2DAY FM : 40 YEARS +

It’s hard to imagine that it was so long ago but the introduction of Commercial FM in the Capital City’s was the cue to the start of the demise of music stations on AM in Australia.

AM Stereo was a hard sell for consumers and went off without much impact, I know as I was at 3BO in mid 80's.

By 1984 in Sydney, Triple M had basically secured itself atop the ratings tree and by end of the decade, 2SM the once king of Sydney radio in the 70’s, was all but consigned to the basket of twilight oblivion, I know, I had a brief stint at Lite & Easy 1269 in 1989.

The 2 new stations in Sydney were plagued by antenna transmission issues that delayed any real progress by 3 weeks, 2nd August 1980 was the start of normal programming.

There is so much that could be written about that time but I was just a passive outsider at age 16, I remember 2DAY at the very start was big on Air Supply “All Out OF Love” on high rotation and Pioneer Audio equipment as a major advertiser on high rotation.

2DAY was almost a boutique lifestyle station with an adult audience in mind and in the first 3 years, I always associated 2DAY as a typical middle class audience, broadly well educated with disposable income and it always felt like it had a target audience in Sydney’s North, going up the line from Chatswood onwards.

The audio included here is just a sample of the early days, the intro was provided from a web source, Andrew Host, the insert with Michael Willesee was sourced in 2003, the ads for Les Girls and Heartbreaker, RC Phillips with Laws, Manganinnie plus the last 2 restaurant ads from 1983 were sitting in my archive and due to tape oxidation, barely made it for playback.

Then the final large sweeping majestic Jingle was the new Australian sounding imager after the American Jingles were dropped, to me it still stands up as my all time favourite as an identifying image statement.

The original 3 investors made vocal appearances at various stages, two are included here, Graham Kennedy had a weekly on air stint for a time as well.

I remember the early days of 2DAY FM on air and the automated presentation that more often than not would drop out of sequence, music to voice track would lose sequence, you could always tell when it was live and or pre recorded.

Every piece of music was pre recorded to cart and I believe DBX encoding used to improve the sound quality over tape noise but DBX had its own issues, especially on quiet intros/fades and that noticeable ‘breathing noise’ artefact as the system struggled with low level audio.

I visited the studio early one evening in the 1st year, the Ramada Inn on the Pacific Hwy, which is now apartments, I went with Marc Frangopoulos, way before his Sky years, I remember the huge wall of automated carts but not much else, I think that’s where I got the radio advertising brochure you see here.

2DAY FM has had the who’s who of Australian radio pretty much pass through its doors, I remember Clive Robertson in the early days on breakfast, what an incongruous mix, he wasn’t really fussed by the station ambience and would basically in his own way, dissect and ridicule the format, it was acerbic and entertaining in the typical Clive manner.

Over the years the station enjoyed considerable success in the Sydney ratings, but suffered from a number of incidents that tarnished its reputation. In 2009, a child was forced to discuss rape on-air in an ill-advised feature; and in 2012 a prank call by DJs Mel Grieg and Mike Christian to the Duchess of Cambridge's British nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, was deemed to have broken media law. Saldanha was found dead in a suspected suicide within 48 hours of the call.

In November 2014, the breakfast team of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O left the station. This led to the station falling from the #1 slot in Sydney.

Bob Hughes on 2DAY was from a listener point of view, the perfect voice for the format with that creamy textured voice and his inquisitive mind and relaxed persona.

I had the opportunity of meeting Bob Hughes at Radio 2 in 2003, this was a side band AM station and Bob came in for some training sessions and I had an hour with Bob in the low budget record studio.

I guess meeting your radio idol, I was a bit intimidated though, he told me verbatim, ‘you have a great set of pipes’ well, from a major radio influence, that was a huge wrap for my ego amongst any professional evaluation.

Air Supply : All Out Of Love    • All Out Of Love  

Radio Antenna : 2Day FM Audio http://www.theradioantenna.com/?cat=17

Andrew Host : Audio Web Page http://www.andrewhost.com/audio-2sm-s...

Kevin O’Neill https://radioinfo.com.au/news/kevin-o...

Tony Hartney & Bob Hughes : 1981 Aircheck http://www.theradioantenna.com/?p=1103

Vale : Bob Hughes https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/val...

2DAY FM : 1981 Commercial    • 2Day FM TVC 1981