I doubt you’d have Nova and smooth. I reckon it would’ve eventually been Nova and Star (with Star targeting the older audience playing “Rock Stars).
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How do BBC Radio 2 manage to get it right,the right mix of songs from today and older songs and none of our major radio networks can? They play the best hits of today like Pink’s latest ,I like it ,by the way 
and Meghan Trainer ,like that one too
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Yeah they get it so right. Such a diverse mix of old (even 60s!) and brand new but it just works! It’s all about song selection. Some of the newer stuff they play isn’t even charting. Breeze is the closest we have. They’re currently playing Ghost by Justin Beiber (which I actually like) after Dreamer (Supertramp).
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BBC2 play a little too much pop at times for my taste but you listen more for the quality of presentation and yes, song selection. Song selection and the art of putting together a good playlist is what radio should do well, otherwise you may as well just listen to the streaming services. Unfortunately there aren’t too many outlets in Australia that live up to this ideal.
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The Morningside Foodworks store still have Smooth DAB on (now identifying as Smooth Brisbane)In 17 years that I’ve been living here they’ve had so many different stations playing in store(and a few changes of owners/managers),they finally discovered DAB radio about a year or so ago
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It seems to be a knack of European radio to get song selection right. I’ve previously posted logs from Antenne Bayern in Munich when it was a pure Hot AC format and it has since had a slight tweak in the format to add 3-4 older songs per hour, the songs can go back as far as the 70s but suit the style of the station.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the station doesn’t play the same older songs over and over, the playlist is quite varied and there’s a lot of “I haven’t heard that one for a long time” as well as more familiar older songs but they’ll get a few spins over a week then move onto different ones. The new songs get a bit of recurrent play but not too much to get tired of them too quickly.
Edited to add: Here’s some of the older songs played over the past few hours - The Stranglers “Always the Sun”, Bon Jovi “Faith”, Jamelia “Superstar”, Steve Winwood “Higher Love”. I’ve also heard Foreigner “Say You Will”, Boston “Amanda”, Ace of Base “Beautiful Life”, Haddaway “What is Love”, Dr Alban “It’s My Life” and “Sing Hallelujah” and Talk Talk “It’s My Life” in recent days.
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Yeah I agree, European radio generally get the song selection so right. Antenne is great. I also listen to a Swedish pop/rock station where they just get it right too. To me they seem to just respect their audience more in terms of taste. Australian radio descends quickly to lowest common denominator, with a few exceptions such as Rebel, Breeze, early Smooth.
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The Vietnamese radio stations like 91fm or several local stations that have extended live programming would always have their presenters or callers/listeners choose the song by request. The presenters have to prepare the songs before going on air because systems like RCS doesn’t exist there.
Also, for a bit more note, when I visited a MediaSpy equivalent website in Germany called Radioforen, it’s seems like that many users slammed the current format at either ARD or commercial stations because they are boring (much like when Australian users at Mediaspy slamming commercial stations there), but they’re quite like Deutschlandfunk (a federal radio service that have an all-night radio block that mixed talk with “good music”). One of the arguments when German users made is that ARD or commercial stations have shifted target to “lowest common denominators”, reducing schlager and folk for English oldies, while Hot-AC and CHR offering is considered by them to be “unbearable”. They want to came back to the 1980s/1990s, when regional “commercial” stations were actually “format-free”, and always close to listeners like a household friend (one user in that forum used to even go inside the studio of a radio station when they were on-air).
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All the on air presenters on BBC R 2 sound very professional and I don’t find any of them annoying to listen to.As for the music they know the best new hits to play that will appeal to older listeners,over 45s,no ‘Rap Crap’ for instance
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aaaaaa we really need a BBC R2-style station down here!
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On the other hand talk radio in the UK is abysmal and boring and Westminister obsessed. Australia has much better local talk radio.
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Yes we do
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Not sure I agree with that. I find when I’m in the UK I sometimes stray onto LBC yet I would never listen to the likes of 2GB/4BC.
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Yes, well, I automatically exclude 2/4GB.
Agree, the downsides of foreign stations are the lack of Australian music, local news and info.
This is to me is as equally important as the music selection otherwise you may just as well listen to Spotify.
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Agree. The only thing that comes close here is Breeze. They are currently playing the new Springsteen song “Turn Back The Hands Of Time”. It’s a cover, but was only released by Springsteen in 2022.
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Personally I don’t think Spotify is as good at picking the music, and it’s not as engaging as even an overseas station.
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LBC shows the weird UK approach to balance - the station ends up jumping between left/right wing hosts - the change between their Breakfast and Morning shift in tone would throw off a lot of listeners, regardless of direction.
Australian stations generally just change in tone in different shifts, so you’d generally either like or hate the station as a whole.
It’s probably better for the likes of 2GB to just be a station for those listeners who like the general tone, then if we were like the UK and they had to shoehorn in balance and upset everyone.
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Hmm… The change in tone (left vs right) is what I like about LBC. Mind you I’m not generally a talkback listener but I find the balance of LBC more mature… Or perhaps the audience is more mature.
Even on BBC, which is often accused of left-wing bias, in my opinion has a very broad swing between left and right. The Jeremy Vine show on BBC R2 often has wildly differing viewpoints presented, and it’s meant to be a bit lighter given it’s on R2.
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it comes down to the fact that algorithms suck.
to give you an example, i was out today. in this journey i listened to Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Meghan Trainor, Elevation Worship, Jax, Mickie James and Teeny Tiny Stevies.
so Emo Pop, Pop, Worship, Country and Kids. any algorithm would stuggle with that, and thats a fairly standard day for me
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