In this chapter we look at the development of radio in the southern hemisphere. At the beginning of the twentieth century Australia was a newly federated country. The new government realised that the broadcasting spectrum should be regulated and wireless telegraphy quickly came under their control. The Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1905 was introduced and since then, broadcasting in Australia has remained the responsibility of federal governments. In the same year Marconi’s company built Australia’s first two-way wireless telegraphy station at Queenscliff in Victoria. Marconi and its main competitor, Telefunken, combined to form Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd. in 1913.
That same year, the AWA established the Marconi Telefunken College of Telegraphy (later renamed the Marconi School of Wireless). This establishment made a valuable contribution during the two world wars. During times of conflict there is always a tremendous need for radio communications and Australia was able to maintain a high level of expertise. This has been attributed mainly to the effectiveness of the Marconi School of Wireless.
After the RMS Titanic tragedy in 1912, many nations around the world agreed to provide coastal communication services to ensure the safety of seafarers. The first Australian coastal radio station was established in Melbourne in 1912. More stations followed and by 1914 there were nineteen coastal stations around the Australian mainland. At first the stations communicated with Morse telegraphy.
Many people were attracted to the emerging technology. One such person was Ernest Fisk, who was born in Sunbury-on-Thames in 1886. Fisk joined the Marconi Company as a wireless operator in 1905 and visited Australia in that capacity in 1912. He returned the following year as Marconi’s chief representative.
In July 1913 Telefunken and the Marconi Company pooled resources to form a new company called Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Limited. Fisk became a prominent employee. He was appointed managing director and destined to wield a powerful influence on all facets of wireless growth in Australia.
Ernest Fisk had long considered the possibility of direct radio broadcasts from the United Kingdom to Australia. On 22 September 1918 he received the first such message at his home in Sydney and then organised the first Australian radio broadcast on 19 August 1919. Fisk had arranged a lecture on the emerging technology to the Royal Society of New South Wales. He had arranged for a piece of music to be broadcast from one building to another at the end of the lecture. When he finished his talk he relayed the National Anthem and the patriotic audience rose to their feet. The lecture had been a triumph. He attempted to do the same thing at another public demonstration a few months later, but this one had a less satisfactory conclusion.
On this occasion Fisk was lecturing at Farmer’s Blaxland Gallery. However, there was no telephone connection between his location and his headquarters so he told the engineer at Clarence Street to play the gramophone record continuously for an allotted period. Fisk finished his lecture and duly relayed the sound from his headquarters. The audience heard the National Anthem play and quickly rose to their feet. Unfortunately, the lecture had overrun. The engineer, thinking Fisk had probably finished his talk, flipped the record over. As the audience stood to attention they were suddenly treated to an orchestral version of Yankee Doodle Dandy.
After the First World War there were 900 radio amateurs in Australia and there were quite a few notable personalities involved at the dawn of Australasian broadcasting. Florence Violet McKenzie, known affectionately as ‘Mrs Mac’, was one of the region’s most influential pioneers. She was Australia’s first electrical engineer and a founder of the Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps. She established a training establishment in Sydney, where some 12,000 pupils acquired Morse code and visual signalling skills. Mrs Mac was a lifelong supporter of technical education for women and fought successfully to have some of her female novices accepted into the all-male navy and, in so doing, helped form the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service.
She was also instrumental in setting up Wireless Weekly, which was Australia’s first wireless magazine. It arose from conversations between McKenzie and another radio enthusiast, William J. MacLardy, who operated the amateur station 2HP. The first issue of Wireless Weekly had a print run of only a few hundred copies and went on sale on 4 August 1922. At first the magazine was exclusively for amateurs, but gradually became a broadcast listeners’ journal. With the beginning of commercial broadcasting in 1923, it featured information about commercial stations and programmes and flourished, often exceeding sixty-four pages.
There are a few more radio pioneers worthy of note. Harry Kauper was the owner of the experimental station 5BG. His signal, using only a power of 5.5 watts, was heard as far away as New York and California, claiming a world record at the time. He started the Adelaide Radio Company in 1921, manufacturing and selling crystal sets, and assisted in the launch of a handful of radio stations in the pioneering days.
5AH was an experimental station established by Fred Williamson. It radiated from a transmitter at Kent Town every Tuesday for twenty minutes. The station was heard in New Zealand and America. Williamson was later to become a senior technician at the commercial version of 5AD.
Amalgamated Wireless wanted to sell sets sealed and tuned to only one frequency, and to supply the programming. By proposing a sealed set system, Fisk was trying to establish a monopoly. In his attempt to do this he gained quite a few influential friends. In September 1922 Fisk announced that one of the new directors of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd was Prime Minister William Morris Hughes. Having the prime minister as a director of a company was almost unprecedented.
Amalgamated Wireless also held numerous patents that other set builders would need to license from them, but many members of the industry had misgivings about the sealed set scheme. They suggested that the fixed tuning system made set design more difficult.
Fisk and the rest of the radio manufacturing industry lobbied heavily for the Australian government to introduce radio broadcasting. In May 1923, against objections by the Wireless Institute, which represented experimenters’ views, Fisk’s proposal was accepted and ‘sealed set’ broadcasting started. On payment of a fee, people received a radio that was set to the frequency of the stations they had subscribed to. A choice of stations would require a bigger payment.
The first major event supporting and promoting the emerging enterprise was held in the Sydney Town Hall in December 1923. The Wireless Exhibition was opened by Dr Earle Page, acting-prime minister, who indicated his consternation that the industry had been over commercialised to such a level as to limit general use. He declared, ‘Wireless should be found in the working man’s cottage as well as in the rich man’s mansion.’
2FC in Sydney was the first to be licensed, on 1 July 1923, but its opponent 2SB was first to go to air. William J. MacLardy, the former editor of Wireless Weekly, was appointed as 2SB’s station manager and he relocated the transmitter from his experimental station 2HP to a site in Phillip Street to commence initial test transmissions. The station had hoped to start broadcasting at the start of November but encountered a delay. They released this statement: ‘Owing to the Commonwealth Government refusing to pass the Broadcast Receiving Sets [they] have been compelled to postpone the official opening of their service.’
The station eventually began broadcasting from the premises of the Daily Guardian newspaper on 23 November 1923. 2SB’s first programme was a concert featuring a soprano, a bass, a contralto, a cellist, a baritone and a quartet. The baritone, George Saunders, was the station’s first announcer. Saunders became an instant hit with younger listeners. He regularly read them bedtime stories assisted, or hindered, by ‘Hector, the knowing bird’ and ‘Darkie the wireless horse’.
2FC was the next station to go on air, with its first test broadcast from its transmitter site at Willoughby on 5 December 1923, although they didn’t begin regular programming until 9 January 1924. It appears that the reason for the delay was a problem in achieving the minimum transmission power. Part of the opening night’s entertainment was a live relay of The Southern Maid from Her Majesty’s Theatre. The station’s call sign was derived from the initials of its owners, Farmer and Company, a Sydney department store. Ernest Fisk’s company supplied 2FC’s equipment and operated the station on their behalf.
After several months of transmission it was evident that listeners were confused by the similarly sounding call signs of 2SB and 2FC. So, in March 1924, 2SB changed its name and became 2BL. Melbourne became the next city to have two stations on air when 3AR began in January, with 3LO following in October 1924.
The listening public’s response to the sealed set scheme was disappointing. Only 1,400 people took out licences in the first six months of 1924, but over 5,000 people had applied for an experimenter’s licence. Admittedly, sets were scarce, but it was relatively easy to avoid the licence fee. This was possible by constructing your own set or modifying one you’d bought to receive more than one station.
Sealed sets were creating problems for the manufacturer, broadcaster and listener, with newspapers questioning their validity. This view was reinforced when the PMG announced that of the seventy-one receiving sets submitted for testing, only twenty-two had been approved. Therefore, an alternative scheme was sought.
The radio industry proposed an alternative two-tiered system: A and B licences. The Australian Federal Government accepted this compromise proposal on 17 July 1924. The ‘A’ licences were mostly financed by listeners’ licence fees, imposed and collected by the government, while ‘B’-class stations would have to generate their own revenue through advertising. This system was a combination of the British and American structures and Australia ended up with the parallel system of a national network alongside a commercial network.
The first ‘A’-class stations were the original sealed set stations with the addition of 6WF in Perth, 4QG in Brisbane, 7ZL in Hobart, Tasmania and 5CL in Adelaide, which started on 20 November 1924. By the end of the year the number of listener licences was close to 40,000 and had doubled to 80,000 by the end of 1925.
6WF in Perth went on air on 4 June 1924. The station’s name was taken from the initials of its owners, Westralian Farmers Ltd, who published the West Australian Newspaper. They originally broadcast on longwave believing that most of Western Australia would be covered. They eventually moved to medium wave on 1 Sep 1929 using 650 watts. Before moving, they conducted Australia’s first stereo transmission; a concert with separate microphones linked to each of their transmitters. Listeners needed two radios to hear stereo.
5CL started transmitting to Adelaide on 20 November 1924, only two days after being granted a licence by the Postmaster General’s office. Their manager, W. Smallcombe, was a man of many parts. Not only was he the chief announcer but he also sang and played the piano on air. For their distinctive hourly time signal they would relay the chimes of the local post office clock using a remote microphone. 7ZL, owned by the Associated Radio Company of Australia, started in December 1924, in just one room in The Mercury newspaper office room before moving to the old Hobart railway station in 1928.
And 4QG, owned by the Queensland government, began in July 1925 with a licence to transmit on 779 kilohertz at 5,000 watts. The station was officially opened by the premier, William Gillies. Unfortunately, their debut broadcast from the Tivoli Theatre Orchestra had to be abandoned due to technical difficulties. Their opening broadcast was described by The Queenslander newspaper as ‘generally disappointing’.
4QG soon mastered the art, though, and regularly broadcast from various locations. In September 1927 the station aired a mammoth seventy-one outside broadcasts. They made plans to cover the arrival of aviator Amy Johnson to Brisbane Eagle on 30 May 1930. However, this turned out to be a very short outside broadcast. While approaching Eagle Farm Airport her plane struck a fence, bounced over and crashed into a cornfield. All the announcer had time to say was ‘Christ, she’s crashed,’ and the broadcast was immediately cut short. Luckily, on this occasion, Amy emerged from the wreckage unhurt, smiling and waving to the crowd.
The Postmaster General’s department announced on 15 November 1924 that nine ‘B’-class broadcast licences had been decided. Of those nine licences, only five actually made it to air. The first ‘B’-class station to receive a licence was 2BE, owned by the Burgin Electric Company. According to station manager Oswald Mingay, 2BE started transmissions in November 1924. However, information has been found in the National Archives of Australia that seems to suggest they were still preparing to broadcast during 1925.
The first ‘B’-class station to officially start broadcasting was 2UE, which went on air on Australia Day 1925. This was followed the day after by 2HD in Newcastle on 27 January 1925. South Australia’s first ‘B’-class station was 5DN, which went live on 24 February 1925.
2UE was managed by Cecil ‘Pa’ Stevenson, who operated the station from his house in Maroubra using home-made equipment. The studio was his dining room, the transmitter was situated on his veranda and the 24-m-high towers were in his backyard. Their original broadcasting hours were 8pm to 10pm every night. Cecil would frequently whistle while swapping the records over to let listeners know that he was still on air. 2UE eventually moved to premises in Stevenson’s ‘Radio House’ shop and was the first station to experiment in sending still pictures by radio.
2HD was launched by Harry Douglas with only twelve records in the library. He used the equipment from his experimental stations 2XY and 2CM, transmitting with a power of 10 watts from a room above his tyre shop in Hamilton.
5DN was owned by the Adelaide Radio Company and the owners of the Hume Pipe Company. Stella Hume was a regular announcer as the studio was based in her Parkside home. 5DN’s first programmes were classical music broadcasts from the Elder Conservatorium and lectures from Adelaide University. 5DN commenced daily transmissions in December 1926 using 500 watts. On 12 August 1927 it introduced a programme called Super-Het to answer listeners’ questions regarding technical problems with their receivers.
Amateur broadcasters were allowed to continue operating in the longwave and shortwave bands. In Melbourne, they were also permitted to broadcast on the medium wave band on Sundays between 12.30 and 2.30pm. All commercial stations were required to close down during this period.
The British government nationalised radio in 1926 by buying out the British Broadcasting Company and forming the British Broadcasting Corporation. That same year, the Australian government held a Royal Commission into wireless broadcasting. The government didn’t immediately follow the British lead but they did encourage the ‘A’-class stations to amalgamate in order to maximise efficiencies and maintain standards.
The 1927 Royal Commission recommended the licence fees be shared and that the ‘A’-class stations should cooperate to provide better services and wider coverage. The tactic would standardise the service across the country, with larger capital city stations effectively supporting the smaller country town stations. Naturally, the larger stations refused to agree to this.
In 1928, to break the impasse, the government established the National Broadcasting Service to provide the service and coverage the existing stations were unwilling to provide. As the licences for the ‘A’ stations came up for renewal they were revoked and issued to the National Broadcasting Service. The government would purchase the ousted station’s transmitters and studio equipment for the new public service. The Postmaster General’s department was given the responsibility of running the new service.
In 1929 the Australian government nationalised the transmission facilities and granted a three-year contract to the Australian Broadcasting Company, which consisted of Fullers Theatres, Greater Union Theatres and music publishers J. Albert & Son. They were to take over all ‘A’-class stations and produce programmes on a national basis. Originally ABC was to be allowed to broadcast advertisements but this was dropped from the final bill. Instead, radio listeners’ licences were chosen to fund it. Licence fees for radio and TV were finally dropped in the seventies and ABC’s money now comes from federal government appropriation.
It gradually became politically difficult for the Postmaster General’s office to sustain the running of the National Broadcasting Service so the government came up with a solution. When their contract ran out in 1932, the Australian Broadcasting Company was nationalised and the Australian Broadcasting Commission was established. This meant that Australia had twelve stations run by the ABC and forty-three commercial stations.
Australia was a leader in the use of shortwave broadcasting to transmit overseas. In 1927 Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) conducted a series of transmissions to Britain. These regular broadcasts were heralded by a kookaburra’s laugh. Radio Australia was formally incorporated as part of the ABC in 1939.
The Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters was established in 1930. This was an industry body with a remit to look after and promote commercial radio interests. In 1934 the commercial radio sector pulled off a great scoop when it won the rights to broadcast commentary of cricket matches between England and Australia. The Test Match series was being played in the United Kingdom that year and this greatly boosted the amount of radios and licences purchased.
In New Zealand radio licensing was first introduced in 1923. Stations sprang up in all parts of the country, including 1YA in Auckland, 2YB in Wellington and 3AC in Christchurch. Radio manufacturers and shops selling musical instruments and sheet music ran many of these stations, which were often called ‘trade’ stations. Overseas radio manufacturers often supported these local businesses.
Amateur operators and radio societies also broadcast entertainment programmes regularly. The Radio Broadcasting Company of New Zealand was established as a national operation in 1925. This was after an earlier plan by the NZ Co-Operative Dairy Company to operate a station aimed at dairy farmers was rejected.
Call signs were allocated by the government and divided New Zealand into four radio districts. The suffix 1 was allocated to Auckland (roughly a line between King Country, Taupo, Whakatane and all points north), Wellington and the rest of the North Island plus Nelson. Marlborough and the Chatham Islands were allotted call signs beginning with 2, while the call sign 3 was assigned to Christchurch (Canterbury as far south as South Canterbury, plus Buller and Westland). The suffix 4 was assigned to Dunedin and the rest of the South Island.
The year 1931 would prove to be pivotal in the early history of radio broadcasting in New Zealand. That year royalty disagreements shut down numerous stations and the Napier earthquake knocked several more stations off air. Yet the most important change was the expiration of the Radio Broadcasting Company’s agreement. It was not renewed and the government established the New Zealand Broadcasting Board instead.
The NZBC pressed ahead with its own extension of radio coverage. High-powered transmitters were ordered for use in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin and were sited at various points to achieve best coverage. New Zealand’s main broadcasting problem was reaching the relatively small pockets of population concentrated in the fertile areas that lay among mountain ranges. The board decided to give financial aid to a number of private broadcasting stations operating in areas where reception of its stations was unsatisfactory.
The New Zealand Broadcasting Board’s tenure, however, was brief. In 1935 the country had gone to the polls and resolutely returned its first Labour government. One of the first legislative measures passed was the Broadcasting Act 1936, which came into force on 1 July. One of the main provisions of the legislation was the abolition of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board. All the rights, property, liabilities, and engagements of the board were transferred to the Crown. As a result, for the foreseeable future, broadcasting was to be administered as a government department.
Undoubtedly the most controversial aspect of the Broadcasting Act was the prohibition of advertising, except by commercial stations controlled by the government. Deprived of their revenue stream, all privately owned commercial stations were forced to close down.
Despite the government’s virtual broadcasting monopoly, listeners in New Zealand could hear a wide variety of stations from other sources. At night stations from Australia, Hawaii, California and even Asia could be easily heard, as there were hardly any local stations to listen to. Stations such as 2FC in Sydney, KFI in Los Angeles and KGU in Honolulu became very popular.
In Australia the expansion of radio continued rapidly. By the early 1940s there were about 130 commercial stations and a similar number of ABC stations available. The ABC had national commitments including news, education, parliamentary broadcasting and culture. The commercial stations were much more local and community-orientated in nature.
On 2 February 1942 Australia’s first nationally sponsored morning serial was broadcast across a network of stations. Big Sister originated from 2UW in Sydney, although the scripts were American. The show, sponsored by Lever and Kitchen, was heard five mornings a week. Throughout its five-year run it was the top-rated daytime show and was the forerunner of many other daytime serials in that genre.
The years after the Second World War are considered to be radio’s golden era. Radio drama became very popular in Australia. The most popular dramas were Blue Hills, The Lawsons and Dad and Dave. Australian children had their own radio programme called The Argonauts Club, which ran for thirty years from 1941 to 1971. Over 50,000 Australian children became members of the club during that era.
Many American formats were adapted for Australian radio. The Lux Radio Theatre began in Australia on 19 March 1939 after five successful years on American radio. Other American shows adapted for Australia included Inner Sanctum Mysteries, The Falcon, Dragnet, The Witches’ Tale and Nightbeat.
The Broadcasting & Television Act had originally been put into practice in 1942 but a major amendment was made in 1948. This was to introduce a regulatory body, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board. The new authority maintained there was no room for new stations on the AM band so experimental FM broadcasts began.
There was another major amendment in 1956 to introduce television and a further inquiry into FM in 1957. However, the commercial operators were unwilling to invest in the new infrastructure that would be required. Planned FM services were shelved and eventually the Australian Broadcasting Control Board authorised the use of the international VHF FM band for television in 1961.
The closure of the FM experimental stations, together with the Australian Broadcasting Control Board’s recalcitrant position on AM broadcasts, meant that no new competition came onto the scene. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the government for not introducing FM quality broadcasting. This emanated mainly from people who wanted to hear ‘fine music’ (classical or jazz) on the airwaves.
In 1961 Dr Neil Runcie formed the Listener’s Society of New South Wales, whose major intention was to establish subscriber-supported FM music stations. This concept had had some success in the USA with the Pacifica stations and a few educational FM stations.
In the same year the University of New South Wales was granted a licence to broadcast using an old RAAF transmitter on 1750 kilohertz. This station was assigned the call letters VL-2UV and their licence was for university lectures only with no music allowed. By 1962 they were transmitting thirty separate courses for over 1,000 fee-paying students. They even experimented with television programmes on UHF in 1966.
These two organisations were the progenitors of a movement to provide more diversity in Australia’s radio broadcasting. Ultimately this movement led to the establishment of the third tier of broadcasting in Australia, the public or community sector.
The third prong of this movement came from Australia’s ethnic communities. Australia had undertaken the biggest programme of immigration in the world after the Second World War and the country’s population had almost doubled in twenty years. By the late sixties this large group of immigrants, many of them from non-English speaking backgrounds, was reaching political maturity. Ethnic communities were demanding a more open media.
In 1964 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board had allowed for up to ten per cent of broadcasting time to be in non-English languages. The commercial sector utilised this provision for revenue and stations such as 2CH and 3XY sublet airtime to ethnic groups. However, as commercial radio became more competitive and format-driven, the amount of ethnic broadcasting decreased until, in 1972, there were only thirty-six hours of ethnic broadcasting in the country in six languages.
The fourth group seeking access to the airwaves was made up of young political activists. There was a climate of political unrest in the late sixties with people protesting against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1971 Melbourne University students put together a pirate radio station in the Union building and broadcast anti-government messages. It was only on air for a few hours before Federal Police broke in and confiscated the transmitting equipment. That same year the weak response to the Springbok rugby tour demonstrations led Brisbane students to look at forming their own radio station. This eventually became the alternative music station 4ZZZ.
In the early part of 1972 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board held another broadcasting inquiry. One of the proposals was the abolition of licence fees for radio and TV. The Whitlam government finally abrogated them in 1974 and ABC’s funding now comes from federal government appropriation.
Another of the recommendations of this report was the introduction of public access broadcasting. This differed from the other two radio sectors because of community involvement in both the management and programming of the station. The ‘community’ could be a geographically defined district or a society of special interest. These stations were to be non-profit and community owned. They wouldn’t receive government funding and were only allowed limited advertising.
As mentioned earlier, the ethnic communities of Australia were pushing for access to the airwaves throughout the early seventies. This lobbying assisted in the implementation of community broadcasting in the mid-seventies. There are five full-time ethnic community radio stations and about forty-five others broadcasting some ethnic programming.
However, while this process was unfolding, a number of other approaches were also tried. The ABC had been persuaded by Gough Whitlam’s government to open two ‘open access’ stations in 1975. These stations, 3ZZ in Melbourne and 2JJ in Sydney, rapidly became de facto ethnic broadcasting stations.
Also in 1975 two experimental stations were opened in Sydney and Melbourne to broadcast information to ethnic communities about Medicare. These temporary stations, 2EA and 3EA, were allowed to stay on air. Incidentally, the EA in the station’s call signs stood for ethnic affairs. The Malcolm Fraser government eventually set up the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) to run the stations when the ABC showed reluctance to take them on board as part of its charter renewal.
The other main initiative from the 1972 inquiry by the ABCB was the introduction of FM broadcasting, although this was planned for the UHF band rather than the internationally used VHF band. This was suggested by the radio manufacturing industry who wanted to sell sets that were only usable in Australia.
By the time the recommendations were implemented in the midseventies, common sense had prevailed. The UHF proposals had been rejected in favour of the more popular VHF band. The first use of FM in Australia was for non-profit community-based public broadcasting. The first station on FM was 2MBS in Sydney, which started in the latter part of 1974; 3MBS in Melbourne followed the following summer. Both stations had a ‘fine music’ format. The ABC entered the medium in 1976 with the establishment of ABC-FM based in Adelaide.
VL-5UV in Adelaide is often cited as Australia’s first public access station. The station, which made its first broadcast in June 1972, was established as a direct educational outreach of the University of Adelaide. At this stage its wavelength was off the AM band due to legal requirements and was restricted to twelve broadcast hours per week. VL-5UV couldn’t really be described as a public broadcaster at this point as it didn’t have community access or ethnic programmes. Its programming was strictly didactic; lectures were recorded and rebroadcast later.
VL-5UV wanted to expand the station’s programming and move to the access and participation model that was to eventually characterise public broadcasting. However, they were not licensed to do so and had to wait for legislation that would permit them to do this.
The Wireless & Telegraph Act was eventually introduced in 1974. The new legislation meant that that VL-5UV could finally move into the AM band. They switched to 530 kilohertz, which was later upgraded to 531 kilohertz. The station’s name was shortened to 5UV at this point and many specialist and ethnic groups were given airtime.
5UV gained an FM outlet in October 2001 and AM broadcasting ceased the following January. Gradually the station became more independent of the university and is now located in its own premises. The station adopted a two-part name change process: Radio 5UV is now known as Radio Adelaide, following a provisional period known as 5UV Radio Adelaide.
The commercial sector had been unwilling to commit to FM broadcasts when the spectrum was first offered in the early 1970s, so the FM spectrum went to public and community broadcasters instead. The commercial operators swiftly realised the error of their ways and began to petition the Australian government.
In 1980 the government offered a limited number of FM licences: two in Melbourne and Sydney and one in the other state capitals, the same as in 1924 when the ‘A’-class licences were first introduced. However, these licences went to new companies rather than the existing stations. The new FM commercial stations swiftly became profitable and became the ratings leader in most markets.
After much lobbying, the government allowed a chosen few AM stations to convert to FM. They instigated an auction of the FM frequencies and the resultant bidding war to win the right to convert severely affected the economies of the commercial sector. In addition, the radio industry became ensnared in the media buying frenzy that accompanied the widespread entrepreneurial boom during the latter part of the eighties. As a result, many stations got into financial difficulties and changed hands.
A good example of a station changing hands was 3EON in Melbourne. It was the first commercial FM radio station in Australia, beating Fox FM to the title by two weeks. Eon FM’s inaugural FM broadcast took place on 11 July 1980. At first the station had no playlist and deliberately avoided Top Forty songs, widely publicising that they would feature songs that ‘would not be played elsewhere.’
Although the station out-performed other FM stations, the AM stations comprehensively beat it. In 1981 Eon FM abandoned the album rock format and began playing Top Forty records instead. This changed the station’s fortunes and it eventually topped the ratings in 1985. 3EON FM was sold to the Triple M network the following year and eventually rebranded to 3MMM on 27 November 1988.
As the 1980s became the 1990s, large networks purchased many stations. In turn other predatory networks would swallow them up: 1992 saw a monopolistic arrangement take place whereby the Austereo network purchased the Triple M network owned by the Hoyts Group, then the Village Roadshow Media Company purchased Austereo. This deal was unpopular due to the fierce rivalry between the two radio networks. Village Roadshow and Hoyts were also direct competitors in the film industry.
In March 2011 Southern Cross Media launched a takeover bid of the Austereo Group. The following month shareholders of the Austereo Group accepted the takeover bid, giving Southern Cross Media a ninety per cent share in the company. Southern Cross Media and Austereo officially merged in July 2011 to form Southern Cross Austereo.
The new group now has two distinct radio networks amongst its media portfolio. The Hit Network is a focused popular music format targeted at the eighteen to thirty-nine age group. The other brand is a bit more complicated depending on where the station is situated. Triple M is effectively comprised of four networks: the longest-running and ‘main’ version is the Metropolitan network, which focuses on a mix of rock, sport and comedy, and there are four of these stations all based in capital cities. The second is the digital radio network, which comprises all the rock, sport and comedy stations along with specialist brands such as classic rock and country. The third is the Greatest Hits network, which plays a mix of oldies depending on local audience demographics. The fourth and final network, the Classic Hits stations, are similar in style to the Greatest Hits outlets but tend to favour more golden oldies from the 1950s and 1960s.
There are approximately 300 commercial radio broadcasting stations currently operating in Australia. Large networks also own many of these stations. These include Grant Broadcasters, which is a regional radio network that also has a small number of metropolitan radio stations. It currently has over fifty stations in its portfolio. The Broadcast Operations Group operates forty-two radio stations. Almost half of these form its AM network and feature local news, music and syndicated talk programmes. Their FM network broadcasts adult contemporary music.
There are several smaller networks too. Ace Radio has thirteen stations, mostly in Victoria State. The Australian Radio Network owns the Classic Hits and Mix FM stations while Nova Entertainment possesses seven Nova and Smooth FM stations. The Capital Radio Network owns seven stations in rural New South Wales
Australia has had an extensive commercial radio network since the 1920s. Though, as we’ve heard previously, radio in New Zealand remained firmly under the aegis of the government. The National Broadcasting Service, and its successor – the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation – had been operating since 1936. No privately owned station had been allowed to operate for over thirty years. In the mid-1960s the impetus for privately owned commercial radio came from a rather surprising area.
The genesis of modern-day commercial radio in New Zealand took the form of a group of radio pirates in international waters off the coast of Auckland. Radio Hauraki transmitted from studios aboard the ships Tiri and its successor, Tiri II. The station officially started broadcasting on 4 December 1966 and its Americanised Top Forty music format was immensely successful. Radio Hauraki’s success forced the government to create the New Zealand Broadcasting Authority in 1968. This authority issued the first two private commercial broadcasting licences on 24 March 1970. One of the successful applicants was Radio Hauraki.
Unfortunately for the proponents of commercial radio, the allocation of licences was slower than expected. By 1972 only five private stations were on the air in New Zealand. In response to public pressure, the 1974 Labour government pushed through legislation that split the state-run New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation into three distinct sectors. One of these was Radio New Zealand, an amalgamation of commercial and non-commercial stations and networks. At this point more commercial stations were introduced into markets around New Zealand.
In 1981 new legislation allowed the newly formed Broadcasting Tribunal to issue FM broadcasting warrants for the first time. This led to twenty-two private and thirty-seven government-owned commercial radio stations in 1984. Moreover, it was the introduction of the Radio Broadcasting Act in 1989 that generated the biggest expansion. All available frequencies around the country went up for tender and new ownership groups were formed. Commercial radio in New Zealand became arguably the most deregulated in the world. By April 1993 over 200 new frequencies were active and the increase continued exponentially. In 2004 over 700 frequencies were available for broadcast on AM and FM in New Zealand. This was possibly the largest number per capita anywhere in the world.
The reforms in radio structure were not restricted to the commercial sector as the government reviewed its own assets. ‘Ruthanasia’, a combination of ‘Ruth’ and ‘euthanasia’, was the deprecatory appellation given to the period of free-market economic reform conducted by the New Zealand government during the latter half of the 1990s. The ‘Ruth’ in Ruthanasia referred to the then minister of finance, Ruth Richardson. As a result of this reform, the government’s commercial radio operations were sold to a conglomerate for $89 million in 1996. The Radio Network (TRN) was a partnership between Independent News and Media and Clear Channel.
Other private ownership groups were quick to react to the formation of this media giant. In early 1997 Energy Enterprises merged with Radio Pacific and Canadian-based CanWest purchased the Frader Group. In May 1999 the Radio Pacific-Energy Enterprises group completed a takeover of Radio Otago and evolved into RadioWorks Ltd. Also, in May 2000, CanWest announced the successful purchase of RadioWorks and the commercial radio battle was down to just two major competitors: the Radio Network and CanWest Global. Both groups continued their acquisition spree and by 2005 TRN and CanWest owned or controlled over 350 frequencies in New Zealand.
These mergers and acquisitions would become a regular occurrence elsewhere in the world and, despite the consolidation, the radio industry within the Australasia region remains vibrant and healthy. The Australian commercial radio sector has been very progressive in its acceptance of new technology in recent times. These radio stations are morphing into multimedia companies and a natural extension for them is to actually become retailers of music. Listeners to Nova Entertainment stations can buy and download songs or albums featured on their playlists. Australia Radio Network’s station, The Edge 96.1, provided a service that allowed listeners to find out the name of a song playing on the station and download it as a mobile phone ringtone.
The emergence of new transmission technologies sounded the death knell for older and more traditional methods. On 31 January 2017 the international shortwave transmitters at Shepparton in Victoria were switched off and Radio Australia was silenced. The three companion transmitters in the Northern Territory were also closed, thus ending the domestic Outback Service for isolated communities. This angered cattle station owners, indigenous ranger groups and fishermen, who complained it was done without community consultation. They maintained it would deprive people in these remote areas of vital emergency warnings.
Radio Australia’s demise didn’t mean the end of shortwave broadcasting on the continent. 4KZ maintain a shortwave relay of their medium wave station with the same call sign. The shortwave transmission serves remote areas of North Queensland. Unique Radio currently broadcasts from Gunnedah in New South Wales using amateur radio equipment, and there are also plans for another shortwave station to start broadcasting to the state of Victoria in the near future.
The move to abandon shortwave coincided with ABC’s decision to expand its digital content offerings, including digital radio, online and mobile services, together with FM services for international audiences. They maintained that the money saved through decommissioning the shortwave service would be reinvested in a more robust FM and digital transmitter network.
A staged roll-out of commercial digital services began with Perth and Melbourne in May 2009 with Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney soon following suit. The ABC national service was delayed due to funding issues but eventually started in July. So far eight major conurbations have a national and local digital service. The federal government allocated funding to help community broadcasters begin digital broadcasting and these stations were guaranteed spectrum on each of the local services. The first of these city-wide licences began in 2010 and spread to various regions the following year.
Digital broadcasts in Australia utilise the DAB+ standard and are available via multiplexes in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin. The national government-owned networks contain a combination of ABC and SBS services, together with the commercial radio stations in each market. These commercial offerings are chiefly simulcasts of their AM or FM content. The ABC also have a number of digital-only radio stations such as ABC Country, Double J, ABC Jazz and a special events station, ABC Extra, which is used to provide additional coverage for special events.