James Cridland

A look at 4BH - Brisbane's new #1 music station

A radio station tuned into 4BH

In my home town of Brisbane, 4BH (classic hits) made it to the #1 slot - with a share of 12.3%. The news even made it to local TV. It’s an oldies station, with a 31% share of listening by people over 65.

It’s particularly impressive when you remember what the station doesn’t have.

The station doesn’t have a licence of its own - it’s leasing the AM frequency from Tapt Media. It doesn’t have a sales team of its own - it’s sold by SCA, the owners of B105 and TripleM. It doesn’t have any studios of its own: the breakfast show is either presented from a rented studio in SCA in Brisbane, or from “BBQ” Bob Gallagher’s house. It doesn’t have its own news team - it buys that from Tapt Media. It doesn’t have any sports coverage - it buys that from SENQ. And it’s not live, with presenter breaks being voicetracked (normally voicetracked that day, though).

Nor is much of it local. While “BBQ” Bob Gallagher is a well-known Brisbane voice, he’s the only announcer on the station to be based here. Michelle Murphy (9am-12pm, 1pm-3pm) is in Adelaide SA; Gavin Miller (12pm-1pm) is in Melbourne VIC; Jon Vertigan (3pm-7pm, also Head of Music) is in Warrnabool VIC. The website also lists Jamie Row and Cathy Jubb, who broadcast over weekends - they both appear to be in Victoria as well. Breakfast newsreader Chloe Affleck in in Brisbane (working for 4BC); traffic reporter Liam Renton is also in Brisbane (working for ATN).

It also doesn’t have a great AM frequency. 4BH’s 1116 AM is such a poor frequency, the licence-owners (now Tapt Media) switched away from it in 2021, moving their own 4BC to 882, and giving the worse frequency to lessee 4BH. Listening is particularly hampered in Brisbane city centre, which has a notch in the transmitter to avoid interference.

Speaking on The Quarter Hour, boss Mark Taylor suggested the station has a great AM signal during the day with 17kW; but it’s switched down considerably overnight (to 7.5kW) - but also highlighting that listeners are listening in many other ways. “Educate your very loyal listeners on how to use the technology. You know, you won’t go more than five minutes on 4BH without us mentioning DAB or the LiSTNR app or to use your smart speaker at home.” Yes to all this. I’d be fascinated to know how many of the listeners use AM, and how many are using something else. (The average is 61% to analogue radio, 20% to DAB+, 18% streaming).

After all that, it’s the #1 radio station in Brisbane; #3 at breakfast, #1 from 9am-4pm, and #1 over the weekend. That’s quite an achievement.

It’s #1 in total share, mind you. Interestingly, it’s just #6 in terms of total cume (the total amount of people listening). People turn the station on, and leave it on - it’s clearly well programmed.

Want a bit of telescoped 4BH? Here’s September 13, 7am-8am, for you.

A few nice touches - repeating audio from a previous winner from a different daypart (8'47"); and an effortless piece of commercial content about a new car (3'14"). (No mention of DAB+ or the LiSTNR app at all in this hour, though.)

So, does a station need to be local - and does it need studios of its own? No. All it needs is a decent music policy, a clutter-free sound, and a warm, well-known personality with a bit of shared human connection.

PS: today I drove past an electronic billboard saying “thank you for making us Brisbane’s number one radio station”. A nice touch.

RCS

Classifieds

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  • In Canada, some new research about what audio is listened-to in car. AM/FM is still big in Canada, and podcasts are teeny-tiny; but streaming music appears to get 38% of all listening time. 24% of audio consumption happens in-car in the country.

  • In the UK, Boom Radio (quite similar, in many ways, to 4BH) is prepping for a new television ad. Here’s the ad in RadioToday - it’ll run across broadcast television next month. It’s rather fine (though I do wonder if the film clips have seen a touch of AI).

  • The BBC has a new director of news. Rachel Jupp has been promoted from within (a good call).

  • The excellent Mark Barber is to step down from Radiocentre in the UK. He’s been behind much of the award-winning research work for the commercial radio trade organisation, and is a credit to the industry.

  • The BBC announced a number of cuts to radio programmes - the headline of which is You and Yours, a consumer programme that has been broadcasting since 1970. Recent topics: “Why are we getting so many scam calls?”, “The battle between Aldi and Lidl”, and “Social media makes retailers go viral - is it good news for the high street?”. I seem to remember being on, once - the programme’s host, Winifred Robinson, hated DAB and spent hours trying to warn Radio 4 listeners how awful it was: I was asked to take part in an interview I remember being full of whataboutism and untruths, which didn’t endear me much to the programme. (These days, 42.7% of all radio listening in the UK is via DAB, only 24.5% is to FM, and zero is to long wave. Just saying.)

  • I’m looking forward to being in Sydney for the SONARR Awards on Thursday night - I’ve got some to give away! Perhaps I’ll see you there? Or coffee on Friday morning?

  • Oh, and I wrote another tedious trip report of my flights.

Where I am speaking next

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