Laoma, thanks for the thumbs up,
During 1996 to 1997, MIX 106.5 seemed to be at their maxim, maybe they became more confident with their format, or just had better management at ARN, but for a short wile they were seriously having a go at recreating the old 2Day FM of the early mid 80s. They had heavily cut back on the “Mix Artists”, and started pushing toward a much looser rotation, with a more uncluttered style. I didn’t expect them to suddenly play Maureen Elkner’s “Rak off normie”, but they were several tracks I was surprised to hear for the first time on FM radio, obviously some hang-over from 2UW to what it seemed.
ANyway, must have been another management change at ARN during the later part of 1997, as both MIX and 2WS went back to their tightly rotated crappy playlists again, and that was that.
So in essence, I’m recreateing the sound of what MIX and 2WS sounded like in the mid 90s, but with two pointers, extremely, and I mean extreamly low rotations over several days, rather then a few hours, and the aspect of some curated program material that many stations seem to lack today. I guess one could even say we’re sounding like 2UW in the mid to late 80s. Lots of new AC stuff with a deep archive of music from the 30s 40s, 70s, 80s, till now.