August 01, 2005

Horse 379 - Frequency Jamming

Today may be the horses' birthday but tommorrow 2nd Aug marks the 25th anniversary of FM radio in Australia. In Sydney specifically it meant the beginning of 5 radio stations ABC Classic, ABC Regional, 2DAY FM, 2MMM and 2JJJ.

Whereas the J's had already been birthed on AM, 2Day and Triple M effectively broke new ground. Triple M decided to go for the approach taken by V103 in NYC and become the "rock" station whereas 2Day followed Z100 and became the "pop" station.

Now I'm not necessarily saying that the OFP's* who grew up in the 70's & 80's are being bad like, but it seems awfully strange that yet again 2 new stations are copies of things overseas.
DMG's Nova networks are for all intents and purposes, the Australian commercial equivalent of the BBC's Radio 1. Now forgive me if I'm wrong here but it appears as though DMG is now trying to create Radio 2.

Tommorrow 2nd Aug, on the 25th anniversary of FM Radio marks the Australian startup of DMG's new station for the "over 40's", Vega 95.3. Vega radio is trying very very hard to steal the market from 2BL, WSFM, 2GB, Triple M and MIX.

It sounds all the world to be a repeat of the BBC's realignment of Radios 1 & 2 in 1990 when it was decided that Radio 2 should become "what Radio 1 was 20 years ago". But herein lies the conundrum Nova was not around in 1980; therefore internally they don't have a start point... or do they?

This week to mark the 25th anniversary of Triple M, they'll be pulling stuff out of the archives including "The Rev. Dr. Doug Mulray". If Vega want a history lesson to find out where tommorrow's futures yesterdays lie, then a listen to Triple M and BBC's Radio 2 just may be the start that they'll be looking for.

*OFP - Old Farty Pants. ©1995 BJD. http://www.bjd.au.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does this make me old already? I want to listen to Vega. It's going to rock to hear Tony Squires in the arvo.

We have to listen to the J's at work, it's kinda company policy. JJJ is only a couple of doors down the corridor.

Anonymous said...

You're making me feel old now. 25 years? I remember Triple M as a little kid.

I need a lie down, us old farty pants need some time to be old, farty and pantsy