smoothfm

Richard Branson just presented a shift on Smooth! It wasn’t listed on their website though.

I only just tuned in then at the very end… he just signed off, but he was posing the question about routines when people fly.

Yes. Though the recorded talking bits on the weekend are extremely annoying.

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Agree. I find all the talking bits [fake] and annoying. Should just play the tunes period.

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Just feel smooth a bit fake.

I heard Ty Frost (I think) promote this weekend’s Richard Branson pre-recorded programs on Friday afternoon.

Somehow, I get the general impression that Smooth 95.3 has a higher quality sound (when it comes to announcers and newsreaders) on weekdays than weekends.

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Higher quality sound?

Do you mean a higher quality feel, as opposed to fidelity?

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Yeah, obviously I was referring to the programing rather than anything on the technical side. Apologies if I wasn’t clear enough on that! :slight_smile:

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What content does 2CH air that makes it sound local? What are their announcers talking about?

Your typical drive time break has song info, time call, a brief traffic update and tease to a proper traffic update coming up.

Whenever I listen to 2CH it sounds like Traffic AM. It’s all they talk about.

Also would be nice if they’d occasionally mention the station frequency and not just as “Sydney’s 2CH”. Mentioning the actual frequency is another way to remind listeners it is a local broadcast.

Bob Rogers reminiscing about him hanging with The Beatles at their digs in the Sheraton Hotel at Kings Cross and at the Sydney Stadium concert.

On Smooth Wilkins and Campbell talk about lunch in the park.

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I heard the other week talk about something happening at the Olympic Park as he was mentioning the name of the song. It might not always be live but it feels more local than smooth.

Now that 2ue,2gb, smooth,2sm are targeting the older age group are not local, its nice to have one station that is Sydney only. Its the largest city in Australia with an aging population yet only one station is local 24 by 7.

According to Radioinfo, Peter Overton is joining Smooth as guest news journalist from next Monday September 4 for one week. He will be heard at 10am, 11am and 12pm weekdays while Steve Blanda is on leave.

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Hope Peter Overton has time/is contractually able to continue his chats with John Laws.

Normally heard after 11am on at least Monday and Tuesday, Laws’ chat with Overton is often good radio.

I was scanning the dials this evening and heard the station ID/jingle “smooth 91.5”. For a moment, I thought I was having some extremely good DXing conditions, but then looked at the frequency and it was on 95.3. Not sure how their Melbourne ID sneaked into their Sydney transmission.

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I haven’t heard that before… it was bound to happen eventually.

I wonder if Melbourne got the 95.3 ID?

I find the Smooth 91.5 jingle much more laboured (that is, less natural) than the one for 95.3. It’s purely down to the way the respective frequencies roll off the tongue. About the only thing that Sydney does better than Melbourne imo.

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I find the opposite. Being in Melbourne, I’ve obviously heard the 91.5 version much more, so the 95.3 sounds weird and like it doesn’t roll as smoothly.
I think it’s just a matter of it being something you’re used to hearing, so the alternative sounds foreign.

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Maybe that’s because we are used to hearing the 95.3 ID up here.

I did think 91.5 sounded less natural too when I first heard it, but I thunk over time it will seem more natural too…

But then I don’t know that I’d be saying that if Smooth had been allocated eg. 97.7… the “7” would be even more awkward sounding :grinning:

Apologies if it’s already been mentioned already but for what it’s worth, Music 4 London produced the jingles for Smooth FM back in 2012 and have the full packages for both the Sydney & Melbourne stations on their website:

95.3 Sydney version
91.5 Melbourne version

Personally I think the 95.3 version sounds slightly more natural than the 91.5 version (for obvious reasons), but the jingle package works quite well for both stations and I can understand why they’re still using it after five years. Smooth FM have certainly been more successful with a Music 4-produced jingle package than the other Australian radio station which had one anyway…

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Is anyone else sick of the jingles though? Surely after all these years they would’ve refreshed them at some point.

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