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The more
observant *****
girl, while waiting at the bus stop in William Street, may have noticed various
people, laden with records, regularly disappearing up some stairs near the
Jaguar display rooms. On the second floor of No.177 are the offices of Sydney’s
most recently established radio station, 2JJ; and just across the road in Forbes
Street is their studio.
Prior to the
establishment of 2JJ, the only radio station providing regular contemporary
popular music was one of the commercials, whose repertoire was somewhat limited
– the top forty played over and over and over…The A.B.C., realising the need for
an alternative radio station, appointed Ross Moss and Marius Webb as
co-ordinators charged with the task of setting up 2JJ, which first went to air
in January, 1975.
Unfortunately,
their limited funds meant they had to make use of an old transmitter situated at
Liverpool, the result being that one-third of the potential Sydney audience is
still unable to pick up 2JJ. In the first year of operation, 2JJ organised free
concerts which were held in and around Sydney. Further cuts in their already
slim budget (since the change of government) have made these less frequent;
however, the musically-minded but broke
***** girls should find out
when they do happen, as the bands are always top Australian groups, and it is
usually a great afternoon’s entertainment. They also hold free studio concerts
every Tuesday night to which everyone is invited.
2JJ offers an
alternative in the type of material broadcasted. Material broadcasted from
commercial stations tends to be dictated by the record companies, so that radio
becomes very much a source of promotion for them. Double-Jay, free from payola,
is able to broadcast a wide range of music, of which at least 20 per cent is
Australian, thus encouraging the Australian music scene and giving air-play to
promising local musicians. Their record-library contains 7,000 L.P.s and this
figure combined with the announcers’ own records and the station’s collection of
singles, results in a very diversified range of music being played. One may
wonder why 2JJ tends to play rather obscure music in preference to that of
popular groups like ABBA, but they explained to us that they regard ABBA’s huge
success as a result of enormous promotion by record companies, rather than their
enormous talent, which is, they feel, matched by any number of Australian
groups.
2JJ also
provides an alternative new programme from 4pm to 6pm, which covers not only
topical news, but also news from the third world, community and political
controversies, with many interesting interviews, and theatre and film reviews.
Another service provided is the ‘What’s On’ programme, which gives information
about concerts, plays and films. During the breakfast session, there are
traffic, surf, and weather reports, though we have found their meteorological
information to be somewhat unreliable!
Like any new
venture, Double-Jay has received criticism from various sources, some of it
probably merited, though the suggestion of one critic that the station should be
taken out of the hands of ‘the communist drop-outs running it at present’, and
handed over to the Boy Scouts, seems rather extreme! However, as we see it, the
main contribution of 2JJ has been to broaden the spectrum of contemporary music
and, through competition with commercial radio stations, to help raise the
general standard of popular broadcasting.
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