I think Grant’s or another radio station company comes into the Shepparton market. It would be good. Onefm the community station is skewed to the oldies however due some infighting at the station
I remember coming up to Shepparton 5+ years ago listen to 3SR and enjoying the music while listening around. Moved up here 3 years ago and I have slowly moved from 3SR and occiasially Hit to now in the car ABC due to the fact that I hear so many song repeated(either switching from Hit to Triple M or on the same station. Driving Around I heard shotgun 4 times in 4 hours.
In Shepparton, We can get 3BO from Bendigo very strong too.
I think if Ace or Grants(Ithink a K-Rock without the football or BayFM would be ideal for Shepparton)set up shop in Shepparton Market, I think the Local Southern Cross Austero and OneFM will seriously need to look at there stations.
at least your area has a backup tape - I’ve heard 30+ minutes of dead silence on the Central Coast of NSW. 2GO is famous for its dead airs. They were off air for over an hour in breakfast earlier this year, with dead silence. You often get the silence during the football coverage too when something goes amiss.
2GO and SEA have had so much staff turnover recently and several people from Newcastle are also working out of Gosford as well I’ve been told, to try and improve the place.
I listened to Edge and 3NE on my way back down from Hotham and found them much better than The Borders 105.7 Triple M. As soon as you get to around Euroa you can get Goulburn Valley’s hit 96.9 and even surprisingly hit fm Bendigo on 91.9.
Confine this rubbish to the Gold Coast where the tactic is failing miserably against Hot Tomato. But hey, Mickey knows what he’s doing, remains in the job.
The terrible truth of most of commercial radio.
The clubs and bars they frequent affirm this observation too.
I think part of it is that so much of current music is influenced by artists that grew up in the 90s - so the 80s music that still dominated radio at the time, become inspirations for new music. That in turn makes 80s/90s music relevant now, a lot of those sounds and styles come through.
That’s part of how I’d frame it on hit music stations - get current artists to record a few soundbytes of them talking about tracks and artists that inspired them - and then play a song off the back of that.
It’s kinda like how Smooth can play some newly recorded songs - just because they stylistically fit the tone of the station, and that’s far more important than the release year.
I hear you re the Old School stuff but I think if one was to point out a good Top 40 station, be it more urban then anything else, I would say The EDGE in Katoomba is still pretty good in new music, and its my go to for new stuff.
One thing I’ve noticed over the past 12 months is there isn’t Electronic dance music shows on Friday or Saturday nights anymore. It was almost staple on every CHR station across the country.
I know there’s the Hype on grant stations but when I’ve worked night shift and been stuck listening to 98.1 Power FM due to a crappy antenna the same episode was played 4 weekend night shift swings in a row.
Is there any need for these shows? Or are programmers just lazy and choose the cheap easy alternative with automation from midnight?
If it’s the same generic dance/rhythmic mix, probably not really. But, that said, there are definite success stories with that format around the place (Fresh Adelaide and Radio Metro GC, which I would dare say be slightly impacting the audience of local commercial CHR’s).
The fact that ol mate Bill’s Gorilla is the only commercial station in AU playing Rhythmic/Dance, as well as the fact that a fair chunk of the listening populace would be more likely to use streaming or podcasts to suit their particular style, it just shows a lack of interest from the big three.
But given the latest fad of 2017-19 is Oldschool (Rhythmic seemed to be 2015-17), I’m surprised one of the three hasn’t decided to go down the old school dance anthems path, mix in some 80’s-Now, but be game with it… Something similar to Kisstory in the UK would be a start.
Being a huge fan I can honestly say that despite the popularity of it (look at festival attendances for example) EDM as a radio genre just seems a bit too niche for a generation more accustomed to streaming.
Although as mentioned before there are a few community and narrowcast success stories (Raw FM / Kiss FM) and even Gorilla has stood the test of time.
But let’s not forget Novanation which was dumped for Coles Radio one Christmas Eve and Ministry of Sound Radio (streaming) which the plugged was pulled on despite its success.
Personally I usually listen to Raw FM with Evolution (iHeart) & iHeartRadio dance getting a go occasionally.
Wasn’t there rumour that Wild FM would be attempting a re-launch as a digital station?
Thanks for the insight guys. Look I have to be in the mood for it but Saturday nights at work used to be a bit of a treat for something different. SCA used to have ministery of sound and the drop on regular analog radio and in 17 had the afterparty with Rojdar that was pulled in JAN of last year.
Sorry for the delayed reply but have to say I 100% agree with your observations here, having just spent a bit of time in that area.
In the past the shared logs between 3BO/3SR/105.7 were always a pain, but at least the music was listenable. The same cannot be said now. The last drive down south I dragged reception of 105.1 Orange out as far as I could until I got Albury or Shep, was more or less listening for the best part of six hours, this time I didn’t last more than a couple of songs at a time before switching. I found the Hit stations more listenable to be honest
100% agree re Edge FM too - with it’s coverage spanning most of northern Vic (courtesy of the mountain repeaters and 102.5 Deni) they could really make some inroads across the region. I’m imagining a River949 type mix of new and old, with maybe a bit more grunt to attract the males disillusioned by MMM. Would take a bit of work but is doable, and who knows, could actually be a challenge in time, especially if SCA persist with this MMM strategy
Couldn’t listen to that station for more than a minute
Bay FM