However, it wouldn’t be a good result if the listeners came from 4BC that relies a lot on the older demo groups and where I think some of 4BH’s audience has migrated - rather than to that “rock n roll” station 4KQ 
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I highly doubt a 4BH listener who used to tune in to the radio for easy listening music has all of a sudden decided they want to hear talkback all day. That just doesn’t make sense. They’ve either gone to 4KQ - as evidenced by their big jump in ratings - or they’ve gone to a community music station or DAB.
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I completely agree. And DAB can help in that regard too, to supplement the AM station.
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It’s simple for 2CH, simply provide a different universe of music than what’s on Smooth, compliment don’t compete. Wheatley, Williams and Brice should know this.
The gap is very much soft AC. No station is doing it in Brisbane. None of the community stations have had the brains to work it out either.
They’ve gone to DAB - not to community, there’s nothing available in Brisbane save for pathetic attempts at copying the commercial stations on the sub metro community stations. 96.5 as a Brisbane wide station sits in the B105/973 grouping for age demo.
It has. 4BH with David McDonald as GM and Geoff Harrison as PD on a shoestring budget, pushed the DAB+ marketing when it began. I’d say they did the most station specific marketing of DAB of any station. On air mentions and radio giveaways.
Nothing matched the big budget support that SA FM had under Paul Thompson and team to saturate the market with FM radios of course. That’s what digital needs, but the risk averse commercial radio industry doesn’t wake up to this.
Life will move on very well without TL. The music formats if programmed to fill the right gaps in Melb and Bris will do well. Music programming is not expensive. 20 hours/day with four/five announcers on air live, not a huge wage bill. And spend money on marketing to remind people these stations exist.
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You’re so right about the community stations. I can’t believe none of them have had the brains to fill the soft AC void… it’s unbelievable.
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It is - but it’s not receivable over most of Brisbane. Imagine if 96.5 or one of the other community stations played soft AC.
I think there is/was a big overlap in the over 60 age group between 4BC local talkback and the older music of 4BH. Listeners didn’t just have to stay with one station all day. I think some of those 4BH listeners are now listening just to 4BC so if 4BH was revived as a music station it could hurt 4BC.
The idea of TL was to solidify the audience for the talk station, remove an alternative for them with the gamble being that they wouldn’t move from traditional radio to find other choices.
Whether that’s worked or not is up to us to consider and provide opinion.
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A Breeze or Smooth style station is a no-brainer for Brisbane FM, but who’s going to provide it. 96.5 seems set on the modern contemporary-type music they play, 98.9 is country, 4EB is ethnic talk and 4ZZZ won’t change anytime this millennium, so it doesn’t leave a lot of options
Short of 4BH reappearing in its former glory, we need a station catering to adults in Brisbane. 2NUR seem to have done a good job in Newcastle addressing an absence in the market, we could use the same, but I don’t see anyone who’ll do it
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96.5 seems set on the modern contemporary-type music they play
96.5 need to keep focusing on moden contemporary - the only reason they have a licence is to serve the christian community of brisbane and one of the ways they do this is by playing christian contempory music. it would be a shock to play CCM than Smooth style. it does not fit the main reason they are licenced.
the problem is that no one wants to try untested formats. all stations have thir market and if that works why rock the boat? you could end up like TS and bombing badly,
I see what you’re suggesting but I don’t agree there was an overlap. I think if 4BH listeners were flicking between talkback and music then a lot more would have just stayed with TL. Judging by the near * ratings that hasn’t happened. I haven’t seen much of a bump in 4BC’s ratings, but there has been a big bump in 4KQ’s.
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Yeah sadly that’s true. I can’t see anyone stepping up. I’m surprised 99.7 wouldn’t try it. I’ve tuned to them lately and they just sound like 4KQ with a hint of Triple M.
I’ve often wondered if River 94.9 have ever considered it.
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Exactly right, and each of the city-wide community stations has a licence obligation to serve a particular community of interest like ethnic, university students, religious etc so could likely be found to be in breach of their licence if they had a Smooth-FM format. (2NUR is different because its licence is for the community interest of the Newcastle RA2 licence area.)
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As an outsider looking in, to me it seems like MRN and commercial FM broadcasters in Brisbane should be catering to their market better.
Does Brisbane really need two predominantly talk stations from the same broadcaster? Does Brisbane (and Adelaide/Perth for that matter) really need three out of it’s four commercial FM stations aligned with the Hit, Nova and KIIS Networks when they target a reasonably similar audience to each other?
Although they’re not a primary listening choice for me personally, I do think city-wide community stations are right to cover particular areas of the market that the commercial/national broadcasters aren’t interested in. I’d question whether it’s necessary for some national stations to be broadcast on FM in metro markets if we have community stations doing localised versions of the same format, but that’s a long debate for another time/thread.
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Don’t disagree with the points above, and agree 96.5 are doing what Christian broadcasters do all around the country and probably shouldn’t change. I don’t think River should try it, they’d just turn away their local audience to chase a few Brisbane listeners, which is not what their station is licenced for
I think it all comes back to Brisbane being one music station short of its needs. We’re missing a station something between a Smooth and a 94.1 on the Gold Coast. 882 could do it if they were smart and I’m sure it would rate (better than TL at least), but in reality it would have a lot more impact on the FM band
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I agree. Brisbane is a music station short, particularly on FM. It all stems back to when 4BH failed to convert to FM back in the early 90s. They bid too much then couldn’t come up with the cash. It was then offered to the second bidder 4KQ whose owners took a “strategic” decision not to pay to convert. The broadcasting authority then completely failed in their duty by not offering it to the 3rd and 4th bidder. Both 4IP and even 4BC put in bids. I believe if one of these stations had converted then would have still offered 2 new licences when 97.3 and Nova won theirs. Brisbane would have ended up with 5 commercial FM stations instead of 4 and everyone would be happy. Either KQFM or Smooth would be on FM.
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Was that because 4IP and 4BC failed to meet the reserve (my understanding is that all ABA/ACMA spectrum auctions have reserves).
Also given 4IP was an Ipswich licence, why isn’t River treated the same way - thereby being the extra FM station?.
I’m not sure whether they didn’t meet a reserve price, but yes possibly. Actually I wasn’t aware they had a reserve. At the time they had already effectively made 4IP a Brisbane station so it wasn’t an Ipswich station as such any longer. The situation today with River is a bit different because it is only licenced to Ipswich and some parts of Brisbane’s metro area to the west and south.
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In the 90s, yes Brisbane was a commercial FM station short, resulting in only 2 vs 3 each in ADL and PER.
But I think this was rectified when 2 new commercial FM licences were auctioned in the early 00s, vs only 1 each in ADL and PER.
So BNE, ADL and PER now have 4 each.