In fairness though from what I've been told the demise of X102 can't really
only have to look at SAFM in the 80's to see that.
Post by James Engelman (ADSL-Home)5DN won the 2nd FM lic in 1990 (the first was 5KA but that's a whole other
story!). From what I understand they didn't really want the lic and bid
what they thought was a figure well under what 5AD was bidding, expecting
AD to get the license.
However, DN's figure was actually higher and they now found themselves
with an FM license they didn't really want! DN had been a strong performer
in the talk radio scene for years in Adelaide and really wanted to keep it
that way.
So Classic Hits Radio 102 FM was born on the 27th August 1990. The station
was launched in breakfast with Scott McBain (who was also the voice of
Channel 9 here for years) ending 5DN appropriately with Cliff Richard's
"We don't talk anymore".
Radio 102 FM was a ratings disaster. By 1992 Alan Scott, the owner had had
enough and brought in former SAFM PD Bill Page, who had taken that station
to a record 31% share in the late 1980's. With him came many former SAFM
announcers such as John Pemberton, Grant Cameron and Kate Economou.
If Radio 102 was bad, X102 just made things worse! By the end of 1992 X102
was rating an abysmal 4% and going nowhere.
With no promotions budget, they went to air calling themselves "the
underdog" and trying to tell their audience "we have nothing to give away
but at the end of the day only the music matters". Wrong.
At the other end of the dial SAFM were throwing cash everywhere and the
audience lapped it up. At a time when the recession was at it's height,
SAFM devised a clever promotion called "A MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF WORK
FOR ADELAIDE". In a nutshell, it connected unemployed people with jobs
and actually got many out of work people back into the workforce.
X102's response?
An on-air slander campaign called "BANG FM", basically taking the piss out
of everything SAFM was doing. Sure it was mildly funny but it brought
legal action from SAFM (hard to blame them) and made the big X look even
worse publicly.
By the end of 1992, Alan Scott had really had enough of his broken FM toy
and sold it to Jeremy Cordeaux who at that stage owned 5AD, which was
doing really well on the AM band with it's easy listening format. In fact
not long after that it went No 1, a position it held until SAFM took it
back in 1998.
So, in 1993, 5AD 1323 AM became 5AD 102.3 FM, which is what should have
happened in the first place. Cordeaux re-launched 5DN on AD's old 1323 AM
frequency after simulcasting AD on both AM and FM for a period of time,
which drew complaints from the other broadcasters in town.
5AD FM went from strength to strength in the mid-late 90's and dominated
commercial radio in Adelaide. Poor old 5DN however, never regained it's
crown of talk radio king of Adelaide, which by that stage and ever since
has gone to 5AA. After the ARN purchase, DN became a mix of talk and
classic hits, which never really warmed itself to the listeners either.
They wanted just talk and they got it at 5AA.
Then after the ARN purchase 5AD became Mix 102.3 in 2001, the sad end of a
great radio station, much like 3XY in Melbourne. In the late 70's/early
80's 5AD was the powerhouse of Adelaide radio, dominating with 15 survey
wins in a row. Now 5DN lic has been leased to SEN and we are about to see
the end of the old girl forever (17th Jan apparently).
5DN 972 AM (1924 - 1990)
CLASSIC HITS RADIO 102 FM (1990 - 1991)
X102 (1992)
5AD 1323 AM (1932 - 1993)
5AD FM 102.3 (1994 - 2001)
MIX 102.3 FM (2001 - ?)
5DN 1323AM (1994 - 2004)
SEN ADELAIDE 1323 AM (2005 - ?)
Post by He Who Knows ? Well Maybe...ON THE TOPIC OF 5DN / 102.3 FM and TAB RADIO & 5AA .. .. ..
from my understanding 5DN won an FM conversion at Auction (Closed bid
auction - like in the conversion of 3TT and 3KZ to FM back in 1990)
5DN chose to convert to become a music format station - thus leaving a
massive hole for TALK radio in Adelaide. At the time 5AA was running
racing broadcasts.
5DN relaunched as "X102FM" and relaunced as "Radio102" and later again
as 5AD-FM. (Sales / Listeners / ratings figures / marketing gurus and
focus groups are to blame for this)
For some reason the X102 brand failed - people failed to warm to it -
especially the old talk listeners who expected the new station to be a
better quality sound for their old favourite Talk Radio 5DN.
Even worse 5DN quite it's hertiage which meant everything to the
station - and left large market gaps open in Adelaide.
(Note the huge gains of the ABC in this time period !) and 5AA was
basically a racing station at the time.
With the two stations a market rule, the owners of the 102.3 Fm licence
purchased 5AD and launched a 12 month simmulcast. Australian Radio
Network (I understand) increased its interest in the stations to ful
ownership and AGAIN relaunched 5AD-AM/FM to 5AD-FM and 1323 AM. the
1323AM relaunched AGAIn as 5DN (same name - different dial position -
and did not relaunch it as a talk station rather as a CLASSIC HITS
music station with some talk and some sport - it was some of this and
some of that - and probably for that reason it failed to attract solid
talk listeners and failed to attract solid "classic hits" listeners.
Being on AM did not help, the fact that 5DN left the airwaves once
already was not helpful either (Compare this with the consistency and
relative success of 4KQ Brisbane)
So the station was 5DN -> X102 -> Radio 102 -> 5AD FM -> Mix 102.3
if 5DN as rtalk went to FM as-is back in 1990 - this mess would never
have happened and the station owners would heve been forward thinking -
just look at this fact - kids who were "introduced" to FM back in the
early 80s are now TALK RADIO audience age - and expect better than AM.
Pity that did not happen
AND Tab-Radio is the result of a HPON Narrowcast auction back in
1994/95, which allowed 5AA to off load its racing coverage to the new
station and pick up the valuable talk market in Adelaide.
Now - enter SEN to Adelaide
(Hope this stuff is in the right order - to my recollection it is - but
who knows !)
BFT
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by ReegsWhen DN converted it dropped it's talk format and became Classic
Hits
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by ReegsRadio102 FM. Not sure why it didn't work... just remember listening
to
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by Reegsit one time in Adelaide - the next time we went back - it had
become
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by ReegsX102. (Kate Economou was one of the announcers on the station at
that
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by Reegspoint.)
It didn't last long and the station was bought by 5AD which pulled
the
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by Reegsplug and started simulcasting on both frequencies until they
relaunced
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by Reegs1323 as the new 5DN in Setember (1994? - I think) there used to be
a
Post by Andrew BayleyPost by Reegsblurb on the old DN web page.
5AD initially re-launched the AM frequency as "1323AM" when it split
the
Post by Andrew Bayleystation from the simulcast with 102.3FM, not sure what the format was
but i
Post by Andrew Bayleybelieve it was "classic hits"-oriented. It was a little while after
that
Post by Andrew Bayleythat they decided to revive the news-talk format and the old "5DN"
callsign
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