes it more accessible.
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I did too, it was more Classic Hits back then, I remember hearing Creedence Clearwater Revivalâs âHave You Ever Seen The Rain?â (which hardly any station plays these days!).
They used to have a positioned of âYour Eye for the Illawarraâ back then too.
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There is 2ch and triple m classic rock too. Not all doom and gloom for stereo 60s music.
Iâd say 2ca is still a reminisce of 2uw and 2ws.
Although the benefit of i98 it was on fm and also did play selected modern music too. Thatâs what I think is good with SWR throwing in new music with a good depth of classic hits. Although without the regular 60s music.
In relation to Melbourne, I have the below from the early 90s (I think 1992 - based on the fact that NewsRadio had not yet moved to 1026AM and 3EE being on the dial), which indicates there was a wave at that pointâŚ
The * indicates a station starting since March 90, however there are two obvious errors - 3EE not 3RN should have a * and BayFmâs frequency has always been 93.9 not 93.3
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Wow! I just noticed that 3AK dropped from a 10 share to a 2.
Talk about a format that moved a station from near the top to the bottom of the heapâŚ
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And it never recovered from that time onwards. Despite many changes of format and ownership, including being an Italian station at one stage and a religious at another.
It was only after SEN took over did it recover any ground. And even then not much! It also moved from 1503 to 1116 which helped its signal around Melbourne.
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When did 3ZZZ move from being âSouthern Subâ to being a Melbourne wide station, or is that a mistake on the sheet?
I think an error. AFAIK it was always Melbourne wide, taking over the old EON spot.
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