It’s a shame Smooth FM is only available on DAB in Brisbane,if they were on FM here I would listen while in the car and at work
I reckon Triple M with an Absolute Radio (UK) playlist. Shame SCA wouldn’t have the nous to do it. Smooth is a success because they took a risk with a music format.
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I just use the Smooth app to stream it here in Canberra.
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We had a similar conversation at survey release date recently.
Read on from here:
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ACMA should allow Smooth to broadcast on FM in Brisbane
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Interesting comments from Paul Jackson -
Compared to Nova and other personality-driven stations, smooth is low key and a bean counter’s dream as it runs on tiny overheads. But that’s a large part of the point of difference between smooth and the others.
As Group Program Director who oversees all of NovaEnt’s stations you wouldn’t expect Paul Jackson to micro-manage all the playlists but he does. “Hands on, all of it, every day. I have to be honest I can’t help myself,” he says.
https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/how-smooth-picks-songs-make-it-music-leader
With the acma reviewing the LAPs for Brisbane and Perth this year I guess there’s a slight chance they will allocate a new or conversion FM licence in these cities. They both desperately need a 5th FM station. Smooth FM would win in both Perth and Brisbane for sure.
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Are there any free frequencies for another high-powered FM station in SEQ?
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Fellow MediaSpy members have engineered it here, but you can be rest assured the incumbents will come up with an idea as to why it’s not possible to thwart new entrants.
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If they shuffled it around I’m sure they’d be able to find one. Community temp licence on the GC at 94.1 springs to mind that could be used for Brisbane even with the current frequency allocation. But I believe they’re looking at a re-stack of frequencies.
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I’d like to see a restack and replan of the whole of South East QLD. Even look at increasing power of some services to prevent duplication of transmissions.
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Attempted to listen to smooth 91.5 for an hour or so this morning as I listened to it when it first started. I was a “rusted” on 91.5 listener then from Vega through to Classic Rock. Liked the station because of very little chat. Now I fail to understand how anyone can listen to this “drivel”! The music is just so insipid. It’s back to MMM Greatest Hits and MMM Classic Rock for me. IMO the listeners in Brisbane and Perth are lucky not to have smooth. 
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I heard Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel just now on Smooth, Good to hear some Early 70’s Stuff they Rarely Play.
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If that’s your preferred music then, no, Smooth FM is never going to be to your liking. But the ratings are showing it is filling a niche that nobody else is covering.
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True. But I might be in the minority but I love both Smooth and Classic Rock 
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I’d honestly prefer it if Sydneysiders embraced the all locally generated content of 2CH (well OK, maybe not the religious stuff on Sunday or Bob Rogers’ sleep inducing Saturday night show, but the rest…) over the often pre-recorded/voicetracked stuff on Smooth 95.3.
However, I can understand why Smooth has been doing quite well in the ratings recently - it’s perhaps the closest thing that Sydney commercial FM radio currently has to what FM stations were like when they first launched almost four decades ago - an enjoyable music mix, a decent (at least by commercial FM standards) news service and minimal chit chat.
There of course, is also the fact that Smooth is on FM while 2CH has to rely on AM and DAB+. While the sound quality of 2CH’s Digital Radio channel sounds pretty damn good (as it probably always has), not everyone can access that in their cars, etc.
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Tomorrow is Smooth’s 7th birthday:
https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/smoothfm-will-begin-its-7th-year-top
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It’s weird they ignore the first seven years of 95.3 and 91.5. ABC Radio Sydney has never ignored their first nine years of existence before they became part of the ABC.
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I think the first seven years of 95.3 Sydney/91.5 Melbourne are ignored (by the station, not us enthusiasts of course) because Vega, Classic Rock and that placeholder format weren’t very successful unlike Smooth FM!
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