Yesterday when I was at the Esplanade in Cairns, I went for a ride on the Reef Eye (like the Brisbane Eye though smaller)they had Triple M blaring from huge speakers.Why couldn’t they just play music, ie Spotify instead of yap yap yap:-1:
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They might have a sponsorship arrangement in place to do that?
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Yes possibly
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Perfect comment. The fact Australia’s powerhouse of K&J can’t win in multiple markets, then what chance do other metro breakfast shows have.
I don’t think Australia is ready for networked metro brekkie shows just yet.
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Year 3000
Busted (2002) | The Jonas Brothers (2006)
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(brought over from the British radio thread)
I agree. having experienced both British radio (in London) and Aussie Radio there is one big glaring difference - the formats in Australia are all the bloody same, even on DAB. how many 90’s stations do we need.
London DAB is innovative and attempts to grow the listening market. for example, Rainbow Radio (catering to LGBT listeners) and Various foreign language stations in languages like Punjabi.
No broadcaster wants to take a risk here with a format that’s out of the ordinary. Where is the innovation and diversification?
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Agree. We can’t even get some of the proper mainstream formats on DAB. For example there is no mainstream or active rock format on DAB. Let alone any innovation.
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I think the ratings system plays a huge part - there’s such a big deal of being number 1 - so funnelling all your listeners to the main station is the key; rather than say TV where you have the multi-channels, but you commonly report the network share - allowing them to all freely target different demographics with each channel.
Or say how a sporting event can air on the main channel in some markets, but on a multichannel in others - yet it is all added together for the national figure, if you did the same on radio, even if you were listening to the same show, it counts as listening to a different station.
Every listener a DAB station wins is pretty much a listener lost to their main stations - it looks like the main stations are falling in ratings if listeners switch to a digital offshoot.
The fact new entrants can just buy in on DAB in the UK means they have motivation to succeed - while in Australia the motivation is largely to just block the competitor from succeeding - hence you either have 0 of a format in a market, or multiples.
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In 1980 commercial FM radio started in Australia and existing AM stations were prohibited from applying for an FM licence.
Fast forward to the beginning of DAB radio in Australia and only existing stations could buy frequency.
We moved from encouraging diversity to denying it in only a few decades.
That’s why DAB stations all sound like the same 80s or 90s mix tape over and over and over and over and over again.
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Apart from here, and maybe at Coles, DAB isn’t that important and I really don’t think is going to grow or expand from here.
FM and AM will remain king there mainly due to the landscape.
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FM, yes. Not AM.
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AM have #1 in stations in multiple markets. For talkback and easy listening it’s still king.
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makes it the perfect place to get experimental than as the audiance is lower
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Yesterday I was driving 70km North of Emerald (around Tieri)and faintly picking up a FM station on 92.7. They were playing rock music, what I could tell.
Does anyone know what and where this station is?
I’ll be in the Clermont / Moranbah area on Tuesday. Hopefully I will pick it up again and find out.
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There is 4HI at Clermont Mine on 92.7, 100 watts, that could be it?
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Its worth noting that the UK has more diversity in its formats because it is an element that is regulated. Changing formats isn’t a trivial exercise, it requires planning and public consultation.
Australia’s system is driven largely by ratings (as @Moe points out) - stations here can change at a whim if they so desired.
It’s worth noting though that Ofcom rarely have refused requests for format changes. And over recent years there’s been a lot of chopping and changing of station formats in the UK. Far more than has happened in Australia. I can’t think of any major format changes in Australia in the last 20 years other than Mix to KIIS. And that was almost evolutionary rather than an absolute flip.
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The alternative/rock XS Manchester being knocked back from flipping to urban Capital Xtra is probably the one recent exception
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2PTV and 3PTV changed formats four times before they became Smooth: first Vega as a music/talk format, then Vega as a “40 years of music” classic hits, then Classic Rock FM, then Sydney’s 95.3/Melbourne 91.5 as an adult contemporary station before morphing into Smooth as it is today. And even then they tweaked the music mix to play fewer ballads and more uptempo songs.
Nova going from “sounds different” to “sounds the same”.
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Yeah true, forgot about Smooth lol
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