I think the only shift that is totally live and local is breakfast (in Sydney and Melbourne) since that is the only shift where SYD and MEL have their own presenters. I’m not sure what presenters ADL/BNE/PER get for breakfast.
Even parts of the weekday shifts from 10am would need to voicetracked so they can have city specific references (for Syd and Melb at least) since it’s the same presenters nationally … eg. “coming up on Melbourne’s Smooth 91.5”. I imagine ADL/BNE/PER would get a generic voicetrack at these times since it’s only heard on digital radio in those cities.
Have you tried Easy Radio? It’s usually my weekend station of choice. Sounds a bit more lively that Smooth sometimes, especially with news bulletins at times. Still love Smooth though.
That’s the beauty of Zetta, you can run many multiple stations off the one computer/desktop. They can all run the same log but with a differing delay, or they can all run totally different logs.
If you listen to the Sydney & Melbourne Smooth streams together, you’ll hear they are delayed from each other, so the announcer can talk to Sydney specific, then talk to Melbourne specific, all within the same program at a slightly different time.
Essentially when Smooth Sydney & Melbourne are live, the jock is presenting 2 separate programs at the same time.
Nova has the same abilities, & if they wanted, 1 jock could present a different program to all the Nova’s, the 2 Smooths & Star104.5 at the same time, all out of the Star104.5 studios in Gosford, (or any of the network studios).
Although I must admit it reminds me a little of Easy in NZ back in the 90s… Love songs at night (Love songs till midnight) or as Dave Fitzgerald once told me ‘tunes you slash your wrists to’…
I guess that’s why Easy just played ‘I Guess that why they call it the blues’.
Far out… the only reason why I bought a digital radio two years ago was to hear NovaNation.
I remember doing a radio course with Lee Sims when he said he did a radio show between Brisbane and Sydney and
would alternate the station IDs by merely muting one when saying the other.
Ben Latimer has been named as Smooth’s PD for the duration of a maternity role contract. He will cover for Georgie Page, who goes into maternity leave on Friday 21st July. He will commence on his role on Monday 24th July.
Sir Richard Branson is joining Smooth’s all-star weekend lineup from this Saturday, July 15, at 4pm. The Virgin Group founder was in Melbourne last week for the launch of Virgin Australia’s latest route, from Melbourne to Hong Kong.
Branson?!? Yet another in the Smooth weekend revolving door who just encourage you to switch stations rather than listen to someone reading a syrupy meaningless script. Do Wilkins and Campbell train the weekend stars!
Personally I’d like a little more localism on Smooth FM.
But at the same time, I can’t really criticise the station/network for providing Sydney & Melbourne with a music format which largely isn’t catered to by any other FM station in the market. Stations which do things differently are rightly rewarded in the ratings.
2CH might be an OK listen in general/daytime music shifts, but personally I think elements of the station like Bob Rogers and the NSW Council of Churches influence (religious messages, Sunday night programing) makes 2CH sound very old fashioned compared to Smooth 95.3!
Hope 103.2 know how to do it without sounding old fashioned.
Smooth from 6:00am to 6:00pm on weekends is tragic. They need to get someone in live at breakfast, and if they can’t be bothered having anyone live the rest of the weekend just play music and commercials, which would be a vast improvement.
2CH might be an OK listen in general/daytime music shifts, but personally I think elements of the station like Bob Rogers and the NSW Council of Churches influence
Yeah agree with this. 2ch is not perfect. The ideal station would be a 2ca style station.
Smooth rates well in Sydney as radio stations seem to think FM stations need to have a certain sound to work on fm. Smooth proves an older demographic can work on fm. 2ws / MIX have evolved away from this over the years.
A perception is you cant operate a 2ca like station on fm. Id like to see someone try again with some decent marketing. 60s and 70s music sounds great in stereo. Plus 2ca/2ch generally had a decent regular news service. I think it would give wsfm and smooth a run for thier money.