As of today, Sydney has 44 commercial stations across AM/FM and DAB.
Canberra has 17.
I don’t know the numbers for the other capital cities and Gold Coast, although it would be interesting to see.
If you want to include the National broadcasters, add 18 to these markets for the current ABC and SBS channels.
You might want to check some of those numbers with the official ACMA list. Sydney for example has 11 stations, Brisbane has 8 and Gold Coast only 3.
Are the populations meant indicate the licence areas? Those numbers for Gold Coast and many just below that point look well above the official numbers. Remote NE is only just over 200,000 officially. Perhaps the stations are promoting higher numbers?
I’d also suggest that the final column might work better if the ratio was reversed and it showed the number of people per station; just a suggestion. Interesting exercise though.
I didn’t include DAB+ as many people don’t have DAB+ receivers and the DAB+ stations change too frequently. The list is from also from CRA - as it’d take too long for me to research the stations for every market.
Yep. Looks like 1170 is missing from Sydney, but it’s not a list that I’ve compiled. I’ve just taken CRA’s list directly as is.
I assume so. CRA just said it was the population.
Sure, I can do that.
This is the official ACMA list with populations and stations for each LAP
https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/Section%2030%20Instrument%20and%20Schedule.pdf
Very interesting.
Does anyone know what the “Australia-wide S40” stations are? They are present in every RA and include “2KA”. What is this?
Also, the discrepancy in population figures for the Brisbane RA1 and Brisbane TV1 figures is intriguing. About 3.3M in the TV area but 2.4M in the Radio area. I’m guessing Gold Coast must be included in the Brisbane TV area, but not in the Radio area.
Correct - Brisbane TV covers the Gold Coast (and southern Sunny Coast) but they have their own radio.
Does anyone know if 102.7 FM from Toowoomba is down or running at reduced power? Unable to receive it in an area where it usually comes in booming with full stereo and RDS.
Receiving it in Brisbane - at low level but seems about the same as usual.
Yes that might be true, but many (millions) of people do have receivers that can receive them and some might also not have AM receivers.
It’s still an incomplete list as you need to include all AM/FM/DAB when it comes to radio.
Understandable. But I can tell you that Sydney has 44 commercial channels in total as of today. That number might go up by the end of the year as there is some unused spectrum, but you can still use 44 as a starting point.
The national stations are consistent at 18 ABC and SBS channels across all capital cities + Gold Coast.
You could ask some people on here for the current Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Hobart commercial numbers on DAB to get a more accurate picture.
S40 was a class of licence permitting X band stations (1611-1629 AM) to broadcast as a commercial format, IIRC.
Radio 2 had a bunch of them, and tried to back-door their way into DAB+ with that S40 licence, but were denied.
The Hot Country Network in Queensland were also S40 stations. Funny story, in 2006 they tried to shut down them Emerald S40 licence claiming it expired (wasn’t renewed), but it was found the ACMA sent the renewal notice to the wrong address. The ACMA weren’t going to budge, until the station owner got in contact with Barnaby Joyce, who then picked up the phone and put all kinds of heat on the ACMA.
Thanks for the info.
I’d be curious to know who owns the “2KA” one as it seems to be listed in a lot of markets, including metro ones. Assume that was the Radio 2 one? I thought they’d given them all up, but if they’re still listed as active by ACMA it’s a bit weird.
Noise FM.
More change, today ARN launched KIIS Dance on DAB+ meaning existing DAB+ sets will need to be rescanned again in order to pick it up. Too much change.
Do I really think I’m going to be constantly rescanning my DAB+ radio just for 1 new station here and there, or a sudden change in the station name? Probably nope. I have a DAB+ receiver but most of the time when I do use it I use the FM band. And at times for FM DXing (most of it during the Summer).
Nah should be running at full power
Wasn’t sure which thread to put this in, but the 2025 remix of “Starlight” by the Supermen Lovers featuring OneRepublic got a play on Way FM in Tasmania this evening.
Why do we need to know this?
It’s the first time I have heard this song on any Australian radio station (thus far).
Similarly, recent remixes of “Dancing in the Moonlight” (by Jubel/Neimy in 2020) and “Sugar” (a remix/remake of the 2003 song “Suga Suga” by Baby Bash by Robin Schulz/Francesca Yates in 2015) also got good radio airplay in 2020 in Australia in the respective years they were released.
Speaking of remixes, Hot Tomato played Cyril’s remix of Atomic Kitten’s “Whole Again” this past hour.
Yes, but what’s so special about this song, There are hundreds of songs added to radio playlists each year. We don’t keep track of all of them.
He probably meant to post in the"Did They Really Play That?" thread.
