"We don't like you either", is the slogan used by JJJ on and off since 1975 when the station basically gave commercial radio and the ABC itself a right kick in the pants 30 years ago today.
For this I'll use the Sydney Stations as that's what most of the readership know of, though equally the same outrage was felt throughout the country.
The reason why I mention this is more of an historical anomaly. In 1975 the ABC looked at the BBC and saw that Radio 1 after switching to popular music ruled the airwaves. Radio 1 had been built from the old 247 national station which before 1967 was the only nationwide BBC station in the UK. The ABC thought about this and saw that to compete against the big music stations of 2UW and 2SM it would need to launch its own station. But the ABC realised that to do so would be a mistake in the light that an untapped market was waiting.
On 19 Jan 1975, 2JJ burst forth with the Skyhooks' "You Just Like Me 'Cause I'm Good in Bed". The track had been banned from commercial radio due to the protests but programming this song as the first track on the first day of broadcast and on the Sabbath, no less caused an instant furore a fact which no doubt delighted the mischievous wowser-baiters at 2JJ. 2JJ at 1540kHz chimed in and stole 2SM's thunder which had promoted itself as "top of the dial", Mr Laws at 950 2UE attacked the station for it's crudeness and because of the initial media outrage it stole 5% of the market within 2 months.
The other thing which instantly annoyed the establishment was Gayle Austin, who by her prescence of air actually became the first female announcer on radio to have her own show anywhere in the world.
Of course in 1980 Double-J became Triple-J when Aunty was granted the first FM licence in the country. From here, the story of the ABC on radio is where it more or less aligned itself to the BBC's stations in character. FM 105.7 was chosen in Sydney, simply because on most radio sets it involved no movement of the tuning dial from it's old location.
Not too bad for "... perhaps the least loveable offspring spawned by the ABC."
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